Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 October 28

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October 28

How accurate and trustworthy are online iq tests?

How accurate and trustworthy are online iq tests?Whereismylunch (talk) 03:11, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

There's some dispute over how accurate they are in general, not to mention online versions. See Intelligence quotient#Reliability and validity. Dismas|^(talk) 03:41, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

"der IQ Test ist zu 100% kostenlos." You get what you pay for. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:09, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

What InedibleHulk wrote means the IQ test is 100% free of charge. And I shall add that they probably are as reliable as any tests done on-line that should be done off-line, including eye tests, ink blot tests, practical driving tests and helicobacter pylori tests. --Ouro (blah blah) 06:49, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if there are IQ tests which are only 50% free of charge.

Some browsers seem to have a hidden easter egg IQ test. You have to press [F4] while holding the [Alt] key down to start it. Good luck. ;) - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 07:44, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

It opens up my System Preferences. One of the perks of drinking at the Genius Bar. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:30, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Very funny. Well-known trick for closing someone's browser. Anyway, IQ tests are only good at telling you how good you are at taking IQ tests. It means nothing. If you do lots of them, you begin to see a pattern in them, but by then, you have wasted your time doing lots of IQ tests and learned nothing about reality or how to use this new-found 'knowledge'. I randomly get 146 or 129 or whatever each time I try them just for fun, then always get given the option to pay for a randomly generated in-depth analysis of my score and answers which would be delivered to me by download immediately (the reason I know it's randomly generated). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 08:24, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

"Automatically generated" or "computer-generated" or "automatically collated" is not necessarily the same thing as "randomly generated"—I would expect someone with a 146 IQ to know that! In this case, it's still likely worthless (mysterious online test methodology, poorly-controlled test conditions, etc.), but at least in principle it is possible to extract additional information about an individual's aptitudes beyond a single IQ score.

It could be argued that the various subscales are actually more informative – because they are more specific about what they assess – than a rather nebulously-derived final "IQ" number. Look at Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, for instance. Yes, it cranks out an IQ, but it's an amalgam of subscores based on tests of more-specific types of reasoning, knowledge, and abilities. The online tests could hypothetically (and unreliably, as noted) do something similar and then charge you for access to the report of your subscores and some boilerplate 'interpretation' associated with each subscore band. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:43, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, 'randomly generated' may have been the wrong turn of phrase. Perhaps, 'automatically generated' may have been more appropriate. The thing I was trying to point out was that these analyses are based on a 'one-size-fits-all' principle, rather than being individually analyzed by a biological, sentient being, preferably of the same species as the one performing the test. Also, these tests tend to be very culture-centric (not a word, but you know what it means). For example, ask the Piraha people which number is the odd one out from 32, 56, 81, and 98, and they will not have a clue what you are talking about, because their language only includes the numbers 1, 2, and another which roughly translates as 'more than two'. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 15:14, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Since most IQ tests are multiple-choice and have no time limit, I don't see why an online version should produce any significant difference than a paper-and-pencil test. The accuracy of paper and pencil tests is tough to determine because the only definition of "IQ" is "the score you get on an IQ test" - so there is really no way to check the absolute accuracy because they are by definition 100% accurate.

However, we should be careful to distinguish between accuracy and repeatability. Certainly if the same person keeps taking the same exact kinds of test over and over, they'll get better at it - and the whole point of "IQ" is that it's some kind of innate ability that shouldn't be something that gets better with practice. With different tests of the same general 'genre', you'd expect some degree of random variability just from chance alone, because there is a good chance of a guess turning out to be the correct answer by pure luck. So even someone with severe mental deficiency could (in principle) get a perfect score from pure chance alone.

