wedrifid comments on Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions - Less Wrong

71 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 August 2007 10:27PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (147)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: MatthewB 27 December 2009 05:09:14AM 1 point [-]

Do you mean that a bottle full of Nitrogen would be Phogiston, in the same way that a Hyrodgen Ion⁺ is a proton(Absence of an electron)?

Why is the "Absence of Oxygen" Phlogiston in this case?

Comment author: wedrifid 27 December 2009 08:21:01AM 0 points [-]

Do you mean that a bottle full of Nitrogen would be Phogiston, in the same way that a Hyrodgen Ion⁺ is a proton(Absence of an electron)?

Acknowledging, of course, that the nomenclature we are considering is among the most ridiculed of historical attempts of scientific explanation I don't think the analogy would call the absence of electron a proton. A proton is a specific particle that has a positive charge but not all positive charges are considered to be protons (even if protons are usually involved somewhere underneath in conventional matter).