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The Largest Recorded Tsunami Was 50 Years Ago
An anonymous reader writes "July marks the 50th anniversary of the world's largest tsunami — a 1,720-foot-tall wave in Lituya Bay, Alaska. It was triggered by a chain reaction of events that began with a magnitude 7.7 earthquake on the Fairweather Fault, which dislodged a rock fall of 40 million cubic yards, that fell 3,000 feet and splashed into the northwest end of Lituya Bay to generate the wave. This article includes survivor accounts, maps, a satellite image, and photos taken right after the event." To be fair, eyewitness accounts put the height of the wave as it came toward their boats at perhaps 100 feet. The tsunami scoured the land of vegetation and soil to a height of 1,720 feet above sea level, however.
This is a science article, right? Use SI units, kdawson.
This is kdawson we're talking about. We should be thankful he gave us any sort of units at all.
This guy's the limit!
There is nothing inherently superior about the metric system.
Sure there is. Ease of unit conversion and ease of communication with the REST OF THE FREAKING WORLD. We live in a global economy - we should start acting like it.
Why does dividing by 10 matter so much, anyway? Because you have 10 fingers?
Because we use a base 10 counting system for most calculations. Having a measurement system that is highly compatible with the numeral system most humans use makes sense.
Really, we should be trying to move to a system of measure that is base 2.
Really? Go ahead and tell your mother you came 1011 miles to see her - I'm sure she'll be impressed.
I'm an American and I would so much rather see everything in Metric. I think the main reason this is in the old, crappy system is not because it's written 'for us' or whatever, but because of the year it happened. Though I would think that the guys collecting the data would use metric anyway...
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
The photos from the following day are impressive, but I'd like to compare it to what it looks like today: How much has been able to regrow in relatively cold climate in 50 years?
A tsunami may be only a few feet higher than average sea level as it crosses oceans, but when the mass of water piles up as it reaches shore, the runup can go hundreds of feet above sea level. If you're standing on the slope at a height of 800 feet above sea level, and the tsunami starts, which is more 'real' about the height of the tsunami -- the hundred-foot height of the wave in the open water of the bay, or that the runup is going to scour the ground clean almost a thousand feet farther up the slope than where you're standing?
I blame women. No woman wants to go from weighing 95 units to weighing 209 units.
Great theory, but there are 2.2lbs in a kilo, not 2.2kg in a lb.
So a 95lb woman weighs about 43kg, not 209kg.
"There is nothing inherently superior about the metric system."
Of course there is. It uses powers of ten, which is easy math, it's trivial to relate volume-mass-distance measures (1cm^3=1mL water=1g, 1m^3 of water = 1000kg = 1 tonne), it doesn't have half a dozen wacky variations on the same damn unit (it was 5 ounces: would that be the International avoirdupois ounce, the International troy ounce, the Apothocaries' ounce, the Dutch metric ounce, the Maria Theresa ounce, or, wait, is it possible you mean one of the 3 variations of fluid ounces?). It's the same messy story for "pounds", "gallons", and so on. If you're lucky there are only 2 common versions.
I mean, yes, you're right, it's just a matter of convention and units are always interconvertable, but to say there isn't anything inherently superior about the metric system is nuts. What's convenient about remembering that miles have 5280 feet? Oh, wait, just to be clear I meant an international mile, not the U.S. survey mile (5280 survey feet) or international nautical mile (about 6076 feet). (AAAAAUGH!)
Have you ever noticed that virtually ALL Imperial units are now defined in terms of the metric system? An inch isn't an inch anymore, it's 2.54 centimetres exactly. There's a reason for that -- because the metric system isn't built on a shifting sand of dozens of different archaic national standards and conventions for their usage.
The only thing better about the Imperial system is a metric buttload of inertia in people's brains and the convenience of powers-of-two fractions for some measures. But you can use powers-of-two fractions to express things in metric too if you want.
If you like the Imperial systems please stick with one of them, but you'll never convince me that the metric system is merely on par, especially for anything scientific.
You go ahead and pay $4 for a liter and I'll pay $4 for a gallon, that fact alone is reason enough to stick with US measurements.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
"Grandma, I walked eleven miles to see you."
The funny thing about non base-10 number systems is that our language can't say them without spelling them out. The old joke about "There are 10 kinds of people in the world..." isn't very funny if you say it aloud or in your head: "There are two kinds of people in the world" or "There are one zero kinds of people in the world".
So I believe it's our language, not our fingers, that makes base ten feel natural. If we had grown up accustomed to counting "one two three ten eleven twelve thirteen twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three thirty" then base four would feel natural. The characters "2506" would look as strange as hexadecimal and be as impossible to pronounce without spelling or conversion.
By the way, isn't the term "base 10" devoid of meaning? If our system were base four, then "base 10" would mean "base four" since the characters "10" in base four mean "4" in base ten. Whatever base you use, "10" is your way of writing the value of that base.
Back to the tsunami, it's disappointing to hear that the water was 290 fathoms high only very near it's source (the landslide). That's like saying "Your mama's so fat she jumped in the Pacific and made a tsunami a billion nanometers high."