top | item 41235898

(no title)

uncivilized | 1 year ago

Their wallets are much bigger than yours.

discuss

order

readthenotes1|1 year ago

As is what they are trying to measure. I don't believe 1% measurement error in any universal element except perhaps the speed of light...

aidenn0|1 year ago

That's an absurd statement. For example, planck's constant is known to better than 1%, as is the mass of various particles. Heck, the Earth, which is sufficiently non-spherical for it to matter only differs in radius (between polar and equatorial) by 0.3%!

bloak|1 year ago

Here's a nice list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_physical_constants

G (the gravitational constant) is an interesting one: the value is only known to about 5 significant figures, but GM (the gravitational constant multiplied by the mass of the Earth) is known a lot more accurately, unsurprisingly, considering how well GPS works. Some of those constants seem to be known to about 12 significant figures.

dotnet00|1 year ago

If you can measure the speed of light extremely precisely, you can measure a lot of constants extremely precisely.