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Our Friend, The Meter
dbirchall writes "Upon hearing that SpaceShipOne reached 100km today, I did some hasty math based on the altitude in feet sttated by Scaled Composites in their press release, and was surprised to come up with a number under 100,000 meters. Fortunately, a friend pointed out that my inches-to-meters conversion was flawed. Some quick Googling determined that lots of people still have no idea how many inches are in a meter, even after some folks have had big problems because of conversion errors."
Dude, read the blurb again. It matters because the poster was Dan Birchall. Don't you know who that is? He's the head of NASA's mars probe program...
It's so frustrating... there's gotta be someone in a public position with the balls to unify the measuring systems.
Either the world changes or the US changes. Personally I say go towards the metric system. Let's also use grams, liters, and all the other worldwide used measuring systems.
It might be tough in the beginning for those who are adjusted to the inch-system, but change has always proven to be hard in any society. Argg.. an anonymous post on slashdot won't make a difference anyways... or will it?
dude, your site SUUUUUUUUCKS! seriously, that make out thing is retarded.
I only recently discovered the Google calculator, so in case it's new to you to:
100Km in feet
20 inches in cm
Instructions for the Google calculator
.: Max Romantschuk
1 meter in inches
--- P,L,G
1 m * (100 cm/m) * (1 in/2.54 cm) = 39.37007874 in
Look at me, I'm Informative!
I also could have carried out the whole conversion, because I know that 1 in = 2.54 cm.
There are a lot of math illiterates. The poster is obviously one of them. I don't think the poster should take any comfort in the fact that other people got the wrong answer as well. I think that (s)he should realize that it's time to become educated.
This is just basic common knowledge that everyone should have.
You going to pay for us to change all of the road signs all over the country that deal with "XXX tons maximum", "Height: 16'", "45 miles to _______", or "Speed limit: 70"?
:)
Good point, but actually tons are a metric unit. One ton is 1000Kg
.: Max Romantschuk
The "stone" is totally unknown in the US, by the way. I believe that's the only common Imperial (or, as we say, standard) measurement we don't have.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
no, everything is American.
There's no such thing is "English" units. The units you use are not the Imperial system used in England, they have most of the same names, but some of the values are different. Mostly volume units I believe, like Gallons.
you be thinking of a 'tonne' no doubt
When, or if, you americans actually do adopt the metric system, it's spelled Metre.. =) Hope that helps... Meter is more commonly known as the measuring device.. heck, from Dictionary.com:
meter
n.
1. The measured arrangement of words in poetry, as by accentual rhythm, syllabic quantity, or the number of syllables in a line.
2. A particular arrangement of words in poetry, such as iambic pentameter, determined by the kind and number of metrical units in a line.
3. The rhythmic pattern of a stanza, determined by the kind and number of lines.
As it pertains to Music:
1. Division into measures or bars.
2. A specific rhythm determined by the number of beats and the time value assigned to each note in a measure.
Of course, this is just me being a nit-picky bastard.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
This is a popular misconception. The fact is, the U.S. does use the metric system. See here for a list of laws.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Base 10 system?
Using prefixes to express multiples of base units?
No memorizing antiquated and imprecise ratios?
You have a base unit for every type of measurement; length(m), mass(g), weight(N), pressure(Pa), energy (J), etc. Just add prefixes and numerical values and you're all set! So easy..
Nobody uses 220 Volts as wall current. Volts are a unit of potential, not current.
Josh
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
The metric system (SI now) is the only official unit of measurement the US government has ever adopted. It did so way back in 1893. (1866 it became a legal unit of measure). What they didn't do though, was require it's use. So since the older imperial system was still widely in use it lived on. (Some of it anyway.. nobody knows what a stone is for example) Congress went back and required the metric system's use for all goverment purposes in 1988 (unless the infomation is for public use where it can be either).
So really we use a mix of both here. In school they teach almost entirely in metric... makes the math easier to deal with when to have to convert to smaller/larger units. Common stuff like speed limits, weight, tempature, and long distances are measured in mph/pounds/fahrenheit/miles. If you go to the store, or use any tools though it's 50/50.. so smaller units like liters/grams/centimeters I think most people know pretty well.
