Talk:3083: Jupiter Core

NOOO RANDALL USED ‘DATA’ AS SINGULAR NOOOO I HOPE HE FIXES IT. Broseph (talk) 15:17, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Used with an information science perspective as it is here, it is usually used as a singular (https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/data-is-or-data-are/). At least, that's what I found while clicking around with one of my computer mouses :P SammyChips (talk) 15:39, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

From your source: "In academic and scientific writing, the word data is almost always treated as a plural word, as in The data collected by the research team suggest that the water supply has been contaminated." 172.71.144.179 18:49, 30 April 2025 (UTC) 

Umm... Isn't that that statement contradictory? If it was being treated as a plural, wouldn't that say, "The data ... have been contaminated"? SammyChips (talk) 14:23, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Never mind. Bad parsing on my part... SammyChips (talk) 14:30, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

((Had written the following. See you've already recanted, making me edit-conflict. But for the sake of anyone else that's got it wrong and needs a nudge back the right way.)) That IP's quote was subtle, but what you have to look at was "The data(pl.) ... suggest...", rather than "The data(sing.) ... suggests...", for grammatical agreement.

The "... [has/have] been contaminated" is a separate element that relates to "the water supply ..." (only "have" if it had been "water supplies").

I think you were reading it as "the data {having been} contaminated", which is not an unlikely connection to have made, but not what this quote says. Not the most straightforward exemplar to use, though. I spotted the potential confusion when I first saw it, nearly added a note to try to forestall any such, but left it to fate instead. ;) 141.101.98.176 14:40, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

English is not Latin. Latin words work differently in English than they do in Latin. In English, "data" is a mass noun (a.k.a., an uncountable noun). For almost as long as the English language has existed, folks have been trying to "correct" people into using Latin rules of grammar, but that's not correct and never has been. Equites (talk) 16:43, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Exactly. English doesn't say noun adjective either only a few things continued that aspect of Romance grammar i.e. fee simple and surgeon general (I'm surprised it's alloidial title not title alloidial!) 172.71.195.74 20:20, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

If "data" aren't countable, then they probably aren't data... ;) 172.68.205.20 00:35, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

‘Data’ is not a mass noun. The singular of ‘data’ is ‘datum’. People treat it as a mass noun when it is not. Also, it directly comes from Latin, and is a Latin word, and should be treated as one. Same reason why the plural of octopus is octopi. Broseph (talk) 07:02, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I suspect you're trolling, but if so you got me. Octopus is from Greek, not Latin. English has stolen and mangled words from many languages. "Data" is just one you happen to be familiar with. Your familiarity doesn't mean the usage should differ. DaBunny42 (talk) 09:07, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Also, it's "octopodes". ;) 172.69.195.179 09:47, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

It's 'octopussies'.172.70.160.139 14:33, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

If there’s two it’s a hexadecapus, three is a tetricosapus, etc. The number of heads is irrelevant.

I looked it up, and it turns out we are both right… octopus is a latin word which was derived from the Greek. It was the only example I could think of from the top of my head. However, ‘data’ should be plural the same way flagella is plural of flagellum Broseph (talk) 15:58, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Incorrect. Data certainly is a mass noun, because people use it that way more commonly than not. The singular is "a piece of data", in the same way that the singular of "paper" is not "papyrus". It came from that, but it is not that. Normal English-speaking people do not say "datum". You were close to understanding when you said "people treat it as..." The way that people actually speak is what language actually is. Equites (talk) 22:33, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Can someone fix the formatting for the table, it’s annoying on mobile and shrinks the page because its 1 row Commercialegg (talk) 15:35, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Nevermind, it wasn’t loading properly Commercialegg (talk) 15:37, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, that was on me. Just figuring out how to use tables. BobcatInABox (talk) 17:07, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it contains nougat. Perhaps with further study of Jupiter, humanity will finally be able to learn what, exactly, nougat is. Equites (talk) 16:35, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

This image has always given me the impression it's actually a delicious frozen cake. Zmatt (talk) 18:08, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Nonsense - it's obviously a toy/choking hazard.141.101.99.89 08:21, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Two things:

1: It looks like Jupiter is made of avocado flesh in the avocado pit image.

2: If jupiter were a giant avocado with the same mass, it would represent 95 quadrillion years' worth of global avocado production. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 19:37, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Sounds like a solution to the quacamole crisis since Trump's tariffs on Mexico. Barmar (talk) 17:14, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

There's probably some pun to be made about a mole of guacamole, but you would actually need several thousand moles of avocados to equal the mass of jupiter. -- Dextrous Fred (talk) 01:45, 2 May 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Also, the baby Jupiter raises questions about it's sexuality. Also who the father is. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 19:37, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Jupiter's parents are Saturn and Opis. Seems as if Saturn is a single parent since Opis is nowhere to be found in the solar system. 172.69.109.86 21:51, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

It looks to me like Velikovsky confused Aphrodite with Athena. 172.69.150.94 17:58, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

In an Arthur C. Clarke novel, I think 2010: Odyssey Two, it was postulated that the core of Jupiter is diamond. I have since seen articles from others with a similar theory. It is apparently plausible, given the extreme pressures and presence of carbon. Shamino (talk) 13:40, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Who else didn't know the movies and thought 2010: Odyssey Two was a comic (probably just me) 172.71.166.89 15:19, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Ignore the movies. They butchered the stories. Read the novels. And after 2010, there is 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey. They get a bit weird, but great stories. Shamino (talk) 13:09, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

What's up with the description "Hard ball from avocado" rather than "Avocado pit"? The only results from a Google search for "Hard ball from avocado" reference this XKCD, so it doesn't seem to be some commonly-used term for an avocado pit that I'd never heard. Did Randall just have a brain fart and forget the word "pit"? Seems unlikely. If not, if there some hidden meaning to "Hard ball from avocado"? SethML (talk) 15:51, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Presumably it's because the joke rests on the fact that it's roughly spherical, so makes a decent analogy with a planetary core (and if you cut in to the avocado in the right way you could make it look sort of like one of those cutaway planetary layer diagrams). 172.70.162.14 15:59, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Gemini seems to have a better understanding of humor than I do: "The phrase highlights the mundane, everyday nature of an avocado pit and the unsophisticated way it's described ("hard ball"), making its inclusion as a "leading theory" for the core of a gas giant planet ridiculous and therefore funny. It's unexpected and breaks the pattern of the more scientific-sounding labels, contributing to the overall แหย่ (yae - playful teasing) tone of the strip." SethML (talk) 15:55, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Hmm - well it's very good at sounding confident, but I think here it's confidently wrong. There's nothing particularly 'scientific-sounding' about "Valuable treasure" and "Emergency backup Earth", for example. 172.71.26.107 15:08, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Apparently, if Jupiter really were an avocado it would be about 1/4 less dense. Weirdly, googling the two gave me avocado density in kg/m^3, and Jupiter density in g/cm^3... 172.70.162.13 16:06, 1 May 2025 (UTC)