The most official water costs $120k a gallon

(signoregalilei.com)

53 points | by surprisetalk 3 hours ago

9 comments

  • sudb 1 hour ago
    Reminds of me of the "most expensive peanut butter" at ~$2.44/g - sold by NIST, I assume for some sort of peanut butter factory process calibration: https://shop.nist.gov/ccrz__ProductDetails?sku=2387
  • artisinal 1 hour ago
    This is why we should ditch Celsius for Kelvin. I never liked how we coupled 0 and 100 to where water freezes and boils under certain conditions. Kelvin doesn't rely on non-invariant reference points.
    • warmdarksea 23 minutes ago
      this is actually why i like fahrenheit the most... 0F is "really cold" and 100F is "really hot", whereas in celsius 0C is "kind of cold" and 100C is "uninhabitable". it makes sense for the 0-100 range to be reserved for temperatures frequently encountered in our habitat as humans i think...
      • al_borland 2 minutes ago
        This has always been my primary argument in favor of Fahrenheit. It makes sense for humans, which is all a majority of the population really cares about. In addition, it's more granular. Sometimes turning the thermostat up or down by 1C could be too much, where 1F is just right.

        In science and math, I can see where having round numbers for commonly used temperatures would be useful, but if 0C and 100C are the only places that happens, it's not that hard to memorize 2 numbers.

      • wongarsu 15 minutes ago
        Celsius maps nicely to the temperatures observed in a typical Finnish sauna. 100C is among the highest typical sauna temperatures (very relaxing in dry air), and afterwards you cool off with water around 0C

        Also, having 100C as water temp for black tee and 80 for green tee is nice to remember

      • ajmurmann 19 minutes ago
        This makes sense if weather is the main focus. For things like cooking Celsius is great though.
      • TylerE 13 minutes ago
        Also for things like hvac temps Celsius is rather too coarse where as 1F is right around the perceivable difference.
    • Guvante 32 minutes ago
      You want numbers to be understandable and K produces illogical numbers.

      (There is a reason it is common to drop the century when talking about years, humans are less skilled at numbers over 100)

      And I know temperatures in Fahrenheit go higher but it is common to refer to Phoenix as "over 100" even when it's high can peak over 120.

      • zinckiwi 13 minutes ago
        That’s 02025 thinking.
    • analog31 42 minutes ago
      I think that both the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales are now defined in terms of Kelvin and a formula. Most if not all of the units of measure are no longer related to their history except for an agreement to make the new units match the old ones at some point.
    • throwatdem12311 13 minutes ago
      Now do metric vs imperial.
      • artisinal 8 minutes ago
        Nothing screams freedom more than using ancient terms like horsepower and measuring tires in inches and percentages.

        The other day I heard an American talk about a TV being 65 inches. Took me a while to understand they had a 165 centimeter diagonal television.

    • xgulfie 40 minutes ago
      Kelvin does still rely on each degree being 1% of the way between freezing and boiling so it kinda does rely on a variant reference point
      • chermi 35 minutes ago
        The reference point is the triple point, and invariant.
  • spullara 51 minutes ago
    A US gallon of deuterium water costs roughly $2,600 to $3,800, while a gallon of pure tritium water (super-heavy water) would cost about $44 million.
    • BizarroLand 10 minutes ago
      Makes me want to go to the ocean and start filtering out water somehow.
  • rwmj 26 minutes ago
    Interesting article but left me wondering why they don't use H1_2 O16 as the "standard water"? Surely you can make that (relatively) easily in a centrifuge by spinning out the lightest fraction of water.
  • cactusplant7374 10 minutes ago
    How does the water taste?
  • sandworm101 1 hour ago
    As specialized world-class lab supplies and reagents go, that is not very expensive. Stuff like pure Xe (for space thrusters) can be more by mass.
  • pack_stimulus 1 hour ago
    Loved reading this. Thank you!
  • dorianmariecom 33 minutes ago
    gallon is not a si unit ;)
  • alanfalcon 1 hour ago
    [dead]