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Comment by FpUser | Hacker News Reader

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Seems questionable that Rayleigh would have known that oil molecules are hydrophobic on one end and hydrophilic on the other.

> Seems questionable that Rayleigh would have known that oil molecules are hydrophobic on one end and hydrophilic on the other.

That's not a true thing, so it kinda doesn't matter. Surfactants (soaps, emulsifiers) have hydrophobic and hydrophilic ends. Oils are just straight up hydrophobic and nonpolar and don't have a water-loving end.

He certainly knew oil was hydrophobic. I don't think the hydrophilic nature was necessary for the logic.

If it was, I'm sure he knew that soap oils are both hydrophobic and hydrophilic and had ways of figuring out that soap oils consist of a single type of molecule and aren't a mixture.

He used olive oil though, not a soap oil.

Olive oil is a soap oil.

If that's true, then the ChatGPT answer isn't wrong, at least for the specific case of olive oil.

I love how a few self-appointed guardians of hackerhood are able to declare certain resources as haram, even when they propose a plausible answer to a question that went unanswered more than once in the thread. Instead of embarking on a discussion that leaves us all a bit better informed, the literal messenger is attacked. Does that gratify intellectual curiosity? Really?

No the idea that Rayleigh knew the film was one molecule thick, let alone why it was one molecule thick, is clearly made up. The paper makes it clear that he was reporting the thickness, and thought this might provide information on molecule size.

LOL, the first line of the ChatGPT response:

`Lord Rayleigh didn’t know a priori that surface tension would cause the oil film to be exactly one molecule thick, `

And then it goes on to provide various explanations as to why he may have known it a posteriori.

No idea. I was curious myself and decided to ask our "guru". The answer seems a bit fishy

Whatever possessed you to post that bilge, despite finding it fishy, is beyond me. In the future, you might choose to keep such interactions to yourself.

> Cortesy of ChatGPT:

Can we not, please? At the very least not unless you personally have the knowledge to confirm that ChatGPT didn't make any mistakes, as it did here.

Agreed, although it does make me wonder whether the number of mistakes chatgpt comments make would truly be greater (or at the least more harmful) than the outstanding number of folk who are confidently wrong in a way only obvious to domain experts. It’s easier to be skeptical of a bot.

This should be a rule on hacker news.

Agreed. Everyone here knows how to use chatgpt. We come here for a different way to share, learn and interact.

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