One very serious issue with IQ tests is at the upper end of the scale. Extremely smart people start to see more subtle reasons for choosing a particular answer than the person who framed the question - and thereby fail to get the "official" answer, even though their answer is perfectly valid. "What is the next number in this series: 1,3,5,7,9...?" - most people say, oh, these are just the odd numbers - so the next one is '11' - but the super-genius mathematician immediately realizes that there are an infinite number of possible solutions to this question and from a logical/mathematical perspective, no single solution is 'preferred' to any of the others. Such a person might know that '15' is the next in the sequence of palindromic binary numbers: 1,3,5,7,9,15 - and '20' would be the next Colombian number after '9'. So now we can see multiple possible answers, all of equal logical/mathematical validity and are left trying to second-guess which of them is the one that a person with lesser IQ (but who is still sufficiently smart to be employed to write IQ tests for a living) would have been most likely to have come up with. In this case, it's fairly obvious that '11' is the intended answer...but can you always figure that out? For the super-intelligent, IQ tests are not about measuring IQ so much as measuring how able you are to mimic the thought processes of a less intelligent person.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:15, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

The terms of art for some of the concepts discussed by Steve and others above are:

• Repeatability or Test-retest reliability: This is pretty easy to assess experimentally, and it is trivial to construct tests that score high on this measure (eg a single-item test "1+1=" will almost have almost perfect test-retest reliability)
• Construct validity ie the question whether IQ measures intelligence (whatever that means). A matter of big dispute.
• Content validity ie the question whether IQ tests can be universally used for people from different cultural/educational backgrounds. AFAIK no one even tries to argue that IQ tests are not culturally-biased anymore, although people still use them assuming that they are good enough if the population of interest is homogeneous enough.

To go back to the OP's question: Theoretically online IQ tests can be as "reliable" as paper-IQ tests, though in practice I suspect that most of the the online tests are administered by sham operators, which makes the results they offer very suspect. As for "accuracy" (ie validity): there are several concerns with the validity of IQ tests as measures of intelligence so, irrespective of how the test is administered, one needs to interpret the scores with care. Abecedare (talk) 15:54, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

That goes back to the problem that we don't have a definition for "intelligence" anyway. So we're trying to measure something that we can't define...unsurprisingly, that results in controversy. IMHO, it's best not to even suggest that "IQ" scores and "intelligence" are necessarily related. The question is whether IQ is a measure of something useful. For example, it's known that the amount of a person's earnings is nicely correlated with their IQ score. That being the case, one can usefully use the IQ test to estimate future earnings capability...or for a potential employer - whether someone is likely to be able to hold down a higher paying job as a back-up measure following a job interview.

If you can show that the IQ score correlates with other measurable outcomes - then it's a useful tool to provide indicators of those future outcomes...and the word "Intelligence" doesn't even need to enter the conversation.

SteveBaker (talk) 17:09, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

IQ isn't an exact thing, it depends. The online test may give a result that is reasonably much he same as a paid one with not too much extra variation but you'd want some reviews that recommend it. I'd guess most of them are there to get some extra money from you somehow. Do it if it gives you a bit of fun but not otherwise. I once tried out an aptitude test which the company was offering to everyone and basically it said I was unsuitable for my work which I as doing very well and quite happily thank you. So you can guess how much credence I have in such tests in general. Dmcq (talk) 12:44, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

What is the word for...

...the following activity: one attempts to make a sound like a continuous 'mmmm' through one's shut lips, and uses one's finger to sort of strum the lips up and down, in course of which action the sound is distorted. Is there any word for this at all? In any language? :) --Ouro (blah blah) 07:14, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

This may be one of those universal "things" for which there is no set name. Yahoo Answers has come up with a list of names for this, as has ask.metafilter but I'm having a hard time finding any universal term for the behavior. "Lip Strumming" has some strength, but it isn't anything like universal. --Jayron32 12:01, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

This is funny - everyone knows what it is, but no one knows what it's called. It turns up in classic 1940s cartoons, typically when someone has been driven to near-insanity due to another characters antics. So that thing had probably been around a lot longer than that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:47, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

When tobacco ads were on TV and radio, children might do a humor bit of saying "hey now" (then the lip strum) then Sold American!" as an imitation of the tobacco auctioneer in Lucky Strike ads. See [1] Edison (talk) 14:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes. The most famous of those guys in popular culture was L.A. "Speed" Riggs, who advertisted Luckies on both radio and TV. That ad is funny, talking about cigarettes that are "round, firm, fully packed", a slogan which Daffy Duck used as a double-entendre in Book Revue.[2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:08, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

