this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
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I'm an H⁺ denier, in that I refuse to consider loose protons to be real hydrogen, so I personally believe it stands for 'pretend'.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You need a 4 year degree to understand the wall of text in that explanation.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was about to say "not really," but then I remembered that I have a couple of those, so yeah, probably.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I really hope you're joking. It's written with high school level vocabulary at most.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Exponents and Logarithms can be first taught in Middle School in many places, but sometimes get revisited during Calculus in AP High School or at University level.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Explainexplainxkcd.com when?

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This one is easy. As we know from words like "photon" and "triumph", "pH" is actually pronounced "f".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I wanted to make that joke 😟

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

They told me at school that ‘p’ meant ‘negative log’. So ‘pH’ means ‘the negative log of the concentration of Hydrogen ions in moles/litre’.

pH 1 is 1 x 10^-1^ (strong acid)

pH 7 is 1 x 10^-7^ (neutral)

pH 14 is 1 x 10^-14^ (alkaline)

(Chemistry was a long time ago, though)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're missing a 4 in the alkaline line

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Thank you (4 now added!)

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Isn't it Potential of Hydrogen?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's what I was taught back in 6th Grade.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For what it's worth, my job is as an analytical chemist, dealing with pH readings every single day, and I've always thought this was correct.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Are We Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The funny thing is that I intellectually knew that there were plenty of non-English speaking scientists, but that knowledge was never considered.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Something like that. It's an incredibly weird term.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

I assumed it was rho (ρ) of hydrogen since rho is used for density...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

It stands for peeps mcgoo

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

It stands for "piled".