Things that have bothered you for a long time.

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Yellow Fang

Yellow Fang

Legendary Member
Location
Reading
The degree symbol didn't exist. The tilde was already there as it's used as an inversion operator in the C programming language (in which UNIX is written) and several others.

But surely they chose the tilde because it was available and not used for much. They could have used the ¬ symbol, or maybe ^, or possibly `. I used to be a C programmer and I rarely ever used the inversion operator. It's not that useful. What is the ~ symbol used for in normal writing? OTOH it is a nuisance not having access to the degree symbol when I want to write down a temperature or an angle. I know there are codes, but that usually means looking it up on the internet. Otherwise I have to bring up a character map utility or Word and select the insert symbol menu option, find the symbol and copy and paste it across.
 
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Yellow Fang

Yellow Fang

Legendary Member
Location
Reading
Electricity: it was Benjamin Franklin who decided what was a negative charge and what was a positive charge, and it is a right pain because he ended up giving electrons the negative charge. It's a pain because in metal it is the electrons that carry the charge so current goes in the opposite direction to the charge carriers. In semiconductors charge is carried in one direction by electrons and in the other by holes, but it would have been easier to think of the electrons as positive and the holes as negative. Why when scientists discovered electrons and protons didn't they hold a conference and decide to make electrons positive and protons negative? There would have been some initial pain, but it would have made a difficult subject a little bit easier for everyone who followed.
 

classic33

Leg End Member
Electricity: it was Benjamin Franklin who decided what was a negative charge and what was a positive charge, and it is a right pain because he ended up giving electrons the negative charge. It's a pain because in metal it is the electrons that carry the charge so current goes in the opposite direction to the charge carriers. In semiconductors charge is carried in one direction by electrons and in the other by holes, but it would have been easier to think of the electrons as positive and the holes as negative. Why when scientists discovered electrons and protons didn't they hold a conference and decide to make electrons positive and protons negative? There would have been some initial pain, but it would have made a difficult subject a little bit easier for everyone who followed.
Rewrite history!
 

ADarkDraconis

Cardinal Member
Location
Ohio, USA
What is the ~ symbol used for in normal writing?
It means 'about equal to' or 'roughly'.

Like I would say 'A mile is about one and a half kilometers' 1mi ~ 1.5km, I know that it is a bit more than that but my mind works easier in halves, and this fits my example. If I were precise it would be 1mi = 1.609km.
 
. If I were more precise it would be 1mi ~ 1.609km.

FTFY
1 mile = 1.609344 km
 
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