Seems the only people having trouble are chemists. I suggest an instructional DVD, with a short demonstration vid, be included with all developer packets to help out the chemists.
If the goal is to allow mathematically ignorant people to properly mix their photo chemistry, they I think both 1:1 and 1+1 are pretty equally undesirable in the grand scheme of things, compared to simply using fractions, e.g. "1/2 stock, 1/2 water."
1+1 is a little more clear to an ignorant person that is 1:1, simply because there are a lot of uneducated people who don't know what a ratio is.
Then again, if they can't figure out such an incredibly simple thing, should they really get to have us help them out?
I'm sticking with the colon as my way of writing it, and fractions as the way of explaining it in words to students.
The great part of this? Everyone is right...er, correct!
You do realize that only Kodak is using 1:1?
Excellent! Only Kodak needs to include the DVD for the confused chemists
Seriously, no ordinary person is confused by the 1:1 notation until some confused chemistry student says to them, "Gee, 1:1 sure doesn't mean 1+1 in my college chemistry lab. All the conventions from my lab must surely apply in the real world too?! This is all terribly confusing. If you aren't confused, you really should be!"
Ian
Seriously, indeed, there is little confusion with 1:1 vs 1+1, but when it comes to 1:3 vs 1+3 it becomes a different matter.
No, there is no confusion with 1:1 and, therefore, there is no confusion with 1:3. If you get one (which everyone does, save the aforesaid confused chemistry students), you surely get the other, no?
Ian
Ian
It's confusing to some. You need to leave it to the people who are confused to decide if it is confusing or not. You cannot decide that for them!
...
2. Although the ordinary man/woman in the street understands that 1:1 = 1+1 (and 1:3 = 1+3), the "+" is probably preferable because it doesn't confuse that handful of people who expect their lab conventions to have universal application outside the lab. ...
A somewhat related question:
When you are discussing these numbers, how do you verbally express them?
When I see 1:3, I say "one to three", meaning one part stock to three parts diluting water.
1:3 one to three means 1 part Developer made up to (diluted to) 3 times the volume, same as 1+2. Regardless of what anyone says Kodak have gone against years of convention.
[...] "1:3=1+2" is not how the rest of the world (outside labs) understands ratios. [...]
Yes, it is.
Could be, yes.
If i'd ask people in the street, as Ian David suggested, i'm sure they'll all say that 1:3 means 1/3, i.e. in a mix, one third part of the total is made up of the stuff that should be mixed in "1:3". I.e. one in three, 1+2.
":" is divison, not addition.
My understanding of ratios comes from the subject of raw mathematics, which is why I consider 1:3 to mean 1/4 to 3/4, as opposed to 1/3 to 2/3.
Due to what I learned in my U.S.A. public grade school, I read that 1:3 does not equate to the fraction 1/3. Ratios express simply that there are parts of something compared to equally-sized parts of another.
Yes, I just spoke to a Dutch mathematician (seriously!), who said that a Dutchman would understand 1:3 as 1/3. I concede (grudgingly) that this may well be an even wider European thing...
Not just European. It's correct, everywhere.
Yes. The part, compared to the whole.
1:3 is one in three. 1/3.
Not just European. It's correct, everywhere.
How do you interpret scales on maps? If it says 1:10,000, do you take it to mean that 1 inch on the map equals 10,001 inches on the ground? Or 10,000 inches?
So why do you think it would be different here?
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