Of course there is some contention over the pint (and consequently the gallon).
An imperial pint is 20 fluid ounces (a little over half a litre). A US pint is 16 fluid ounces (under half a litre), leading to the factually incorrect US maxim "a pint's a pound the world around". I think there is a small difference in the fluid ounce as well.
Steve
PS 1 stone is 14 pounds.
And that looks like a relatively good division, yeah. I tried to get an answer out of Perl using:
which returned: 39.3700787401574814339255681261420249938964843750But Jeff "Bud" Fields did it by hand (which may or may not give better results than asking Perl for lots of precision) and got (quoting him):
I had hoped it'd resolve nicely as it did in Perl, since 2.54 ends with a "4," but unfortunately the factors of 254 are 2 and 127 and 127 had to go be prime on me. Bleah.Official SI mass unit is kilogram (kg), not gram (g).
If over here is Britain, you are wrong. The unit of measurement is spelt "metre" after the French spelling, in just the same way that we (Brits that can spell) use "centre" instead of the American "center".
A "meter" is a measuring device, such as a "water meter" or a "tachometer".
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
Yep, and required to make Sarin
AT&ROFLMAO
That's why you have to bite the bullet and make the conversion complete. When you have nothing to remind you of the old units, you soon start thinking metric (as ungrammatic as "think differetn", but that's slogans for you).
Road signs were one of the easiest conversions. Either just unscrew and replace, or respray and/or sticker in situ. At least initially, all the new signs have a prominent "km" or "kph" to make it clear. For car speedos you could go to a garage and have a gearwheel changed so it clocked up in km, should be a setup option for digital ones I expect.
In dutch 'meter' is used for both the measurement result and the measurement device.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
prinft("%.70f\n",100/2.54);
which returned: 39.3700787401574814339255681261420249938964843750
Perl was designed to handle strings, not numbers - try using a language with decent numerical processing. 512 digits should be enough, right?Hmm, looks like it loops pretty quickly...
The first country in which a controlled split of an atom took place was Italy, and it was performed by Enrico Fermi (yes, the same Mr. Fermi) in 1934. Ironically Enrico Fermi at first didn't think about a split, he rather assumed, that the neutrons he was sending to Uranium were added to the Uranium cores, and he were creating Transuranium atoms.
Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann were continuing those experiments in the following years and were proving chemically, that indeed there were new cores produced by shooting neutrons on Uranium. But the physical results (density et.al.) didn't fit the expectations for Transuranium. In 1937 Lise Meitner, who was physicist, found the right explanation and concluded that the neutron had rather split the atom core instead of being added to it.
Mr. Hahn in lieu for the whole group got the Chemistry Nobel prize in 1944 for this achievement. Lise Meitner should have been awarded the Physics Nobel prize though, which never happened.
Enrico Fermi, after being exiled to the U.S. was starting a fission reactor project in 1942 in the basement of a stadium and invented the carbon-water moderated reactor.
I remember to have read in an Otto Hahn biography, that the idea to explain the phenomenom as split of atoms has been suggested before 1937 in a conference, where Otto Hahn was presenting his results as proof for creating Transuranium, but the scientist, being a woman from Yugoslavia, didn't have enough credit with the audience.
(There is another prominent case of mistrusting women in science in the first half of the 20th century: When Lise Meitner was the first woman who got awarded her Doctor's degree from the University of Vienna, it was anounced in the local newspapers as a thesis about "Problems in cosmetic physics". Indeed she wrote her thesis about "Problems in cosmic physics".)
Colour and Color are in websters (who invented color), but Color is not present in any primary british english dictionary. Colour is valid in all places but color is only valid in US-based english. Indian english spells it 'colour' due to the commonwealth and they are over 1 billion in number so that is fairly international (obviously only a fraction speaks english, but if more were to learn it would probably be 'colour').
The number system is not Arabic. It is Hindu and was transmitted to the west by the Arabs. Please see Hindu-Arabic Numerals
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
"Imperial units were an outgrowth of kooky base-12 that was used by Germanic tribes -- it's why English uses eleven and twelve instead of oneteen and twoteen."
