• Question: How far from 'normal' does a variable have to be to be considered 'extreme'?

    Asked by AwesomeExplosion to Giuditta on 12 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Giuditta Perversi

      Giuditta Perversi answered on 12 Nov 2015:


      This is a really interesting question! 😀

      It depends on your system, I know that the definition “extreme” is quite vague!
      For instance, for you 200 atm and 50°C would be really extreme conditions, and this is true for most biological stuff. There are people who study extreme biology and look at small variation around the normal condition.
      Since I work with material chemistry, “my” extreme conditions are something above 1000 atm and 1000°C as a bare minimum (we go muuuch much higher).
      If you are a geologist and you work on how are things in the centre of the Earth, you want at least 3000°C and some millions of atmospheres or we don’t even talk about it!

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