Trivia for the day: mg/L (ppm) and ion count

[Silver_Is_Money]

I'm willing to speculate that when most people see a water report, or alternatively when they manually and carefully craft water, such that it indicates (for example) 75 mg/L (ppm) Chloride and 75 mg/L (ppm) Sulfate, they envision that these two substances ion counts are present in a 1:1 unit count (or ratio) balance (meaning one chloride ion present for every one sulfate ion present). But the reality is that for the case of these two ions being present in equal mg/L (ppm), there must be 2.71 ions of Cl- present for every 1 ion of SO4--. So when their mg/L (ppm) are equivalent, their ion count ratio is not 1:1, but it is rather 2.71:1.

The key to understanding this is that a single sulfate ion weighs ~2.71 times more than does a single chloride ion. And a mg is a unit of weight, not a unit of item count.

So the sulfate to chloride (or chloride to sulfate if you prefer) "ratio" is not at all what you most likely would "intuitively" think it is. And as I like to say: "Intuition generally makes for bad science."

And now you know, .... the rest of the story.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Yay for moles!

And a mg is a unit of weight, not a unit of item count.

Technically mass, not weight.

If one wants to get even more technical, mass could be considered an item count of nuclear particles.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Technically mass, not weight.

Indeed, and all owe a debt of great magnitude to the Higgs Boson.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Yay for moles!

Yes, precisely! Those pesky "moles" are precisely the reason why mg/L (ppm) are in and of themselves dysfunctional. And yet, even as to "moles", some of them are not "normal".

 

[VikeMan]

Indeed, and all owe a debt of great magnitude to the Higgs Boson.

Here's rooting for supersymmetry.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Here's rooting for supersymmetry.

Stringy or loopy?

 

[VikeMan]

Stringy or loopy?

I'll take anything that doesn't make the Higgs field unstable.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I'm comforted by the thought that in a quantum multiverse every batch of beer I've ever brewed tasted great somewhere.

 

[VikeMan]

I'm comforted by the thought that in a quantum multiverse every batch of beer I've ever brewed tasted great somewhere.

And dead cats are still alive in boxes.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

And dead cats are still alive in boxes.

Actually they are both alive and dead, until someone peeks, and then the outcome depends upon which universe you live in. But I guess that's what you're saying.

 

[VikeMan]

Actually they are both alive and dead, until someone peeks, and then the outcome depends upon which universe you live in. But I guess that's what you're saying.

Yes, that's what I was saying. Combine Schrodinger's Cat with Many Worlds interpretation, and you get one live and one dead cat for each observation, each in one of the two worlds created by the event.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Yes, that's what I was saying. Combine Schrodinger's Cat with Many Worlds interpretation, and you get one live and one dead cat for each observation, each in one of the two worlds created by the event.

Ah, your explanation is even better than mine. A new universe pops into existence to account for each potential outcome of the observation. And that means there are now also two 'sets' of us (presuming initially that we both were there to peek), one set of "us'es" which sees a dead cat, and the other set of "us'es" which sees a live cat. And the twain shall never meet.