Comment on Maybe not nursery rhimes about balloons

deranger@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  In astronomy, nearly everything is hydrogen or helium. Like, over 98% of all matter is H or He. So it’s very useful to be able to talk about H, He, and “everything else”. They call that everything else “metals”.

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  • Balthazar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Some stellar atmosphere models also add “alpha”, which provides an extra knob for the abundance of alpha-capture elements. If you need anything more than that, you’re doing some niche astrophysics.

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    • Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Alpha being the elements up to iron?

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      • Balthazar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Elements formed by alpha capture. Since alpha particles have 2 protons, it’s generally elements with an even number of protons.

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• bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Not for astrophysicists. They call basically everything a “metal”. Of course they know it’s wrong. But they keep doing it to annoy the chemists, I think.

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  • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    We also label things as prime to trick mathematicians into thinking a derivative has occurred

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