4 ms·

The only point the author was making with the 0.9005 vs 0.90005 example was that if you're only processing 10% of the air, then the efficiency of your filter do

The only point the author was making with the 0.9005 vs 0.90005 example was that if you're only processing 10% of the air, then the efficiency of your filter doesn't matter. The entire section honestly would have been better without numbers, because they cause some amount of confusion and they don't really help make the point since it's obvious. If your room's air is recycled with outside air fully over the course of one day, and your filters take ten days to work through the volume of air in your room, then the efficiency of your filter doesn't matter. That's it. Yes, one filter is 10x as efficient. It doesn't matter because in this example they aren't moving enough air relative to the room size/leakiness for it to matter.

etchalon 4y ago
Saying, "OK, but as a total percent of the air in your home at any given time, the difference is tiny" is … weird. It's still a 10x difference. Using small numbers to make the difference look small doesn't hide that.
- amluto 4y ago
  Sorry, you’re still missing the point. If you are taking air, running it once through a filter, and using the air that comes out for an application that needs very few particles, then a 99.99% filter is “10x” as efficient as a 99.9% filter in the sense that the air coming out will have 1/10 as many particles. For example, a 99% efficient face mask is “10x” as efficient as a 90% efficient mask (assuming both fit perfectly, which they don’t, although a PAPR approximates a perfect fit). But an air purifier doesn’t do this at all. It continuously sucks in air, removes particles from it, and sends the filtered air right back into the room to mix with all the other air. The performance of a 95% filter in this context is barely distinguishable from that of a hypothetical 100% filter. Your characterization would have the 100% air purifier being “infinitely” more efficient.
  - etchalon 4y ago
    I understand the point. The point doesn't matter. Air purifiers operate on a fraction of available air. That air supply is continually being cycled, refreshed and mixed. Particulate matter within that air is not evenly dispersed. That, for a single minute, as a percentage of total air, a 99.5% and a 99.95% purifier produce a minor difference in total air quality is deeply irrelevant to the overall performance of the purifier over any length of time. The 10x difference, however, will matter over time. This is why the tests, which the author dismissed without any reasoning beyond "looks wrong!", in the original WireCutter article showed such stark differences between the performance of the Förnuftig and the Levoit Core 300, over a 30 minute span. If you were correct, over those 30 minutes, the amount of particulate in the test room would have been roughly equal for both purifiers. It wasn't. The Förnuftig removed only 64.5% of the particulate while the Levoit removed 97.4%. Can you point to a test which shows dramatically different results than the ones the WireCutter reported?
    - rcoveson 4y ago
      You started this subthread with the comment: > The idea that the difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 is "small" is … weird. When you use the author's numbers, 0.9005 and 0.90005, the implication is that you're taking the parameters of they hypothetical as given. You then go on to say that the difference between those numbers is significant. Remember that in this abstract, idealized scenario, the air filters are only able to process 1/10th of the air in the room (hence the shared 0.9, the dominant portion of the magnitude). Perhaps the room reciculates with its environment at the rate of one room volume per day, and the filters can only process 1/10th of the room per day. Given that, do you still think the difference is significant? Or are you just outright refusing to participate in the thought experiment at all? Because that's what it seems like now that you're trying to broaden the scope of your contention to the other sections of the article.
      - etchalon 4y ago
        I started the subthread with the comment because saying the difference between those numbers is small is weird, … because it is. Those numbers represent percentages (90.005% and 90.0005%) and those two inputs, especially when applied to a chaotic system, will produce outsized differences over time. And the data shows that the two filters produced outsized differences over time. I'm not broadening the scope of my contention. I'm pointing out that my contention (there is a large difference in those numbers that is hidden by the way the author presents them) is confirmed by the data.

etchalon 4y ago

Saying, "OK, but as a total percent of the air in your home at any given time, the difference is tiny" is … weird. It's still a 10x difference. Using small numbers to make the difference look small doesn't hide that.

amluto 4y ago
Sorry, you’re still missing the point. If you are taking air, running it once through a filter, and using the air that comes out for an application that needs very few particles, then a 99.99% filter is “10x” as efficient as a 99.9% filter in the sense that the air coming out will have 1/10 as many particles. For example, a 99% efficient face mask is “10x” as efficient as a 90% efficient mask (assuming both fit perfectly, which they don’t, although a PAPR approximates a perfect fit). But an air purifier doesn’t do this at all. It continuously sucks in air, removes particles from it, and sends the filtered air right back into the room to mix with all the other air. The performance of a 95% filter in this context is barely distinguishable from that of a hypothetical 100% filter. Your characterization would have the 100% air purifier being “infinitely” more efficient.
- etchalon 4y ago
  I understand the point. The point doesn't matter. Air purifiers operate on a fraction of available air. That air supply is continually being cycled, refreshed and mixed. Particulate matter within that air is not evenly dispersed. That, for a single minute, as a percentage of total air, a 99.5% and a 99.95% purifier produce a minor difference in total air quality is deeply irrelevant to the overall performance of the purifier over any length of time. The 10x difference, however, will matter over time. This is why the tests, which the author dismissed without any reasoning beyond "looks wrong!", in the original WireCutter article showed such stark differences between the performance of the Förnuftig and the Levoit Core 300, over a 30 minute span. If you were correct, over those 30 minutes, the amount of particulate in the test room would have been roughly equal for both purifiers. It wasn't. The Förnuftig removed only 64.5% of the particulate while the Levoit removed 97.4%. Can you point to a test which shows dramatically different results than the ones the WireCutter reported?
  - rcoveson 4y ago
    You started this subthread with the comment: > The idea that the difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 is "small" is … weird. When you use the author's numbers, 0.9005 and 0.90005, the implication is that you're taking the parameters of they hypothetical as given. You then go on to say that the difference between those numbers is significant. Remember that in this abstract, idealized scenario, the air filters are only able to process 1/10th of the air in the room (hence the shared 0.9, the dominant portion of the magnitude). Perhaps the room reciculates with its environment at the rate of one room volume per day, and the filters can only process 1/10th of the room per day. Given that, do you still think the difference is significant? Or are you just outright refusing to participate in the thought experiment at all? Because that's what it seems like now that you're trying to broaden the scope of your contention to the other sections of the article.
    - etchalon 4y ago
      I started the subthread with the comment because saying the difference between those numbers is small is weird, … because it is. Those numbers represent percentages (90.005% and 90.0005%) and those two inputs, especially when applied to a chaotic system, will produce outsized differences over time. And the data shows that the two filters produced outsized differences over time. I'm not broadening the scope of my contention. I'm pointing out that my contention (there is a large difference in those numbers that is hidden by the way the author presents them) is confirmed by the data.