ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC

Re:ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC by serf on Friday May 09, 2025 @03:56PM (#43940380)

as I have thought with the other numerous "boiled earth" comparisons i've read in the past few weeks : who cares? In what case is this a useful way to describe something to anyone? since when does a laymen comprehend the size of the earth in any meaningful way?

aside : it's funny how many wordy multi-step unit conversion comparisons have flooded the discussion space post-LLM... I'm sure that's unrelated.

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Re:ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC by greenavocado on Friday May 09, 2025 @04:02PM (#43940408)

I find multiples of the amount of energy needed to vaporize our oceans a useful unit of energy because 8.5 x 10^27 joules is too abstract.

It's just like 1 AU being the average Sun-Earth distance. It is easier to comprehend than 149,597,870,700 m when talking about large distances.

Many discussions recently have centered around processes which require tremendous amounts of energy and the vaporized oceans unit provides some more tangible if absurd perspective.

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Re:ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC by nandomrumber on Friday May 09, 2025 @05:08PM (#43940881)

And remember, 1 AU is about 997.3 billion bananas laid end to end.

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Re:ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC by greenavocado on Friday May 09, 2025 @05:40PM (#43941163)

How do you define the major axis of a banana?

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Re:ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC by nandomrumber on Friday May 09, 2025 @06:51PM (#43941660)

The longest dimension.

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Re:ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC by jaeckel on Friday May 09, 2025 @05:37PM (#43941144)

In a straight line?

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Re:ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC by nandomrumber on Friday May 09, 2025 @06:52PM (#43941661)

Yes, laid end to end, after they've been bent.

If you were to lay them end to then, then bend the them, you'd have a coil of bananas about three to four bananas (bent) in diameter.

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