Aceshardware

Gabriele Svelto · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 290 Location: Milano, Italy

Eric Bron wrote:

Swiss, and I know quite a lot of belgian jokes about Frenchs

Sheesh, me too. I think the belgians are quite vocal about their neighbours :)

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

The joke is not the grammar or spelling. "Columbus invented America" is also quite correct... grammatically.

Del · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 121

Thanks for the laugh Eric.

who? wrote:

Since you are in the details, "Volta a inventé les volts" (Your sentence)

in proper French it is "le Volt", when you speak about a unit, you got to use singular form we say "le kilogramme", pas "les"

See, it is possible to pick on anything.
try to find something interesting to do.

who?

Francois, you were the one using plural remember? He simply translated what you said directly to French. Now volt as you now seem to have discovered is a unit. Is it really possible that you don't see how silly it is to talk about inventing units? Maybe you meant that he invented electrical potential difference? Not to mention the fact that it is the battery Volta normally is credited for inventing. For some of us it is a virtue to keep a certain level of precision when we expect others to spend their time reading what we write.

While you are at it, maybe you will consider ignoring the rest of us too. In fact, why don't you just ignore Aces all together that would probably teach us to behave.

Eric Bron · Joined: 31 Aug 2007 Posts: 134 Location: Switzerland

Del wrote:

volt [..] is a unit

are you sure ?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Volt

Del · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 121

Eric Bron wrote:

Del wrote:

volt [..] is a unit

are you sure ?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Volt

Hilarious :lol:, my stomach still hurts but not from sickness anymore.

lux_interior · Joined: 26 Jul 2007 Posts: 252

Quote:

Is it really possible that you don't see how silly it is to talk about inventing units?

No it is not silly. An unit is a convention so it indeed has to be invented (or created, or agreed upon); it has nothing to do with inventing the underlying physical phenomenon.

Similarly, the mètre (during the French Revolution) was invented while of course distance itself cannot be invented.

Del · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 121

lux_interior wrote:

Quote:

Is it really possible that you don't see how silly it is to talk about inventing units?

No it is not silly. An unit is a convention so it indeed has to be invented (or created, or agreed upon); it has nothing to do with inventing the underlying physical phenomenon.

Similarly, the mètre (during the French Revolution) was invented while of course distance itself cannot be invented.

This is may take on it: A unit is a matter of convention or choice. A physical phenomenon/property is usually said to be defined, but discovered when first measured. A thing like a battery is an invention. You may want to dispute this. Feel free to do so, but I do still not regard a unit as an invention and it sounds silly to me. From this thread it seems that I am not alone.

lux_interior · Joined: 26 Jul 2007 Posts: 252

Del wrote:

A unit is a matter of convention or choice.

Can't you invent a convention? What's the problem exactly?
According to Google, I'm not the first one to use such a terminology.
http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&q=%22invent+a+convention%22&btnG=Rechercher&meta=

Eric Bron · Joined: 31 Aug 2007 Posts: 134 Location: Switzerland

Del wrote:

a unit as an invention and it sounds silly to me. From this thread it seems that I am not alone.

a unit in isolation is merely a convention, though a whole system of unit like the SI can be arguably qualified as an invention

now, what I found funny is people who take some SI derived units and say silly things like "Faraday invented the farad", "Watt invented the watt", "Joule invented the joule", "De Coulomb invented the coulon", "Volta invented the volt", whatever

someone who say stuff like that must think that these units were defined idependently and by some miraculous coincidence match perfectly

Del · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 121

Eric Bron wrote:

a unit in isolation is merely a convention, though a whole system of unit like the SI can be arguably qualified as an invention

Agreed, but even that is stretching it a bit. Coming up with a new system of units is a trivial transformation. In the special case of SI it was merely a matter of development:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI