Irritating units of measurement

The unit of beauty?

The Helen.

1 Helen is sufficient beauty to launch 1000 ships, as happened in classical times (cf Helen of Troy).

Usually used today in millihelens. 1 millihelen is just enough to launch 1 ship.

Its reciprocal?

The unit of ugliness, called the Nellie.

1 Nellie is enough ugliness to sink 1000 ships.

So there.

1 micronellie relates to a leaking rowing boat, then?

Quite.

And do you remember when she got angry?... the term she coined was the "HELLIN"

... and so it was that the ancients created their own system of units way before Newton was born... so it became very iritating to her as well, when the subjects fiddled with her name, so this MUST have been the reason for those great wars that were fought over her!

Waitasec... If the result of a nellie is the opposite of the result of a helen, doesn't it follow that 1 Nel = -1 Hel and not 1 Nel = 1 Hel^-1?

Some other useful conversions.

1. Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter = Eskimo Pi

2. 2000 pounds of Chinese soup = Won ton

3. 1 millionth of a mouthwash = 1 microscope

4. Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement = 1 Bananosecond

5. Weight an evangelist carries with God = 1 billigram

6. Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per/hour = Knotfurlong (North along California)

7. 365.25 days of drinking low calorie beer = 1 Lite year

8. 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone = 1 Rod Serling

9. Half a large intestine = 1 semicolon

10. 1,000,000 aches = 1 megahurtz

11. Basic unit of laryngitis = 1 hoarsepower

12. Shortest distance between two jokes = a straight line

13. 453.6 Twinkies = 1 pound cake

14. 1 million microphones = 1 megaphone

15. 1 million bicycles = 1 megacycles

16. 365 days = 1 unicycle

17. 2000 mockingbirds = two kilomockingbirds

18. 10 cards = 1 decacard

19. 52 cards = 1 deckacards

20. 1 kilogram of falling figs = 1 fig Newton

21. 1000 grams of wet socks = 1 literhosen (Germans know all about this!)

22. 1 millionth of a fish = 1 microfiche

23. 1 trillion pins = 1 terrapin (a student at the Univ. of Maryland)

24. 10 rations = 1 decaration

25. 100 rations = 1 C-ration

26. 2 monograms = 1 diagram

27. 8 nickels = 2 paradigms

28. 2.4 statute miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University Hospital = 1 I. V. League

Yes, by WHY here... as some idiot told me once.... just kidding :o)

error on#20

I love it!

I always thought electrical potential should be measured in jolts.

That's the great thing about the Olde English system - hands, feet, stones, hogsheads - those are terms any schoolboy can relate to.

Jolts instead of volts? Wonderful!

Perhaps part of your confusion stems from the fact that "kilogram meter" is MASS x LENGTH, which is NOT a torque.

Torque is the cross-product of the moment-arm vector with the force vector, making its proper dimensions FORCE x LENGTH. In SI units, the torque exerted by a 1 kg bag of sugar held at arm's length (1 m) is the WEIGHT of the bag multiplied by the length of your arm, thus: 1 kg x 9.8 m/s^2 x 1m = 9.8 kg m^2 / s^2 or 9.8 N m. THIS is why we define units like Newtons, although I agree that the practice of naming them after respected scientists is not very mnemonic.

You can write everying in terms of m, kg, and s if you choose, but I'd rather refer to torque in "Newton meters" than in "kilogram meters squared per second squared"... wouldn't you?

(Incidentally, notice that torque is dimensionally equivalent to energy -- but notice also that we refer to torque in terms of "Newton meters" rather than "Joules" even though "Joules" are also "Newton meters". The dimensions may be the same, but the MEANING is fundamentally different.)

I like newtons.

Fig Newtons.

Nice job on torque. I was trying to figure out what the heck was implicit in 'torque' that made it understandable that related to shoulders.

So can any one tell me who was the famous guy that they named the Barn for?

1 barn equals 10^-24 sq cm. Cross sectional capture area.

(Just kidding)

milo

Your comment (Incidentally, notice that torque is dimensionally equivalent to energy -- but notice also that we refer to torque in terms of "Newton meters" rather than "Joules" even though "Joules" are also "Newton meters". The dimensions may be the same, but the MEANING is fundamentally different.)

Following on from this definition of torque as the cross-product (or vector product) of the moment-arm vector with the force vector - could add that energy is the dot-product (or scalar product) of the 2 vectors. Torque is a vector, energy is a scalar.

Cheers....Codey

If you were standing on the moon with that same 1kg bag of sugar held at the (same) persons arm length, then the torque would only be about 1/6th as big as it is on the earth!

Perhaps you like the taste of apples and oranges the same?

Yes, this is true. (The torque part, not the apples and oranges part.)

The TORQUE on your arm that results from holding a bag of sugar is a result of the fact that the FORCE of gravity is pulling the bag toward the center of the Earth. On the moon, the force of gravity is, as you said, reduced to 1/6 of its Earth value -- thus, the torque is ALSO reduced to 1/6 of its Earth value.