Oh dear, when are we going to get a "-1 complete made-up bullshit" modifier? Here are some facts.
1. In the first place, with 16 ounces to the pound, 14 pounds to the stone and 3 feet to the yard, it's perfectly clear that the imperial system is not a pure base-12 system anyway.
2. The "imperial" system was not Germanic in origin. The metric system was invented in the 18th century. Before that, every country in Europe used a variant of the "imperial" system, which is descended from the Roman system of measurements. They're the folk that came up with 12 inches to the foot, 16 ounces to the pound etc.
3. Given that these units are Roman in origin, note that in latin, 11 is "undecim" (i.e. one-ten) and twelve is "duodecim" (two-ten). So clearly, language has nothing to do with it. And incidently, "eleven" comes from the Old English expression for "one left over (from ten)", so even the Germanic tribes counted in decimal.
4. Use of base-12 systems long predates even the Romans. The 12-hour clock and 360-degree system for angles were developed by the Babylonians several thousand years ago.
5. Then again, if you need to convert 5/16 to decimal to figure out that it's more than a quarter and less than a half, you're probably beyond my ability to help.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
Hands are an imperial measurement also. They're most commonly used these days for measuring the height of horses.
google.com:
1 meter = 9.84251969 hands
Here in (metric) Europe, the commonly used paper/poster size that comes closest is 59.4 cm by 84.1 cm.
Those numbers don't sound like round numbers in metric, do they?
But it makes sense. The format is known as A1. Its surface area is about 5000 square cm, or half a square meter. A0 is twice as big: a square meter (84.1 cm by 118.9 cm). The ratio of all An formats is sqrt(2), so that the width of An equals the length of A(n+1).
Hence: A4, the standard lettre size, measures 21.0 cm by 29.7 cm; its surface area is 1/16 square meter.
1 litre of pure water (density 1 kg/dm3) = 1 kilogram (1000 grams) of water
1 m = 10 dm = 100 cm = 1000 mm
1 m2 = 100 dm2 = 10000 cm2 = 1e6 mm2
1 m3 = 1e3 dm3 = 1e6 cm3 = 1e9 mm3
God save the metric system!!
This is the stupidest /. post I think I've ever seen.
"News flash! Some idiot can't convert units and thinks a lot of other people have trouble, too!"
I guess I'm the real idiot for actually posting how dumb it it.
Go ahead mod me down. I have a life. Kinda.
MAKE YOUR TIME
I remember seeing this in a conversion table given out by some TA while I was at LSU. It specifically stated that the figure was exact.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
A gallon of water is actually ~ 8 pounds. Or 8.345404 to be exact.
This isn't just because they like confusing people; 1/3 of a mile is about 1/2 of a kilometer, so this will allow them to switch over to metric without having to move any signs.
No, but I've noticed them at a 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1 mile. That's why they say pithy things like "Exit 1 mile ahead on right".
No, julesh is actually right.
An Imperial gallon is 8 Imperial pints. An Imperial pint is 20 fluid ounces.
This is different than in American Standard units where a gallon is 8 pints, each being 16 fluid ounces.
Just to make things additionally confusing, the fluid ounce is also defined differently in Imperial (1 fluid ounce = 1 weight ounce) -vs- American Standard (1 fluid ounce = 1.04 weight ounce).
So, an Imperial gallon really does weigh (160/16 * 1) 10 pounds while an American gallon weighs (128/16 * 1.04) ~8.33.
Actually it does matter. Density changes with temperature. Thus for a fixed volume, so does mass.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
It is technically no splitting of the atom, it's just a changing of the nucleus by adding a proton or a neutron. Even though this is a change of the chemical properties, both the atom cores have nearly the same weight (+1). Same is to be said for the Rutherford experiments, where atom nuclei were bombarded by alpha radiation (Helium nuclei). In this case you even change the mass number of the targeted core (the number of baryons) by four, and you even have at first an addition of mass and then a second reaction to get the new core into a stable state (mostly by sending out beta radiation, sometimes also neutron or proton radiation).
