• lime!@feddit.nu
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    102
    ·
    2 days ago

    20000 decibel, or 2 kilobel

    yes, deci- is the si prefix for 1/10. the actual unit is the bel.

    i am saddled with this cursed knowledge so now you must be too.

    • glimse@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      ·
      2 days ago

      Are you a fellow PAG/NAG calculator, too?

      More cursed knowledge (for them, probably not you): it’s logarithmic so every 3dB increase is double the energy!

      • toynbee@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        edit-2
        2 days ago

        When I was in my first year of college - 26 years ago - I asked a question about logarithms and was thoroughly, angrily (and, looking back on the event, probably justifiably) reamed out by another student about it.

        I don’t think I publicly spoke up for the rest of that class.

        edit: Remove extra words.

        • glimse@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          ·
          2 days ago

          I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it probably wasn’t justified to respond to a math question like that lol

          • toynbee@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            12
            ·
            2 days ago

            I think it was an overreaction in terms of its delivery, but I was homeschooled and started college early. I was the stereotypical socially inept homeschooler. The class was introduction to college algebra, which doesn’t usually cover logarithms AFAIK; I brought them up unprompted during a quiet moment when the teacher was cleaning the whiteboard. I was curious about them because I had been reading my older brother’s textbooks and found them interesting.

            The other student’s complaint about me was that I monopolized the teacher’s attention by sitting front and center and raising my hand for every question. Additionally she felt that I was trying to show off. At that point I was also very visibly younger than everyone else, which did occasionally annoy people. (This became less of an issue when I hit puberty and started growing a beard.)

            But I was oblivious to those kinds of things at the time and didn’t realize I was having any kind of impact on anyone else in the class until the other student chastised me. Perhaps it was an overreaction, but the message was one I needed to hear, I think.

            Also, to their credit, that student did apologize to me, more calmly expressing the nature of their grievances; I apologized in turn and said that I would try to be less disruptive.

            • glimse@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              6
              ·
              2 days ago

              Fair enough. I had some pretty annoying kids in my classes but I never thought to rip them apart in front of everyone!

              • toynbee@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                5
                ·
                2 days ago

                Your attitude is appreciated! That’s the only time it ever happened to me, so either that lady was an outlier or I got better.

          • BetaBlake@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            2 days ago

            Funny thing about that, they weren’t even in a math class, it was a gender studies class.

    • CuriousRefugee@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      2 days ago

      Oh god how have I never realized this. You monster!

      Also, it’s crazy to me that we still use the normal metric prefixes for a logarithmic scale!

      • lime!@feddit.nu
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        2 days ago

        it’s like with earthquakes, the number is for the amount of zeroes

    • stinky@redlemmy.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      2 days ago

      11111111111111111111111111110101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010//////sadflkafsfafaAV10101010