This is not a problem with the definition of torque, but rather a result of the fact that the force our example depends on the force of gravity. If we were instead to talk about the torque necessary spin the bag of sugar around in a circle at a constant angular acceleration, this torque would be the same on any planet because it depends on the MASS of the bag and not its WEIGHT.

(Note: the circle in which we are spinning our sugar should technically have its axis of rotation aligned with gravity for the torque to be truly independent of gravity.)

D'uh...

Have you ever had to tighten a cylinder head bolt on the moon?

I'm talking about 'feel'...tighten them upto a 'grunt'..

(wheelnuts to a 'grunt and a half')

And for the pedants out there yes I did understand Kilogram metre should strictly be 'kilogram weight'

I'm talking about 'feel'...tighten them upto a 'grunt'..

We use the old 'half a fart', 'full fart' method.

I like it!

Paaaarrrrrph....that's got it tight!

This is also used as a measurement of how funny some thing is, as in: - Oh, there goes another farting string!

I agree, naming the units after the "discoverer" is very weird, but at least the numbers make sence, 100cm in 1 meter, but the American engineering system is worse. there is a pound force and a pound mass, couldn't the standard setters come up with a different name, if Newton came up with pound force first then it would be named a newton. And who the hell starts their temperature scale at 32? and have 180° till the boiling point of water, if you think abot the values of the SI system make alot more sence than that of the AE system. And Why is the USgal different to the imperial/British gal?

eg 10mm = 1cm 100cm = 1m 1000m = 1km

as apposed to

12 inces=1 foot, 36 foot to a chain, 24 chains to a furlong, god knows how many furlongs to a mile, and who's foot is 12 inces long?, and who's hand are we using?

I can understand horsepower, because originally the main power in transport came from horses, I don't recall humans running that far

Despite the weird names at least the SI system uses the factor of ten for every thing, and you know what is what.

There's a unit of mass, the slug = 32.2 lb (ie numerical value of g in ft/s² but without any units) On this system 1 lbf accelerates 1 slug at 1 ft/s², analogous to newton, kg etc. I don't know whether it's still used much in US. Not in UK since metrication. American formulas I've seen (eg in earlier, pre-metric versions of Perry) use lbf and lbm, and put in g = 32.2 ft/s² here and there to make it work out right.

Codey

Ahhh yes 'guest' but over a century ago hardly anyone understood decimals, only the respected scientists and scholars understood this 0.1 of something...

The common everyday plebs had difficulty with fractions let alone decimals...

So the duodecimal system was far superior. Why? Because the factor of 12 is easily divisible by far more numbers than 10.

If a peasant wanted to buy some cheese and he saw it was 12 pence for a whole block (a truckle) he could easily either work out how much a half would cost or work out how much he could afford...

Have you noticed how easy it is to cut something in half? and quite accurately too just using eyesight! then cutting the two halves in half again is easy and accurate and so on...

So the units of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 etc... are easy to see and measure... Now look how easy it is for the peasant to work out how much a 1/4 of the cheese would cost... a 1/4 of 12 is 3pence, or thru'pence.

Try doing that in your head without knowing a thing about decimal points with the number 10.

the numbers that divide into 10 with no decimal places is only 1, 2 and 5.

With 12 the numbers are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 etc...

So for the vast majority of the population the easiest system to work with was the duodecimal system, everything to a base of 12.

John.

I'd never thought about it in that much detail before, John, thanks for the info. Of course, working with decimal notation at work but still forced to use the "Standard" system of measurement, I've become accustomed to doing the math in my head that 1/8 = .125, 1/16 = .0625, 3/16 = .1875, etc... Irritates the hell out of my classmates (I'm still in college) when I do damn-near-instant fraction-to-decimal calculations.

One time way back in college algebra I "accidentally" recited the exponentials from 2¹ through 2¹² off the top of my head. Nothing but dirty looks, lol.

You're living in the XXI century or XIX? The letters are the same, behare if you're putting them wright.

Can you compare the simplicity of a few basic units and their decimals with the british ones with are not related?

I believe is time that the english spoken countries to join SI units, as the rest of the world joined english as an international standard language.

"...So the duodecimal system was far superior. Why? Because the factor of 12 is easily divisible by far more numbers than 10..."

Yes, this will be true if homo sapiens would have 12 fingers, not ten. it was much easier to use ten fingers for subtraction and addition for trading merchants and before. That's where the decimal system, I believe, comes from.

If you see a millimeter crawling across the floor and step on it, what do you hear?

A Dyne Centimeter says Erg!

I find the most annoying part about units is when somebody decides to change their value. Things like a gallon. It use to be 8 pints but in the USA it is only 6 pints. Who decided that 8 pints 25% to much and Why? Is this why fuel is so cheap in the USA?

"It use to be 8 pints but in the USA it is only 6 pints. "

NOPE.

perhaps an aussie can drink 8 pints while his American colleague can only handle 6, but my college fraternity brothers and the county auditor can demonstrate that 1 US gallon = 8 pints.

1 US gallon = 8 US pints.

milo

A US gallon may be equal to 8 US pints, but his point was that a US gallon is only equal to 6.67 UK pints. The term "pint" refers literally to 1/8 of a gallon, but a UK gallon is 4.55 L while a US gallon is 3.79 L, so a UK pint and a US pint are not equal.

