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xkcd #2943: Unsolved Chemistry Problems (imgs.xkcd.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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https://xkcd.com/2943

Alt text:

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] 35 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (9 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] 35 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

The xkcd breaks it down for us, basically we don't know because the person who coined the term never specified what it was. It's either: puissance, potens, or potenz. Which means potency in French, ~~Dutch~~ Danish and German, the three languages the scientists published in.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Dutch and Danish are not the same language. So yeah, the Danish scientist published in Danish, not Dutch.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Oh shit, my bad lol.

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