{"id":1176,"date":"2020-01-09T12:12:13","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T23:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2020-01-09T12:12:13","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T23:12:13","slug":"what-a-difference-the-decimal-point-makes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2020\/01\/09\/what-a-difference-the-decimal-point-makes\/","title":{"rendered":"What a difference the decimal point makes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m back at work following a nearly three week break over Christmas. We were fortunate to be offered a house to stay in for a week over Christmas, which enabled us to have a holiday in Dunedin and see the extended family reasonably cheaply. But the house came with a catch:\u00a0 a small, old, cuddly, ball-of-fur that needed daily medication. Amazingly, this kitty was completely compliant when it came to taking her medicine, <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2012\/10\/16\/goodbye-to-the-kittycat\/\">unlike our own cat<\/a> of many years ago.<\/p>\n<p>We had written instructions from her owners &#8211; she was having a gel-like medicine that you rub into the inner surface of her ear. Pre-loaded syringes full of the stuff were supplied &#8211; we just needed to put the right amount onto a finger tip (wear gloves or you medicate yourself as well as the kitty-cat), rub it into her ear, and it gets absorbed and does its job.\u00a0 1.5 ml a day. This, when we first measured it out, seemed an awful lot. There wasn&#8217;t 1.5 ml left in the currently-in-use syringe, so on the first night she got &#8216;only&#8217; 1.0 ml.<\/p>\n<p>For the second night, we needed a new syringe. Next to them I found the actual prescription from the vet. The recommended dose. 0.15 ml a day, not 1.5 ml a day as we&#8217;d been told. We had given the poor moggie a week&#8217;s dose in one go!<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately kitty was still happy and purring by the end of the week, unlike the two students who in 2015 were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/student\/news\/students-took-equivalent-300-cups-coffee-caffeine-botched-experiment-northumbria-university-a7546061.html\">given 100 times too much caffeine<\/a> after a botched mathematical calculation for a science experiment at Northumbria University.<\/p>\n<p>The decimal point makes a big difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m back at work following a nearly three week break over Christmas. We were fortunate to be offered a house to stay in for a week over Christmas, which enabled us to have a holiday in Dunedin and see the extended family reasonably cheaply. 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