this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
1 points (100.0% liked)

Science Memes

15710 readers
223 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Also I’m pretty sure it’s only coincidentally 7. The calculation for pH isn’t based on any property of water.

[–] wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Well, yes and no. The pH scale follows the hydrogen ion concentration, but specifically in aqueous media. The reason 7 is in the "middle" of the scale is because the natural dissociation of water sits at equilibrium at 10^-7 M H+ at 298K, IIRC. So perturbations naturally just displace that specific equilibrium, so it absolutely is normative to water.

[–] CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

By that definition, it can’t be exactly 7 then either. 10^-7 is just an estimate that we’ve agreed works fine. To my knowledge we haven’t really tried to improve this accuracy either?

[–] WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com 0 points 2 months ago

The exact value varies with temperature, so it's a "good enough for the typical variations in temperature experienced by most aqueous solutions" estimate.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)