There's a reasonably well known expression for this in Norwegian (at least if you hum a melody while mmmm'ing). It's called "Spille på slurva" (20000 google hits when searched quoted with site=.no.), which Google helpfully translates to "Play on the sloppy". ("Slurve" is a verb which means being sloppy. Otherwise, the translation is ok. The word is used grammatically as a feminine noun in the expression). I have no idea about the etymology of "slurva" here. There's a children's song called "Kan du spille på slurva?", which alternates between singing and playing on the "sloppy". Maybe the word was just made up for the song. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:05, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

The verb twiddle is probably not completely off the mark, though twiddle would tend to connote the idle playing with the lips, rather than expressly trying to produce a sound. While not definitive, a couple of Youtube videos [www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm7v0Wqgwy0 here] and [www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzsCIENC9IQ here] use twiddle in this way. Some search results here corroborate, but again, nothing really authoritative. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 12:44, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I generally lump it in with "Raspberries" 75.140.88.172 (talk) 16:39, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

States of matter.

Matters exist in solid, liquid or gas state. What is the state of electrons, protons or neutrons?Diwas Sawid (talk) 13:21, 28 October 2014 (UTC)Diwas sawid october 28

I've moved your question to the end and given it a title. The three "normal" states of matter (solid, liquid and gas) are determined by the configuration of the atoms and molecules. A mix of electrons, protons and neutrons not arranged into atoms is called plasma. Dbfirs 13:54, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

It means electrons , proton ,neutron lies in plasma state???what is plasma state then??[[Diwash User:Diwas Sawid|Diwas Sawid]] (talk) 14:02, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

See our article that I linked to above. Most plasmas also contain ions of gas, but essentially a plasma state has particles interacting without the usual atomic and molecular structure. If you need a more technical answer, including an explanation of a Bose–Einstein condensate, you might try posting your question on the Science desk. Dbfirs 14:14, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I understood the question as being what "state" those particles are in themselves, as in whether a proton is a solid, a liquid or a gas. My understanding is that the concept of a state of matter doesn't really have meaning at this level of physics. Or at least not in the everyday sense of solid, liquid and gas. Anyway, this question probably belongs at the Science desk. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 15:16, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the state depends on how the individual electrons, protons and neutrons are bound together (or not bound in the case of plasma). Perhaps I misunderstood what was being asked. Dbfirs 15:29, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

• A state of matter is a property of matter that is a bulk property: it only exists in huge groups of particles. A single atom of any material is not a solid, liquid, or gas. It is just a single atom. Billions of atoms exist in solid, liquid, or gas forms. But it's a nonsensical question to consider a single atom and ask what state that atom is in. Likewise, there is never a collection of billions of protons all in close proximity. The situation never exists, so asking whether "protons" are solid, liquid or gas makes no sense: there is no "billions of protons collected in one place" that we could look at and decide what state of matter it is. The same is true for electrons and neutrons, at least in the case of normal matter. There are a couple of "edge" cases; arguably an acidic solution contains solvated protons in the aqueous phase. Likewise, there are things known as electrides that you can think of as solvated electrons in aqueous phase. And there's the situation with neutronium, which I guess would be like a solid or a liquid, depending on whether or not it flowed. But all of those are either weird, or contentious ways to think about the situation. To answer the OP's question as simply as possible: The question makes no sense, because protons, neutrons, and electrons don't exist in large aggregations of particles The only way phases of matter makes sense is to consider the behavior of such aggregations. --Jayron32 16:39, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

