Talk:2501: Average Familiarity

I've never even heard of olivine. I think most people have heard of quartz (it's the crystal in most electronic watches, and it's pretty), and I suspect feldspar is somewhere in between. Barmar (talk) 05:21, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

If you find a hard white rock, it's probably quartz; very common where I live. Decorative white pebbles? Quartz. Clear, pretty crystals might be the same compound, but they had to be pure to start with and they had to cool really slowly. (Unsigned by 162.158.167.245)

Well, it helps if you play Dwarf Fortress. Olivine is one of the green stones (that only really has use as building material/decoration, but makes an impressive megaconstruction mayerial if you find enough of it to make that worthwhile), unlike quartz which features as raw 'gem clusters' more typically cut for decoration of mugs, crossbow bolts, etc. Of course, IRL, quartzes are so ever-present that they are very easy to forget except as fancy crystals (either for timekeeping in watches or timewasting in crystal healing) and as such you can actually find them almost anywhere (if you're not stuck on a desert island). 162.158.111.20 12:37, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I resemble this comic ... I specialize in probability. Does everyone know that probability=1 means 'certain'? ... I'm not certain ... (Unsigned by 162.158.167.245)

People who went through at least the first half of the math undergraduate program will most likely understand. In the general population, I guess, saying '100 % probability' would work much better than 'probability 1', but still people can get quite upset when something with 99 % probability of success fails, not understanding that 99 % (or even 85 %) does not mean guaranteed success (see for example 14:46 of this video about randomness in video-game design https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwI5b-wRLic). CryptoNut1269 (talk) 11:08, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

As a chemist, I heard of all of them but, fun fact, there is a mnemonic in the german language known by at least all of the elderly generation: "Feldspat, Quarz und Glimmer - die drei vergess´ ich nimmer!" thats "feldspar quartz and mica - i will never forget the three". These three are the main compunds of granite and obviously this was stuff they had to learn at school. If, in a group of silverheads, start the phrase "Feldspat Quarz und Glimmer ..." and there will always be someone to finish the sentence. --Pauliprinzip (talk) 05:45, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

and may not even know the definition of "feldspar" beyond "a rock". Ironically, I think the person writing this may have overstated the "average Joe"'s familiarity with the word "feldspar", since I couldn't have defined it if you'd asked me. --Enchantedsleeper (talk) 08:11, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I got the idea that both Cueball and Ponytail were geochemists, rather than Cueball being just an average adult. OblateSpheroid (talk) 20:02, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Seconded. Danish (talk) 20:12, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Replaced "average Joe" with "average person"

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terms_related_to_an_average_person this term is specific to the US, and introduces specificity unrelated to the comic.