The Wonderful World of Statistics - Part I
Yes, it's that time once again. So sit yourself down, kick your feet up, and pop a couple of brewskies, and ready yourself for:
The Allegory of the Fluoropolymers
Once upon a time, when the world was younger and TOF still had to work for a living, TOF came to the Land of the Fluoropolymers somewhere in the wilds of central New Jersey. Among the many sterling qualities of these fluoropolymers - indeed of all polymers and many other substances beside - is the viscosity of the material. Viscosity may be thought of as the flow of that which is thick. High viscosity is "thick" and low is "thin." It is measured (usually) in centipoise (cps) although TOF has been in situations measured in poise and (once, memorably) in which it was measured in kilopoise. (The latter involved not liquids dripped through a Zahn cup, but solid plastic pellets pushed through an orifice. TOF will leave you with that thought.) The science fiction masterpieces of Flynn have sometimes been called not "hard SF" but "high viscosity SF," much like the wit of TOF, which is also said to be thick.
Read more »