True, but for someone who didn't have that understanding, to ask a question that results in that understanding is not nonsensical but is a perfectly legitimate and valid thing to do. The question had a false premise, but that's hardly unprecedented around here. It's not the OP's fault for not knowing that the solid/liquid/gas split doesn't apply at the single atom level. Now he knows that. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:37, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Right, which is why I corrected the false premise. Are you honestly suggesting that when someone asks a question with a false premise, we're supposed to pretend that the false premise is correct and not fix the misconception? I'm baffled by your objection to my answer... Is my correction of the false premise factually incorrect? --Jayron32 11:15, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Not at all. You hit the nail on the head. But the hammer might have been a tad too heavy. I'm a little over-sensitive at the moment because of external events (and I'm in no position to be lecturing anyone about over-reacting), but the fact remains there are ways of telling an OP that his question has a false premise that don't involve describing it as "nonsensical". Most people would take that as a reflection on themselves. Indeed, the OP did take issue with that word, below. You followed that up with "the question makes no sense", and in bold. It was overkill, Jayron. The OP is clearly not a native speaker, but no allowance seems to have been made for that. Had I been the OP, I think I'd have been somewhat offended for daring to ask my question, and I'd be thinking twice about coming back here. We have a welcoming culture here, and we wouldn't want anyone to feel that way. That is the sum total of my concern here. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:06, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

At standard temperature, pressure, they are considered to be gasses. Plasmic Physics (talk) 20:52, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

? Do you mean that a glass of tap water sitting on a kitchen bench is composed of trillions of tiny gasses? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:07, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm referring to three pure substances composed entirely of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Plasmic Physics (talk) 22:21, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Can you clarify that? I don't really know what you're referring to. The topic is about the properties of individual particles, not about substances composed of such particles. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:16, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Clarify what? I don't see what I left out of the explanation I gave about what I'm referring to. Where does it say that the topic is what you suppose it is to be. Plasmic Physics (talk) 04:54, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

OK. You started out with "they are considered to be gasses". I didn't know what "they" was, until you mentioned "three pure substances composed entirely of protons, neutrons, and electrons". Can you give me an example of such a substance? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:43, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

That is why I'm confused by your request for clarification - they are one of a kind. To me, it is akin to asking for an example of helium gas. Nothing else besides helium itself is helium, one of the reasons why it is defined as one of the elements in the first place. Likewise, only a proton gas is a proton gas. Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:16, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not being deliberately obtuse, but I'm struggling to connect that with the OP's question. What would be the chemical composition of the proton gas you refer to? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:29, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

The only way that the OP's question makes sense, is if they are enquiring about systems of those particles, rather than the individual particles. The chemical composition of a proton gas would be H⁺
exactly as the name implies. I expect such a gas to be colourless, and much lower density than helium at STP, and extremely oxidizing, to the point of being uncontainable without the use of an electromagnetic containment field. Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:54, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Colour me incredulous, but I find it impossible to believe the OP had any such entity in mind. Jayron has already disabused the OP of the idea that individual particles belong to the solid/gas/liquid paradigm, and that makes at least two of us who understood that that misconception was at the root of the question. No wonder I had trouble following your line of argument. It's fine to add more accurate information, as long as you make it clear where you're going and what you're talking about.

Remember, this question should have been at the Science desk, but it is where it is, the Miscellaneous desk, and there's a different dramatis personae here. Maybe there's a lesson there: If a question is posted to what is clearly the wrong desk, we shouldn't just leave it in place and try to wing it, but move it to where it will have the best chance of being seen by the full set of people best qualified to answer it (that includes you and Jayron, no doubt), and won't attract queries from lay persons like me. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:38, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

"A rose by any other name..." H⁺
simply refers to a proton, nothing more, nothing less, which is exactly what the OP had in mind. Plasmic Physics (talk) 21:35, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

It should be possible to generate dilute proton and electron gases by x-ray irradiation, followed by separation, and trapping, using a time-sensitive modified Crookes' tube assembly. A dilute neutron gas can be generated by using a linear accelerator and cooling down the neutrons by directing them through a moderator. Containing a neutron gas, however is impossible precisely because of neutrons' neutrality. There is no known way to contain thermal neutrons once they are created, because they go where they please, they can't care less about ion traps or the walls of a containment vessel. They tend to react with most materials to produce instant radioactive waste which just makes things a whole lot more dangerous, otherwise they just diffuse throughout the material to escape on the other side, to do damage elsewhere. ...Which is why neutrons are generally not isolated in a bulk form, but instead generated in situ. Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:16, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

