Q for more scientifically knowledgeable folks

[nitrah55]

See, this is where language impedes our ability to think creatively.

The prepositions we use for measurement really don't have any basis in reality. A ruler could be said to "have" 12 inches as easily as it could be described as "being 12 inches long."

I recall George Carlin's observation about modes of transportation: we get "into" cars, but we get "onto" planes.

[ne1410s]

kusch:

Huh??? I have a "thing" that could be described as an "inch". I can see it and touch it

Bragger!!

[Bob Juch]

See, this is where language impedes our ability to think creatively.

The prepositions we use for measurement really don't have any basis in reality. A ruler could be said to "have" 12 inches as easily as it could be described as "being 12 inches long."

I recall George Carlin's observation about modes of transportation: we get "into" cars, but we get "onto" planes.

That's because the first planes has no inside.

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

See, this is where language impedes our ability to think creatively.

The prepositions we use for measurement really don't have any basis in reality. A ruler could be said to "have" 12 inches as easily as it could be described as "being 12 inches long."

I recall George Carlin's observation about modes of transportation: we get "into" cars, but we get "onto" planes.

That's because the first planes has no inside.

Neither did the first autos

[TheCalvinator24]

But we don't say that something has a certain number of inches.

Sure we do. A foot has 12 inches. A yard has 36 inches. Sometimes we say there are 12 inches in a foot, just as we sometimes say that there are 100 calories in a cookie.

I have never heard anybody say "a foot has 12 inches." I've heard "a foot is 12 inches," which obviously omits the implied word "long"

the second example is clearer, but in that one, both nouns are units of measurement.

I'm not going to start a crusade to do away with the apparent misuse of calorie (i'd settle for getting rid of "we have a scoreless game." or aj's--or is it mrkelley's--crusade against unanswered points)

[MarleysGh0st]

I'm not going to start a crusade to do away with the apparent misuse of calorie (i'd settle for getting rid of "we have a scoreless game." or aj's--or is it mrkelley's--crusade against unanswered points)

That's good. The food and diet industries would make some tough opponents.

[silvercamaro]

I'm not going to start a crusade to do away with the apparent misuse of calorie (i'd settle for getting rid of "we have a scoreless game." or aj's--or is it mrkelley's--crusade against unanswered points)

That's good. The food and diet industry would make some tough opponents.

The food and diet industry are the Nigerian spammers of Western industrial society.

[MarleysGh0st]

Ouch! That's harsh...

[christie1111]

The Bored certainly is in a wacky mood today.

[frogman042]

Shouldn't the subject be: 'Q for more linguistically knowledgeable folks'?

I'm not sure you were asking what a calorie is but how it should be expressed in English - am I right?

---Jay

[mrkelley23]

Let's see if I can muddy the waters even further.

I see no problem with saying a candy bar "has" or "contains" X number of calories. The ingredients of the candy bar are a source of fuel, waiting to be released by the human body's digestive tract.

You could just as easily say, "my car has X number of calories," referring to the amount of gasoline it currently holds. That gasoline is burned to convert it to useable energy, much the same way that food is metabolized to make useable energy for the body. Gasoline has a predictable amount of calories of energy per unit volume, as long as you take into account pressure and temperature.

The world might just be a happier place if we all referred to fuels in terms of the amount of energy that could be released, I'm thinking.

BTW, not to contradict anyone in particular, but the terminology of thermodynamics is particularly tricky. "Heat," as used in this context, is a form of energy, but it is misleading to refer to food calories as a measure of heat, since heat only occurs when energy flows from place to place, to try to equalize temperatures. Christie is more correct, in that food calories should be thought of as units of potential energy, unless you are actually doing calorimetry experiments.

And if you really want to help eliminate confusion, just use the unit Joules instead of Calories. Any amount of energy may be properly measured in Joules, including the potential energy contained in food. The conversion factor is 4186 (approximately) Joules per food Calorie.

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

Who the heck is Joules,

is he another of LB's Merry Men

and who wants to convert him?

and to what, Scientology?

[TheCalvinator24]

Let's see if I can muddy the waters even further.

I see no problem with saying a candy bar "has" or "contains" X number of calories. The ingredients of the candy bar are a source of fuel, waiting to be released by the human body's digestive tract.

You could just as easily say, "my car has X number of calories," referring to the amount of gasoline it currently holds. That gasoline is burned to convert it to useable energy, much the same way that food is metabolized to make useable energy for the body. Gasoline has a predictable amount of calories of energy per unit volume, as long as you take into account pressure and temperature.

