• Ook the Librarian@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      It’s the only way this meme makes sense. It’s a complaint that humans don’t like the average of the temperates that produce the feelings of extreme hot and extreme cold. You’d have to change math, change physiology, or lose linearity.

          • theblueredditrefugee@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            Actually, earthquake magnitude can be projected to negative numbers. It’s well defined but it stops describing earthquakes. For instance, a -3 magnitude earthquake is the energy released by a cat knocking your cell phone off of a nightstand. (see page 290 of this book). Pretty sure the others are also logarithmic scales which are well-defined for any negative number. It just so happens that those negative numbers don’t describe anything we care to describe with those scales.