PS, plasma is not a continuation the series solid, liquid, gas. It is a sub-state, meaning that it can exist as either a solid, liquid, or gas. What primary constitutes a plasma, is the presence of ions which are free to move in response to electromagnetic fields. A metal is an example of a solid plasma, an ionic liquid is an example of a liquid plasma, and a flame is an example of a more conventional gaseous plasma. Plasmic Physics (talk) 21:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for you all.I was not asking non sense question.It was just my queriosity — Preceding unsigned comment added by Diwas Sawid (talk • contribs) 01:47, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

First, I wanted to clear up the term "plasma". A "plasma" is an electrically neutral collection of charged atoms, molecules and electrons. Normally we think of a plasma as a gas that has charged particles. Example would be an Argon plasma that has Ar+ atoms where an electron has been stripped off and and equal number of Ar+ and e- particles exist (this particular plasma can be created with RF energy in a partial vacuum). Diffusion and velocity differences between electrons and the argon ions create various effects similar to what happens when a P/N junction is created. There's the neutral plasma and a space charge region where the diffusive drift is counteracted by the electric field. Note that P/N junctions are also electrically neutral. The sun is an example of an electrically neutral plasma with various ions of helium and hydrogen. I don't think a neutron would qualify as being in a "plasma" state as it has no charge to begin with. It would be part of deuterium, tritium or Helium isotopes that were charged by having an electron removed. The simplest plasma is a hydrogen plasma with an equal amount of electrons and protons. That plasma is the most common in the universe when Helium and Hydrogen isotopes are mixed in (all the neutrons are bound to protons). --DHeyward (talk) 02:31, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

It's an interesting question whether neutrons can exist unbound in a plasma. I guess they wouldn't last long as independent particles. I agree that, for plasmas found on Earth, neutrons will normally be bound in ions. As explained above, "hydrogen plasma" (excluding deuterium and tritium) is just an equal mixture of interacting electrons and protons not bound in atoms. Dbfirs 09:09, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

(Thanks, PP, for your explanation about neutrons added above. This confirms what I thought.) Dbfirs 11:18, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Michelle Obama, wiki-bio

Article text, section CAREER. Earnings. Text quote: On 2006 income tax return "her" salary $273,618, "his" salary $157,082; she on BOD $51,200. That's $481,900 out of a stated $991,296. What is the income source for the $509,396 that was undocumented?

Article heading: Michelle Obama a lawyer. I've read elsewhere that Mrs. Obama surrendered her license to practice law. Though she has a law degree would this not be the credentialing alone to be identified as a "lawyer?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.163.81.57 (talk) 16:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Where are you seeing her 1040? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:09, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

It's a paraphrase from Michelle Obama#Career. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:07, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

No comment on her income, but the article and references show that Ms. Obama did not surrender her license. She changed her status to "inactive". This means that she is not currently practicing law. This is a common enough thing for lawyers to do if they aren't going to be actively practicing law for a while. as it typically reduces their annual licence fees and any requirements for continuing professional education. (Requirements etc. vary by jurisdiction.) So she is still a lawyer, just not a currently practicing lawyer. (See here and here for more info.) - Eron^Talk 17:18, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

The article you're citing says that the Obamas' total income included not only the figures you quote, but income from investments and royalties from books; that doesn't seem particularly unusual. The citation for the sentence is a dead link though, so I couldn't tell you any further breakdown that it might have contained. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:07, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

The numbers from our article that the OP quoted are for their 2006 income tax return. More information is at Barack Obama#Family and personal life: "Their 2009 tax return showed a household income of $5.5 million—up from about $4.2 million in 2007 and $1.6 million in 2005—mostly from sales of his books." -- ToE 18:23, 28 October 2014 (UTC)