See the wikipedia entry for "gallon".

Got it.

Combining systems without specifying units.

And both of us claim English as our first language.

No wonder there are so many translation errors.

WHo says diversity (mixing units) is a good thing?

Thanks for the clarification.

milo

This comes back to the whole point of the thread -- our units are a mess!

SI for me, please.

3/7 of million = 1 mil ?

distance covered by centipede in a minute= centifoot

'What one earth does a Newton feel like?'

Anne Storey knows this....oh, sorry!

he,he ho,ho. Good one.

Thank the primitive and outmoded Deity of your choice! Somebody understood!

I can never decide on worshipping either Ra or Mithras. Oh well miight as well worship them all. Can't hurt can it?

I like Annoia, the goddess of things that get stuck in kitchen drawers.

My problem is that I don't pray enough to "Bironius". The GOD of pens and pencils. Every time i put a pen or pencil down it gets lost within 5 min. That reminds me that i should to sacrifice an eraser when I get home from work tonight to appease the God. I was just given a good Parker Pen......... Now where is that Pen?..... Damn Not quick enough on the sacrifice. Have to write with a damn crayon now.

Only one thing left to do, go home and offer a sacrifice or two to Dionysius.

As a mechanical engineer in the automotive industry , used to working in International Standard units system I managed to adapt to some extend to the american and english units. However it is so very difficult to understand mileage figures of cars because american gallons are unequal to english gallons. One is 4,62 liters and the other is 3,79 liters. Am I supposed to guess everytime an author uses mpg what country he is from? Why doesn't everyone throw overboard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile) the old units like we did in Europe? We would finally be talking for being understood...

Another anoying habit of some people is not to respect the dimension itself

Miles per Gallon = "mpg" : "PER" becomes "p"

meters per second = "m/s"

cubic feet per minute = "cfm"

Why does the p not appear here? I actually came across this unit in one of the CR4 discussions and spent more than 20 minutes figuring out what unit was meant.

Can't everyone use "/" to indicate "per" and do this systematically.

If you ask an Englishman what the distance between Dover and Calais is, will he reply in in landmiles (1,609 m) or in nautical miles (1853 m)? I don't know. What will an english GPS calculate? I don't have an idea either.

Now that I think about it mpg is Miles per Gallon.

But does m stand for Miles and g for Gallon?

In km/s it is simple km = kilometer and s is second.

My request to all those who speak Shakespearian : Please adopt SI once and for all. It would all be so easy for everyone.

If those who speak Goethe, Molière, Vondel, Dante, Sun Tzu, Kamakura and Bocaccio manage to understand eachother when talking science why hold on so firmly to not so explicit Shakespearian units?

-----

To come back on "Nm" and "J"

Nm is the product of two perpendicular vectors (Newton and meter)

J is the product of two parallel vectors (Newton and meter)

So it is logic to find different values for each product.

And I enjoyed the jokes about the units. Good stuff.

Wikipedia says in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile :

There are three definitions in current use:

• U.S. liquid gallon is legally defined as 231 cubic inches, and is equal to 3.785411784 litres (exactly) or about 0.13368 cubic feet. This is the most common definition of a gallon. The U.S. fluid ounce is defined as 1/128 of a U.S. gallon.
• U.S. dry gallon is one-eighth of a U.S. Winchester bushel of 2150.42 cubic inches, thus 268.8025 cubic inches (exactly) or 4.40488377086 litres (exactly)
• Imperial (UK) gallon is legally defined as 4.54609 litres (~277.42 cu in), which is about 1.2 U.S. liquid gallons. This definition is used in the United Kingdom, and is based on the volume of 10 pounds of water at 62 °F. (A U.S. liquid gallon weighs about 8.33 pounds at the same temperature.) The Imperial fluid ounce is defined as 1/160 of an Imperial gallon. The Imperial gallon is no longer legal for trade or public administration purposes, but it is used colloquially for fuel consumption figures in miles per gallon.

Best regards from Paris, France

Randolph Toom

Randolph - your comment

To come back on "Nm" and "J"

Nm is the product of two perpendicular vectors (Newton and meter)

J is the product of two parallel vectors (Newton and meter)

Vectors don't have to be perpendicular for N.m or parallel for J, it's the components that matter. So N.m = F.r.sin(θ) and J = F.r.cos(θ) where F and r are the magnitudes of the 2 vectors and θ is the angle between. Agrees with definition of cross and dot vector products.

Cheers.....Codey

I agee....to some extent.

We have gone metric every inch of the way!

We think of miles...and miles per gallon...and pints of beer.

Only a sailor would use nautical miles.

In theory we have gone metric, but the cost of changing all those road signs stops a full implementation.

Some idiotic local councils have signs in pedestrian areas in km which just confuses everyone.

But it's an odd world, many electronic components are still on an imperial pitch.

What!!! All this time I thought torque was what caused your feet to fly out from under you when you attempt to use the toilet because you waked up early in the morning because you had to go real bad.

This thread is all torque and no action.

1 Newton is about a decent size apple perhaps ?

Urge to expend an erg ?

Foot -measure of mouth capacity.