The world might just be a happier place if we all referred to fuels in terms of the amount of energy that could be released, I'm thinking.

BTW, not to contradict anyone in particular, but the terminology of thermodynamics is particularly tricky. "Heat," as used in this context, is a form of energy, but it is misleading to refer to food calories as a measure of heat, since heat only occurs when energy flows from place to place, to try to equalize temperatures. Christie is more correct, in that food calories should be thought of as units of potential energy, unless you are actually doing calorimetry experiments.

And if you really want to help eliminate confusion, just use the unit Joules instead of Calories. Any amount of energy may be properly measured in Joules, including the potential energy contained in food. The conversion factor is 4186 (approximately) Joules per food Calorie.

Well, I thought I understood when I asked if a calorie was a measure of potential energy, but then I was told that it wrong, so I got confused. It seems that you are saying that, at least with regard to the calories within food, my understanding was pretty much correct. If that understanding is correct, I can see how "This cookie has 3 calories" makes sense. (I wish I could find a good-tasting cookie with only 3 calories).

[mrkelley23]

Let's see if I can muddy the waters even further.

I see no problem with saying a candy bar "has" or "contains" X number of calories. The ingredients of the candy bar are a source of fuel, waiting to be released by the human body's digestive tract.

You could just as easily say, "my car has X number of calories," referring to the amount of gasoline it currently holds. That gasoline is burned to convert it to useable energy, much the same way that food is metabolized to make useable energy for the body. Gasoline has a predictable amount of calories of energy per unit volume, as long as you take into account pressure and temperature.

The world might just be a happier place if we all referred to fuels in terms of the amount of energy that could be released, I'm thinking.

BTW, not to contradict anyone in particular, but the terminology of thermodynamics is particularly tricky. "Heat," as used in this context, is a form of energy, but it is misleading to refer to food calories as a measure of heat, since heat only occurs when energy flows from place to place, to try to equalize temperatures. Christie is more correct, in that food calories should be thought of as units of potential energy, unless you are actually doing calorimetry experiments.

And if you really want to help eliminate confusion, just use the unit Joules instead of Calories. Any amount of energy may be properly measured in Joules, including the potential energy contained in food. The conversion factor is 4186 (approximately) Joules per food Calorie.

Well, I thought I understood when I asked if a calorie was a measure of potential energy, but then I was told that it wrong, so I got confused. It seems that you are saying that, at least with regard to the calories within food, my understanding was pretty much correct. If that understanding is correct, I can see how "This cookie has 3 calories" makes sense. (I wish I could find a good-tasting cookie with only 3 calories).

When told you are wrong, it is always helpful to consider the source.

Food calories are units of potential chemical energy that may be transferred to other places by a process called heat flow. The confusion comes from the fact that calories are used almost exclusively in talking about thermodynamic quantities, while other units (Joules or ergs or even foot-pounds) are used in discussing other forms of energy.

Lest anyone think this is only confusing because the subject matter is somewhat esoteric, I was just witness to the oh-so-polite equivalent of a flame war on my physics teacher listserv because of this very topic, and in a more general sense, the fruitlessness of trying to classify concepts without a universally-agreed upon system of classification. And those are all esoteric people.

[ghostjmf]

Oooh Oooh Oooh.

And I haven't even read the whole thread yet,

but

does someone else say

"but your body does not necessarily get as much energy from it as heats up the air when you burn it. You convert that cookie into the energy in the bonds holding together ATP (adenosinetriphosphate) molecules in your body. Some foodstuffs yield up the energy for that better than other foodstuffs, even though when you hold a match to them in the air, they might burn equally well. It has to do with how your body pulls the food apart. Some stuff pulls apart easier, chemically speaking. So stuff that looks equally fattening as measured by 'how many calories it has' when it burns is not equally fattening when you actually eat it."

or do I get to say it?

[mrkelley23]

You got say it. And quite well, I might add.

Although, given my lack of affinity for biology, I tend to doze off at the mere mention of ATP. But I did make it through your explanation, and even semi-understood it. Which is more than I can say for the vast majority of bio stuff I read.

[earendel]

Who the heck is Joules,

is he another of LB's Merry Men

Nah, he's one of Doc Brown's two kids by the schoolmarm, Clara Clayton, Vern being the other one.

[etaoin22]

"calories" exist.

But the answer to the other half of your question is decidedly "NO!".