On the Faraday Unit: towards a rigorous definition

It has been put to me, chiefly by Keith Rowbotham in a series of letters I have not finished reading, that the Faraday Unit (Fu) is “not a real unit” because it “does not measure anything”. I welcome the question. Science advances by welcoming questions, and then by answering them at length.

Historical background

I introduced the Faraday Unit in 1998, shortly after receiving my doctorate by post, when it became apparent that the existing SI units were inadequate for the phenomena the Collective was encountering. A sighting has a brightness, yes, which is candela. It has a size, which is metres. But it also has a quality that the witness feels in the chest, a kind of weight of significance, and there was no unit for that. So I made one. This is how all units were made. Nobody was born knowing what a pascal was.

Formal definition (first attempt)

One Faraday Unit is the significance of a single steady light observed at night by a sober adult over open country for not less than ten seconds.

This definition served the Collective well until 2003, when it was pointed out that under it the moon was approximately one Faraday Unit, and the moon is not, in my professional view, significant.

Formal definition (second attempt)

One Faraday Unit is the significance of a single steady light observed at night by a sober adult over open country for not less than ten seconds, which is not the moon.

This held until Shane asked whether Venus counted, and I said no, obviously, and he asked how an instrument was meant to know, and I said the instrument is me.

The instrument problem

Here Keith has a point, and I will concede it in the proper scientific manner, which is quietly and in a footnote. Faraday Units are at present measured only by me, standing where the witness stood, at the time of night the witness stood there, and reporting a figure. Reproducibility is limited by there being one of me. I have attempted to train Shane but his readings run consistently low, which I attribute to his age, and Cheryl’s run consistently high, which I attribute to Gary.

Reference values

For calibration purposes I publish the following table, compiled from the Collective’s files.

Properties of the unit

The Faraday Unit is non-linear. Two 5-Fu lights together do not make a 10-Fu event; they make an 11-Fu event, because formation is itself significant. It is also non-conserved: an event may gain Faraday Units over time as it is discussed at the Royal, which Keith calls “a flaw” and I call “the literature”.

It is my considered position that these properties are not defects in the unit but features of the phenomenon. If the universe behaved linearly there would be no need for the Collective.

Provisionally final definition

One Faraday Unit is the amount of significance that I, Dr Lyle Faraday, assign to an event upon consideration, divided by the amount I would assign to a light that turned out to be the Hennessys’ ute, such that the Hennessys’ ute equals exactly 1.0 Fu and everything else is expressed relative to it.

This definition has the great advantage of being unfalsifiable, which Keith says is the problem and which I say is the point. A unit that can be proven wrong is not a unit, it is an opinion.

Enquiries regarding calibration may be addressed to the Research Annexe on any evening the carport is not in use.

— Dr L. Faraday, D.Uf. (Open University of the Internet, Cayman Islands campus)

Document U8MC-12-0502. Status: CONFIRMED. This file is retained indefinitely, or until the Men in Beige ask for it, whichever is never.

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