• Question: what is extension

    Asked by anon-250809 on 24 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Kate Dobson

      Kate Dobson answered on 24 Mar 2020:

      I’m not suite sure what you mean here, it is a term used to mean different thingsisn different areas. In Geology, extension is a term used to descibe when a tectonic plate is being stretched, this causes it to get thinner, and eventually a new ocean could form.

    • Photo: Robert Ives

      Robert Ives answered on 24 Mar 2020:

      Extension or extinction?

      Extinction means ‘reduce to zero’. In Biology, this might mean when all animals of a species have died out, that species becomes extinct, or when a virus is ‘wiped out’, it becomes extinct. In physics, when there is absolute darkness, where no light exists (at all), then light is said to be extinct.

      Now ‘extension’ can mean a number of things, including to add to, increase, lengthen – you could almost say it’s kind of the opposite of extinction!!

    • Photo: Philip Denniff

      Philip Denniff answered on 25 Mar 2020:

      I struggle with this as a question because I don’t understand it. I don’t know of any process called ‘extension’ but I see Kate knows one. Then I though may be this is a typo (a mistake in typing) and Rob has answered that. To be a scientist you need to ‘Be Curious and Ask Why’ if that does not answer your question ‘Ask Why’ followed by ‘Really’. So if these answers do not answer your question ask it again, may be using different words.

    • Photo: Kaitlin Wade

      Kaitlin Wade answered on 28 Mar 2020:

      Kate and Rob have answered this well!

    • Photo: Katie Sparks

      Katie Sparks answered on 30 Mar 2020:

      As Kate said, “Extension” is used to mean so many different things.

      I’m going to start with the basic idea.
      If you can find an elastic band, put a pin through a piece of paper and put the elastic band on the paper, with a part of it touching the pin. Draw around the band (without any stretch).
      Next up, stretch that band (use your non-writing hand) and draw where it gets to.
      Remove the band, the extension is the difference between the unstretched band and the stretched band.

      Language is a complex thing, we often use words that come from one meaning and use them for something else. So “extension” then could be what something looks like if we take what we know and stretch that.

Comments