Ernest Rutherford is thus recognized as the person to first demonstrate the change of atom cores. John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton were the first to use protons, which are quite easy to generate (they are basicly positively charged Hydrogenium or Hydrogenium nuclei).
Enrico Fermi got interested in those experiments and was using neutrons because he hoped that neutrons would be easier to add to the core, because they don't get rejected by the positive charge of the atom core. On the other hand you can't get neutron radiation that easily, you need radioactive elements which send out neutrons during their reaction.
The big breakthrough for Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann was to realize that neutrons don't just get added to the atom cores, but they cause the cores to swing and in this process to split into two about equal sized smaller cores. And Otto Hahn got the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for exactly this: To discover the splitting of the atom.
What highways did you travel on here? On most interstates, there are at least 1 mile and 1/2 mile signs. For highway intersections there are frequently signs 2-5 miles away. It is true that on some denser city highways, and smaller state roads, you may only get 1/4 mile or less notice.
Not true. I still buy my beer by the pint and it's easy to find liquor sold by the pint or quart as well.
.45" inches wide.
Also ammunition comes in a mishmash of metric and English units. The caliber (as in 45 caliber) of a round is based on it's size in inches. For example the bore of a 45 caliber handgun is
So what was your point again?
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
The US Metric Law of 1866 said that one meter was equal to 39.37 inches, exactly. In 1959, the relationship between inches and centimeters was redefined to be that one inch is equal to 2.54 centimeters, exactly. Maps produced by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey continued to use the old standard. To clarify which foot you are talking about, the old foot, derived from 1 meter = 39.37 inches (exactly), is referred to as the "US survey foot". The new foot, derived from 1 inch = 2.54 cm (exactly), is referred to as the "international foot".
The other, known as the U.S. survey inch gives 39.37 inches per metre, which gives 1 inch = 2.540000508cm
Both are only really used in the U.S. now (except for, among a small handful of other places, certain industries in Canada who have to trade with the U.S., as well as the old farts who are too stubborn to give it up). However, if you can't even agree on a single definition of the thing, no wonder there are so many conversion errors.
Noooo! Year-Month-Day, you insensitive clod!
It's ISO standard and collates properly if zero-padded.
DNA just wants to be free...
Mass doesn't ever change because of temperature or pressure or stuff like that. The only way to change mass is to convert energy to mass or mass to energy. (ie. fission or fusion)
Nope:
Under the command of test pilot Mike Melvill, SpaceShipOne reached a record breaking altitude of 328,491 feet (approximately 62 miles or 100 km), making Melvill the first civilian to fly a spaceship out of the atmosphere and the first private pilot to earn astronaut wings.
-Scaled Composites press release
Sure sounds like the foot measurement is the most accurate, given that it's both the most precise and not prefaced by "approximately". Also, 100 km is 328,084 feet, so how they'd round up to 491 I'm not sure.
Latin: thus; so (not a mistake and is to be read as it stands)
in other words, it's used in a quotation that contains something that may be considered a mistake (misspell or using a non-existant word) and is included so the reader know it was intended (or explicitly stating that it is taken as a direct quote).
"I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
Pass a "law" and redefine reality. We tried it with pi, too.
Pi is a natural constant, defined as the ratio between a circle's circumference and its diameter.
A "meter" is an artificial definition. And, in particular, the "definition" of a meter has changed many times over the year, starting with the first adoption in 1791, being re-defined many times over the years, and only ending (for the moment) with the current definition in terms of c, the speed of light, in 1983. This article gives a history
Nobody was trying to legislate reality, just clarify definitions.
NASA has nothing on airline oopses: Gilmi I wonder how many other disasters of this type don't end up with enough survivors to tell how it happened.
The 39.37 conversion factor was based on comparing the measurements of two yard standards with meter standards. What they discovered was that the two meter standards disagreed. One worked out to slightly under 2.54 cm per inch and the other slightly more.
They eliminated the two yard standards and redefined the "English" system based on the metric system.
In other words, there is only one system of standards, the metric system.
The conventional units might be in meters, kilograms, feet, pounds, yards, etc., but for the industrial world, all are based on the metric system BY DEFINITION.