Submission + - Texas Instruments doesn't know Avogadro's Number?
lpq writes: Was watching Monk last night and some kid wrote Avogadro's number (or something that looked like it) on a blackboard. They wrote 6.0221415 * 10^23. Today I was trying to remember the extra digits (only carried around 3 digits of accuracy in brain...not a constant I need alot or alot of precision of, usually.
I remembered my Texas Instruments Solar calculator had it as a programmed in constant. All sources I've seen have the exponent as 23, but the number part varies a bit, source to source. The farthest "off" from the others is the one on my TI-36X calculator. Some values I've found:
(all scaled by 10^23, lowest to highest)
6.022 131 67 Texas Instruments (built-in to calculator):
6.022 141 5 Monk TV show (USA Network)
6.022 141 79 NIST (website)
6.022 141 79 Wikipedia Same as NIST
6.022 142 5 Google
6.022 257 Lapeer County, MI ("http://chem.lapeer.org/Chem1Docs/MolExercise.htm l")
So why all the different answers? Has the value of Av's Num been fluctuating lately like the price of gold or the stock market? Are the other answers "older, accepted values?"
Google is "close" — if they had left it at 7 digits (6.033142) I would have thought it a rounding of the NIST value, but throwing in that 7th decimal place shoots that idea out of the water.
Seems like Lapeer County is most off from everyone else (varying by .00035), being on the high side, but a _CALCULATOR_ company?
TI getting their programmed in constants, "WRONG"?!? What faith should I have in any of their other constants or their formulae and calculations? They seem to be low by ".000 010 12", or to put things in obfuscating perspective:
1.012 x 10^18 or about 1 quintillion?
Is it common for calculator manufacturers to have such different values? Haven't checked other constants — maybe they are better, but it seems "concerning" (if I needed more precise constants, my calculator could be very misleading). It reminded me of the Pentium math bug where it returned the wrong answer on some calculations. We just accept these things as "right" or "correct".
Is quality control dropping? (Calculator made in China). Is it a "foreign-made" quality issue?
Thanks for any insights on why things are so odd....
I remembered my Texas Instruments Solar calculator had it as a programmed in constant. All sources I've seen have the exponent as 23, but the number part varies a bit, source to source. The farthest "off" from the others is the one on my TI-36X calculator. Some values I've found:
(all scaled by 10^23, lowest to highest)
6.022 131 67 Texas Instruments (built-in to calculator):
6.022 141 5 Monk TV show (USA Network)
6.022 141 79 NIST (website)
6.022 141 79 Wikipedia Same as NIST
6.022 142 5 Google
6.022 257 Lapeer County, MI ("http://chem.lapeer.org/Chem1Docs/MolExercise.ht
So why all the different answers? Has the value of Av's Num been fluctuating lately like the price of gold or the stock market? Are the other answers "older, accepted values?"
Google is "close" — if they had left it at 7 digits (6.033142) I would have thought it a rounding of the NIST value, but throwing in that 7th decimal place shoots that idea out of the water.
Seems like Lapeer County is most off from everyone else (varying by
TI getting their programmed in constants, "WRONG"?!? What faith should I have in any of their other constants or their formulae and calculations? They seem to be low by ".000 010 12", or to put things in obfuscating perspective:
1.012 x 10^18 or about 1 quintillion?
Is it common for calculator manufacturers to have such different values? Haven't checked other constants — maybe they are better, but it seems "concerning" (if I needed more precise constants, my calculator could be very misleading). It reminded me of the Pentium math bug where it returned the wrong answer on some calculations. We just accept these things as "right" or "correct".
Is quality control dropping? (Calculator made in China). Is it a "foreign-made" quality issue?
Thanks for any insights on why things are so odd....
