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posted by janrinok on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the getting-their-measure dept.

Fundamental constants are physical quantities that are universal in nature.
...
According to a recent evaluation and update of the values of the fundamental constants by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the uncertainties in measurements of the constants have now been reduced to such exceedingly low levels that all of the SI units can now be linked to them.
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The latest update of the values of the fundamental constants was authored by NIST's Peter Mohr, David Newell and Barry Taylor, who lead the international Task Group on Fundamental Constants of the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA). This task group updates the values every four years. The new quantities represent the latest comprehensive adjustment of values of the constants. In the summer of 2017, the task group will perform a special update to produce the final values for four fundamental constants to be adopted in the fall of 2018 by an international body known as the General Conference on Weights and Measures (Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, or CGPM).
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Examples of fundamental constants range from the magnitude of the elementary charge of a single electron or proton to the extraordinary number of particles in one mole of a substance, described by the Avogadro constant. Another example is the Planck constant, a quantity at the heart of quantum physics that will be used to redefine the kilogram as an invariant property of nature instead of a standard platinum-iridium cylinder.

The evaluation and update reduce the uncertainties in both the Planck and Avogadro constants by almost four times compared to the previous evaluation, to just 12 parts per billion. These uncertainties decreased by reconciling measurements in different "watt-balance" devices around the world and new highly accurate X-ray measurements of a softball-sized sphere of silicon that is a nearly perfect crystal and is made almost entirely of the same isotope of silicon (99.9995 percent silicon-28). The update reduces the relative uncertainty by almost two times, to 0.6 parts per million, for the Boltzmann constant, which can be used to determine the amount of energy in a gas at a certain temperature.

Related reporting.


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  • (Score: 2) by pgc on Tuesday November 29 2016, @04:16AM

    by pgc (1600) on Tuesday November 29 2016, @04:16AM (#434343)

    Infinite what?

    Pretty useless without units.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @04:18AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @04:18AM (#434344)
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:39AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:39AM (#434356) Journal

    Infinite what? Yeah, what? I can't hear you since it is infinite! OK, two serious points. Point One: in infinity, units do not matter, since infinity mean in-finis, no end, so it does not really matter what unit you are using, since all units are infinite, they have ends, that is what makes them a unit. On the Other Hand: Point Two: Infinite means no boundaries, and since there is no difference within infinity, (leaving out Cantor and all those crazy people with the idea of greater and lesser infinities), there can only be one, so infinity is unity. The problem, as Hegel saw, was putting together these two contradictory notions of unendlichkeit and der Absolut into a single concept of infinity.
    .
    Another thinker interesting on this point was Nicholas of Cusa, in his work De Docta Ignorantia, or "Learned Ignorance". Cusa posited that the infinitely large is indistinguishable from the infinitely small. Neat trick if you can pull it off! But then, why not? Who is going to prove you wrong? Some "string theorist" with his formulas of irreducible strings? Or some Pastafarian claiming the unexceedable greatness of the divine pasta body?
    .
    SoylentNews may be able to make a contribution, nonetheless. Unit of Trollness. +/- one Ethanol_fueled? Not precise enough? Feel free to throw me in there, but I do believe I would cant the standard by excessive duration.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday November 29 2016, @09:25AM

      by shrewdsheep (5215) on Tuesday November 29 2016, @09:25AM (#434395)

      I have to challenge your point. This seems to be clearly a non-sequitur: Infinite means no boundaries, and since there is no difference within infinity, [...] there can only be one, so infinity is unity. It is perfectly possible to calculate with infinite values [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_real_number_line [wikipedia.org]] and it makes sense especially in the case of unit-bound values.

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:09PM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:09PM (#434482) Homepage
        It gets way worse than that, you don't need real infinities to get infinity involved. Just a single signed integer can be an infinite set. Integer s = { <a, b> : a, b \in N, a - b == s } (that's not the definition, so it's not circular, it's the exposition). For instance, the unit 1, as a signed integer = { <1, 0>, <2, 1>, <3, 2>, ... }

        A single rational is an infinite set of ordered pairs of signed integers constructed similarly. The unit 1, as a rational = { <signed integer 1, signed integer 1>, <signed integer 2, signed integer 2>, ... }

        A single real number is an infinite set of rationals constructed in one of several different ways. For example, it's might be the set of all rationals with value less than the real you're trying to represent, that's pretty much the simplest construction. Even if you use other definitions, you always end up with something more complex than a real being an infinite set of infinite sets of infinite sets of sets that are unbounded.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:26PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:26PM (#434495)
        Yes, not all all infinities are the same. While you might think that there is no difference between the number of integers and the number of real numbers, it can be proved that it is impossible to construct a function that will map all of the integers to all of the reals. You’ll “run” out of integers before you can touch all of the reals. That is, while both sets are “infinite”, there are in some sense “more” real numbers than there are integers!
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @06:21PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @06:21PM (#434586)

          Not only is there more than one infinity, there are even infinitely many infinities. Indeed, there are more infinities than there are real numbers!

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @08:09PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @08:09PM (#434656)

            now you're just fucking with me.

            reference, just in case: https://xkcd.com/179/ [xkcd.com]

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Francis on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:49AM

    by Francis (5544) on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:49AM (#434359)

    It's radians. Since, nobody actually knows what they're for, it's the obvious choice for stupidity.

    Plus, they're attached to every number in existence already.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @06:52AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @06:52AM (#434373)

      Infinite stupidity:: nobody actually knows:: Francis
      Maximal probability irony drive is overloaded! Core breech in 10 seconds! Please proceed to your escape pods immediately. Fucking Francis!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:59PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:59PM (#434516)

        Hi, Aristarchus, still suffering from that brain thing I see. I genuinely pity anybody as jealous as you are, to waste so much time being petty rather than actually educating yourself.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:31PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:31PM (#434497) Homepage
      > It's radians. Since, nobody actually knows what they're for, it's the obvious choice for stupidity.

      Only to a certain degree.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves