this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
73 points (96.2% liked)

Ask Science

8596 readers
2 users here now

Ask a science question, get a science answer.


Community Rules


Rule 1: Be respectful and inclusive.Treat others with respect, and maintain a positive atmosphere.


Rule 2: No harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or trolling.Avoid any form of harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or offensive behavior.


Rule 3: Engage in constructive discussions.Contribute to meaningful and constructive discussions that enhance scientific understanding.


Rule 4: No AI-generated answers.Strictly prohibit the use of AI-generated answers. Providing answers generated by AI systems is not allowed and may result in a ban.


Rule 5: Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions.Adhere to community guidelines and comply with instructions given by moderators.


Rule 6: Use appropriate language and tone.Communicate using suitable language and maintain a professional and respectful tone.


Rule 7: Report violations.Report any violations of the community rules to the moderators for appropriate action.


Rule 8: Foster a continuous learning environment.Encourage a continuous learning environment where members can share knowledge and engage in scientific discussions.


Rule 9: Source required for answers.Provide credible sources for answers. Failure to include a source may result in the removal of the answer to ensure information reliability.


By adhering to these rules, we create a welcoming and informative environment where science-related questions receive accurate and credible answers. Thank you for your cooperation in making the Ask Science community a valuable resource for scientific knowledge.

We retain the discretion to modify the rules as we deem necessary.


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Think "you wake up in the woods naked," Dr. Stone-style tech reset. How could humans acquire a 1-gram weight, a centimeter ruler, an HH:MM:SS timekeeping device, etc. starting with natural resources?

My best guess was something involving calibrating a mercury thermometer (after spending years developing glassblowing and finding mercury, lol) using boiling water at sea level to mark 100 ° C and then maybe Fahrenheit's dumb ice ammonium chloride brine to mark -17.7778 ° C, then figuring out how far apart they should be in millimeters on the thermometer (er, somehow). I can already think of several confounding variables with that though, most notably atmospheric pressure.

I feel like the most important thing to get would be a length measurement since you can then get a 1 gram mass from a cubic centimeter of distilled water.

That's as far as I got with this thought experiment before deciding to ask the internet. I actually asked on Reddit a while back but never got any responses.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] burgersc12@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What about when in the future if we needed to, say, sync time between here and mars, it would make it easier if we had some "frame of reference" outside of the sun maybe. There would basically just need to be a slight redefinition of what a day is, to account for the extra quarter of a day each year, its only a minute each day, ~86,460 seconds in a day instead of 86,400. Not exactly gonna throw the weather/sun off, no?

[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can come up with new timekeeping systems when you need them. It's not like we can't convert between them.

~86,460 seconds in a day instead of 86,400.

Then two years later, the sun will be at its peak at midnight.

[–] burgersc12@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

I guess thats true, but in the Stone age they can just deal with that lol

[–] joel_feila@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

oh i know the answer. Since a mars day is about 15 minutes longer and out rover there are solar powered it was important that the human operators of them knew what time it was on mars. Nasa's answer, make a watch that runs about 2% slower. that git the mars watch an extra 15 minutes and so it syncs to the martian sun.

[–] burgersc12@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Figured there would be an answer like this, thanks!