4 ms·

The use of "energy" when the author meant "power" is the point of confusion here. That's the unit/thing disagreement I'm referring to.

kragen 6y ago
Oh, hmm, I don't think it's actually wrong. I mean, it's valid to say that the cost of this bag of sand is US$1, or that the cost of the bag of sand is US$0.05 per kg. It's valid to say that I went 100 km of distance, or that I went 100 km per hour, of distance. It's valid to say that I poured 15 kg of flour into the bowl, or that I poured 1 kg per second of flour into the bowl. It's valid to say that I have 120 mph of groundspeed, or that I am accelerating at 1 mph/sec of groundspeed. It's valid to say that I'm at 22 meters of altitude, or that I am gaining 0.1 meters per second of altitude. Would you reject some or all of these as ill-formed? A watt is just a joule per second, and a joule is a measure of energy, so I think that, in the same way, it's reasonable to talk about both "3100 joules of energy" and "200 watts of energy". I think it would probably be better to say "200 watts of power", but the other one isn't wrong. Is it? Nearly every quantitative statement has an implicit denominator somewhere. Your server serves 50,000 requests per second, you say? Is that per core or per machine? Or maybe per rack? Occasionally there are implicit numerators as well: maybe those are 50,000 one-kilobyte requests.
- perilunar 6y ago
  > the other one isn't wrong. Is it? Yes, it is. To use one of your examples, it's as wrong as saying you travelled a distance of 120 mph.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kragen 6y ago
    "An energy of 1.5 gigawatts" would clearly be incorrect, like "a distance of 120 mph", but "120 miles per hour of distance" sounds fine to my ear; does it not to yours? And what the article said was "1.5 gigawatts of energy".

4 ms·

The use of "energy" when the author meant "power" is the point of confusion here. That's the unit/thing disagreement I'm referring to.

by function_seven 6y ago

kragen 6y ago
Oh, hmm, I don't think it's actually wrong. I mean, it's valid to say that the cost of this bag of sand is US$1, or that the cost of the bag of sand is US$0.05 per kg. It's valid to say that I went 100 km of distance, or that I went 100 km per hour, of distance. It's valid to say that I poured 15 kg of flour into the bowl, or that I poured 1 kg per second of flour into the bowl. It's valid to say that I have 120 mph of groundspeed, or that I am accelerating at 1 mph/sec of groundspeed. It's valid to say that I'm at 22 meters of altitude, or that I am gaining 0.1 meters per second of altitude. Would you reject some or all of these as ill-formed? A watt is just a joule per second, and a joule is a measure of energy, so I think that, in the same way, it's reasonable to talk about both "3100 joules of energy" and "200 watts of energy". I think it would probably be better to say "200 watts of power", but the other one isn't wrong. Is it? Nearly every quantitative statement has an implicit denominator somewhere. Your server serves 50,000 requests per second, you say? Is that per core or per machine? Or maybe per rack? Occasionally there are implicit numerators as well: maybe those are 50,000 one-kilobyte requests.
- perilunar 6y ago
  > the other one isn't wrong. Is it? Yes, it is. To use one of your examples, it's as wrong as saying you travelled a distance of 120 mph.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kragen 6y ago
    "An energy of 1.5 gigawatts" would clearly be incorrect, like "a distance of 120 mph", but "120 miles per hour of distance" sounds fine to my ear; does it not to yours? And what the article said was "1.5 gigawatts of energy".