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China’s ‘explosive’ ironmaking breakthrough achieves 3,600-fold speed boost(scmp.com)

9 points8 points11 points submitted by ActuallyNot

Questionable 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun 1 month ago

Typically, you fold over time creating growth, but here they are simply referring to a reduction in time, with no known quantitative output. So I can't really argue that they are using the term wrong. For me to do so, I would first need to know how quickly they can produce 1 ton of iron.

Blast Furnaces: Daily Production Capacity: A modern blast furnace can produce more than 10,000 tonnes of molten iron per day. This figure represents the upper range of production capabilities for large-scale operations.

As for my understanding of the term 'fold', it may very well be outdated, as it was once described to me in a manner of folding paper. Each fold, doubling the layers as you go along. Or as to 'literally fold' something.

ActuallyNot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 1 month ago

Typically, you fold over time creating growth, but here they are simply referring to a reduction in time, with no known quantitative output. So I can't really argue that they are using the term wrong. For me to do so, I would first need to know how quickly they can produce 1 ton of iron.

Not really. 3600 times as fast is the same as 3600 time as much, over the same time.

As for my understanding of the term 'fold', it may very well be outdated, as it was once described to me in a manner of folding paper. Each fold, doubling the layers as you go along. Or as to 'literally fold' something.

That's the correct etymology. But -fold is multiplicative, not exponential. Has been since middle English at least. And that derives from the old English -feald, which had the same meaning.

Questionable 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun 1 month ago

Regardless , as to how 'fold' is defined, as it differs when used as a term for viral dilution, and bacterial growth. It is an increase of substance and not a reduction of time. And we still need to define the iron ore output, or none of these numbers will have any real meaning.

ActuallyNot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 1 month ago

A 10-fold dilution is the opposite of a 10-fold increase. But it's still multiplicative, not exponential. So a 10-fold viral dilution leaves you with a solution with 1/10 th the concentration of the viri.

For bacterial growth and iron making a 3600 fold increase can be measured in time or output.

It is the same output in 1/3600th the time or the 3600 times the output in the same time: those both describe the same increase.