Top all-time · #17028
mathblag
Personal blog · mathblag.wordpress.commathwriting
mathblag is a personal blog at mathblag.wordpress.com about math and writing. Since 2011, 4 different Hacker News readers have linked it 4 times. The last post was in 2015, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link mathblag for back-of-envelope calculations of physical quantities, such as the energy needed to electrolyse the oceans and the volume of the world's oceans. The comments do not comment on the writing itself.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Musings on mathematics and teaching.
Most-linked posts?
- /2013/08/03/how-much-water-is-in-the-oceans/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-07-08
What Hacker News says?
Energy required to Elecrolyze the world's oceans. Theoretical max efficiency: 13.173 MJ/kg of water.[1] Water in the oceans: 1.35E21 kg [2] Total energy needed to electrolyze the oceans: 1.77E22 MJ Total energy recieved by the Earth from the sun per second: 4.3E14 MJ Time required to elecroyize the oceans using the entire available output of the Sun on Earth at 100% total efficiency: 478.67 days It is a very silly i…
Comment linking /2013/08/03/how-much-water-is-in-the-oceans/
on “Sub-zero water splitting marks a new dawn for solar hydrogen production”Submitted Explaining Huffman’s Impossible Pyramid as a story · 66 points
HN discussionWhere did you come up with 10^40 liters of water in the ocean? According to this calculation, which seems persuasive to me, the "volume of the oceans is about 1.35 billion trillion liters" ( https://mathblag.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/how-much-water-is-... ) That comes to 1.35 x 1,000,000,000 x 1,000,000,000,000, which is on the order of 10^22.
Comment linking /2013/08/03/how-much-water-is-in-the-oceans/
on “Origin of life theory involving RNA–protein hybrid gets new support”Submitted The Euclidean algorithm and modular inverses as a story · 20 points
HN discussion