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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."
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 m * (100 cm/m) * (1 in/2.54 cm) = 39.37007874 in
Look at me, I'm Informative!
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.
And it matters because in the linked blog he gives a long list of incorrect conversion factors from supposedly authoritative sources. I doubt he actually submitted the article; the Slashdot summary just makes him out to be an idiot who can't do simple arithmetic.
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..
Josh
Isn't the point that searching in your favourite search engine may very well turn up a page with the incorrect conversion factor?
There is, in fact, no Birchall in administration at NASA, and as far as I can find, there is no Birchall associated with NASA.
The program director of NASA's Mars program is Scott Hubbard. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/00 -10-26.html
(search for mars program director)
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.
This may, or may not, prove or disprove that I am the "right" Dan Birchall.
Metadiscussion is great.
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.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
In dutch 'meter' is used for both the measurement result and the measurement device.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
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.
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".
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.
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".
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)