People say that Civil 3D is too complicated. I say, “Baloney.” The scientific exploratory facts and conjectures in the post that follows confirm this. We must boldly go where no one has gone before.
People say water is simple. The physicist says,
“Not So Fast”
Late last year the popular press picked up and announced the discovery of a fourth state of matter for water. As is often the case these days there was not really a new state of matter, but you know the drill. A scientist had a new phase theory to announce and wanted attention. He managed to get it. I’m sure their new grants were approved. At least they published something.
Childhood States
I trust you’ll remember the basics of matter states from high-school science class The Three States are: Gas, Liquid, and Solid. Based on change of temperature collections of molecules change between these states. According to some these three may or may not be related to the Three Graces, the Three Muses, and those witches in Hamlet. The science we don’t understand is magic.
The 3 states is educational textbook hogwash. I recall getting the 3 state propaganda in grammar school. I had already seen a Star Trek phaser after all. We were taught classic kiddy sci. Any child can visually and physically verify the existence of state by simply pointing to the apparent states of water. The ice in my NASA approved Tang explains everything. In middle school they even let me boil the Tang to reduce the liquid back to a solid to prove it. Huh? That did make a new drink flavor that today we’d name –
The Blacken’ Cajun Tang.
Just say it.
Ancient States
The states concept is a Greek philosopher thing. In the humanist beginning there was Aristotle and then there was Plato. Everything before is darkness. The real problem, which is really a benefit to life, is that water seems to have more states than a dog has flees. There is nothing simple about water except it is H2O. At the current count there are 70 properties of water that are different from all other liquids. You should probably be afraid to ask.
The term States technically went out of vogue ages ago for physicists. They now formally refer to the changes that matter as phases. Phase allows physicists to separate themselves from the mere chemists. They now give the phases names with Roman numerals and alphanumeric codes to be more post-modern and deconstructionist. Eh em. Actually they use Roman numerals to get rid of the unpronounceable European language names that sort of went out of vogue in the mid 20th century. It’s a selective, cultural diversity thang.
Altered States
There are certainly more than 3 recognized states of matter. Yet I saw a recent news article from the science editor of a major national newspaper that quoted the fact that 95%+ of the matter in the universe was actually in the fourth Plasma state - aka broken down into atomic ionic pieces as in stars, the Earth’s ionosphere, and such. A well-intentioned yet still ignorant falsehood from the fourth estate? Ah, well.
The current scientific truth direct from the NASA Space Directorate. We haven’t an official clue about the phase or state of 95% of the matter in the universe at all. The universe is theoretically 68% dark energy and 27% dark matter. The Dark Energy and Dark Matter we can neither see nor measure. Mysteriously the dark matter in the universe creates gravity out of nothing at all. It just sucks. Mysteriously, the dark energy makes the spacetime in the universe expand. It just blows. Our current theory of the universe depends on these seemingly arcane beliefs as does every doctoral certification in modern astrophysics. We don’t know what we don’t know.
Back to the importance of learning to carry water. Of course that is a biblical reference to the middle of another three that one would be wise to study carefully. Most people never ask the question,
How much water can a camel drink?
Water Exists as Two Different Liquids
This brings us to the separate and equal high and low density phases of liquid water that were confirmed by ground-breaking, X-ray research this last month.
"The new results give very strong support to a picture where water at room temperature can't decide in which of the two forms it should be, high or low density, which results in local fluctuations between the two", says Lars G.M. Pettersson, professor in Theoretical Chemical Physics at Stockholm University.
"In a nutshell: Water is not a complicated liquid, but two simple liquids with a complicated relationship."
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-liquids.html#jCp
This study also confirms the rationale behind the fact that the psychiatrists, psychologists, and other social and natural science scientists were right to misappropriate the term Phase to explain for example adolescent male and postpartum female behaviors. They prove that if you sound just like the seemingly crazed and somewhat incomprehensible physicists you must be smart too. Ok. It works for me…
Civil 3D Works Like Water
There both high density and low density properties at work inside the Civil 3D diva all the time.
The high density properties are the current Elements of Style – the state of all the styles.
The low density properties are the current Table Stakes in the drawing – the state of all the AutoCAD tables: Layer, Blocks, Textstyles, Xrefs, etc.
If these current states are out of phase – in substantive disagreement - she can never really make up her mind in a way that will satisfy you. The challenge is genesis - to create order out of chaos.
A Better Phasor – The Framework for Civil 3D
"Make it so."