A Bigfoot number system

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by kladner

It's hard to imagine spending even a few minutes (or seconds!) at or above boiling. I am the most heat tolerant person I know of, but I draw the line above ~105 F in any situation except a sauna.

Try growing up somewhere where the temperature can drop to below -40. Centigrade; Fahrenheit -- doesn't matter. You can actually spit and have it freeze solid before it hits the ground.

There's a reason I now live in Barbados....

[kladner]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Try growing up somewhere where the temperature can drop to below -40. Centigrade; Fahrenheit -- doesn't matter. You can actually spit and have it freeze solid before it hits the ground.

There's a reason I now live in Barbados....

I certainly understand. Chicago winters are bad enough for someone who grew up on the Gulf Coast.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Depends.

The advantage of the metric system is it is based on measurements which anyone can compare against.

WTF is a gram? It's approximately the same mass of 1 CC of pure water.

If you allow for "approximately", anyone can compare anything to anything and make it look either good or bad. Is 1g precisely equal to the mass of 1 cc of pure water at any temperature, with other conditions corr. to std sea level? If so, what is that temperature? Is it an easily-remembered number?

WTF is a CC? It's one Cubic Centimeter.

Which is somewhere between a drop of water and a good-sized swallow, of either the African or European variety. :)

WTF is 1 Kg? It's one thousand Grams.

By definition, it would seem.

On the other hand, we used to have something like this...

WTF is a yard? A fundamental unit of length in both the U.S. Customary System and the British Imperial System, equal to 3 feet, or 36 inches

Sounds good - easily divisible into various inch-multiples, thanks to the factorization-smoothness of 36.

WTF is an inch? A unit of linear measure equal to one twelfth of a foot.

Also the name of a common insect in larval form - interestingly enough the common name of the adult moth includes 'meter' from the Greek 'to measure' - and occurring in common expressions like "never give an inch" and "give 'im an inch an' 'e'll take a mile, lor'."

WTF is a foot? A foot is a unit of length defined as being 0.3048 m exactly and used in the imperial system of units and United States customary units. It is subdivided into 12 inches.

Sorry, using the fact the decimalist crusader oppressors have defined the foot in terms of their meter is in order to make a 'look at the non-round numbers' point is inadmissible in this debate. Tell me, how is a meter defined, exactly? A foot is also the name of the thing at the end of most people's ankles, and as a unit of measurement has a pedigree dating back to ancient Greece. Speaking of which, how are your sore meters feeling these days?

I love these kinds of alehouse debates. Speaking of which, I'll have another pint. :) Are you going to have another 350 or 500 ccs? And how many mls is that? (My metric pub glass doesn't list ccs, only mls).

[Batalov]

That reminds me that I am late for my Mass!

(Which I will be having tonight after a full month of experimental abstinence.)

P.S. Also, pertinent to ancient measurement systems is the quote from the Birdcage about measuring one's wealth in certain poultry (search for "hens"). The full quote actually goes like this:

This is so Guatemala. They put eggs in everything down there... because chicken is so important to them. lt's their only real currency. A woman is said to be worth her weight in hens. A man's wealth is measured by the size (...see imdb)

[kladner]

From About.com:

"The meter is defined to be the distance light travels through a vacuum in exactly 1/299792458 seconds."

This supplanted a wavelength standard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre

All in all, units of measure seem to end up being arbitrary.

Also from Wikipedia:

"From 1901 to 1964, the litre was defined as the volume of one kilogram of pure water at 4 °C and 760 millimetres of mercury pressure."

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

I love these kinds of alehouse debates. Speaking of which, I'll have another pint. :) Are you going to have another 350 or 500 ccs? And how many mls is that? (My metric pub glass doesn't list ccs, only mls).

I'll have another half-liter (500 CCs), thanks.

Let's be honest -- measurement is all about relations. To answer your question above, the meter was originally defined as being 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the earth's equator to the north pole.

That was a little stupid -- that could vary. It's now defined as being "the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1⁄299,792,458 of a second".

Now, shall we define a second?

Or, even better, shall we define an inch, a foot, a yard, a perch and an acre as was done under English Law?

"It is ordained that 3 grains of barley dry and round do make an inch, 12 inches make 1 foot, 3 feet make 1 yard, 5 yards and a half make a perch, and 40 perches in length and 4 in breadth make an acre.

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Now, shall we define a second?

"Since 1967, the second has been defined to be:
the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom."

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

If you allow for "approximately", anyone can compare anything to anything and make it look either good or bad. Is 1g precisely equal to the mass of 1 cc of pure water at any temperature, with other conditions corr. to std sea level? If so, what is that temperature? Is it an easily-remembered number?


Which is somewhere between a drop of water and a good-sized swallow, of either the African or European variety. :)


By definition, it would seem.


Sounds good - easily divisible into various inch-multiples, thanks to the factorization-smoothness of 36.


Also the name of a common insect in larval form - interestingly enough the common name of the adult moth includes 'meter' from the Greek 'to measure' - and occurring in common expressions like "never give an inch" and "give 'im an inch an' 'e'll take a mile, lor'."


Sorry, using the fact the decimalist crusader oppressors have defined the foot in terms of their meter is in order to make a 'look at the non-round numbers' point is inadmissible in this debate. Tell me, how is a meter defined, exactly? A foot is also the name of the thing at the end of most people's ankles, and as a unit of measurement has a pedigree dating back to ancient Greece. Speaking of which, how are your sore meters feeling these days?

I love these kinds of alehouse debates. Speaking of which, I'll have another pint. :) Are you going to have another 350 or 500 ccs? And how many mls is that? (My metric pub glass doesn't list ccs, only mls).

here's a diagram of the relation in SI units now to define the base units.

[c10ck3r]

Originally Posted by Batalov

That reminds me that I am late for my Mass!

The "mass" would be .99751367024 kg, assuming my beverage of choice.

(It's Bud Light)

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by science_man_88

here's a diagram of the relation in SI units now to define the base units.

They forgot momentum

[kladner]

Now, shall we define a second?

That seems to be one of the cruxes of the biscuit. The second is tied to an atomic oscillation (if I may call it that.) In turn, a meter is defined based on tiny fractions of a second.

On the other hand, "...the litre was defined as the volume of one kilogram of pure water at 4 °C and 760 millimetres of mercury pressure."

This can get a bit circular if a kilogram is defined as 1000 ml of water under certain circumstances. Also, the above does not mention altitude. One might presume sea level, but I have not dug that deep.