Starship Asterisk*

Todays explanation (june 23, 2007 Baringer Meteorite Crater) holds a lot of meaningless data for most of the world. Would it be possible put metric data in these descriptions?

It's not easy trying to make sense of these:

the crater's dimensions --
one mile wide,
and up to 570 feet deep
300,000 ton
130 feet across
26,000 miles per hour
6 to 12 miles across.

Most computers come with a calculator. Many even have a 'convert units' type of function. Also check out http://www.onlineconversion.com/

one mile -- 1.6 km
570 feet -- 175 m
300,000 ton -- 272 million kg
130 feet -- 40 m
26,000 miles per hour -- 41,839 km/h
9 miles across -- 14 km

But of course scientists, including APOD description writers, should be using metric units anyway.
Lack of metrication has already cost us a Mars-bound satellite.

Case wrote:Most computers come with a calculator. Many even have a 'convert units' type of function. Also check out http://www.onlineconversion.com/

one mile -- 1.6 km
570 feet -- 175 m
300,000 ton -- 272 million kg
130 feet -- 40 m
26,000 miles per hour -- 41,839 km/h
9 miles across -- 14 km

But of course scientists, including APOD description writers, should be using metric units anyway.
Lack of metrication has already cost us a Mars-bound satellite.

Well yes.

But APOD is aimed at everyone.
And a lot of people viewing APOD don't use metric at all.
To restrict it to metric only (or just imperial for that matter) limits the understanding that APOD is trying to foster.
I think it should be metric as first choice followed by imperial units in brackets.
That way everyone is catered for.
Personally I use both, depending on who I am talking to.

Andy Wade wrote:But APOD is aimed at everyone.
And a lot of people viewing APOD don't use metric at all.

A lot of people don't use... that... emm... I mean, they do not even know how your god-given american unit system is called.

Andy Wade wrote:...followed by imperial units in brackets.

Oh, thank you, now I know.

makc wrote:

Andy Wade wrote:But APOD is aimed at everyone.
And a lot of people viewing APOD don't use metric at all.

A lot of people don't use... that... emm... I mean, they do not even know how your god-given american unit system is called.

Andy Wade wrote:...followed by imperial units in brackets.

Oh, thank you, now I know.

I don't understand your post, you're going to have to explain that to me.

Location: Oakworth, Yorkshire, England

I'm sorry, it was not until now when I noticed the above "location" thing; it was so ignorant for me to assert that only americans cannot imagine that there is whole other world beyond their borders that may - unlike them - be using metrics since I remember myself. I now see this applies to England as well Not to sound rude or something, but I wonder where did you get those statistics that most of APOD visitors do not use or have no idea about metric system?

makc wrote:

Location: Oakworth, Yorkshire, England

I'm sorry, it was not until now when I noticed the above "location" thing; it was so ignorant for me to assert that only americans cannot imagine that there is whole other world beyond their borders that may - unlike them - be using metrics since I remember myself. I now see this applies to England as well Not to sound rude or something, but I wonder where did you get those statistics that most of APOD visitors do not use or have no idea about metric system?

I knew there was a good reason to add my location

Ah I see. I'll try to explain myself.

At school here in England we were the last classes to be taught imperial units and the first classes to be taught metric units way back in the 1970's just before great Britain 'went metric'. This placed my age group in a very good position as I learned to understand both sysytems, unlike classes behind us who were not taught the Imperial system, and had to struggle in a world where most people still used Imperial (and still do today) and they had only learned metric.
We're pretty stubborn here and a lot of people steadfastly refuse to use metric as they believe it was foisted upon them by Europe and since we've spent the last few hundred years fighting all the other European countries (and mostly winning) they see no reason to listen to them.
For 'stubborn' read 'cantankerous old gits'
I just suggested both systems as it works for me and (mostly) keeps eveyone happy... mostly.
Ah well, you can please some people, some of the time, etc etc...

When I said 'A lot of people viewing APOD' I was just assuming that most Americans (and old gits here) use their version of Imperial measurements and the rest of the world probably uses Metric.
I actually have no idea of the demographics of the visitors to APOD. Does the average American come to APOD?
But there must be quite a few who don't understand the measurements used (there I go again... assuming) Certainly anyone here older than myself wouldn't have learned metric at school (I'm 49).
Perhaps its time for a poll? Maybe not eh?

Oh, and just last year in this country, Customs and Excise successfully prosecuted a Butcher for selling meat by the pound to his pensioner customers because they didn't understand metric (and why would they?) He was just accomodating his customers wishes. What a waste of public money.

Now our beloved Government is looking at taking away our 'pint' of beer (again). I'll have 500ml of beer please...
This is viewed cynically as just another way of diddling people out of more money. How can we compare (without a calculator) prices when they change it over? Since a pint doesn't easily equate with part of a litre(liter for our American visitors) it's will be a good time to screw a few unsuspecting customers with a stealthy price rise. What a surprise.
I apologise and I know it's way OT but this is beer we're talking about.
Haven't they got anything better to do?

Did I just have a rant? Sheesh. Sorry about that.

Andy Wade wrote:Perhaps its time for a poll? Maybe not eh?..

Now our beloved Government is looking at taking away our 'pint' of beer (again). I'll have 500ml of beer please...

Hey, that's funny, but in Russia we had always zero-point-five beer standard. Onl recently they added .3 to the list, probably we drink less these days. And, poll would be great idea, btw; at least we would see some real data.

btw, there's a great image in Case' link.

makc wrote:btw, there's a great image in Case' link.

The Wikipedia page is quite an eye opener.
Although saying a country uses metric doesn't quite show the full story, as it doesn't say how much of the population of that country abide by their 'official position'. We're supposed to be fully metric in England, but as I said before, the population is still a little bit divided. I think we're going to have to wait until my generation has all died out before we can say we're truly metric.
I voted for the 'other' option as there wasn't an option for 'Using both'

Andy Wade wrote:Well yes.

But APOD is aimed at everyone.
And a lot of people viewing APOD don't use metric at all.
To restrict it to metric only (or just imperial for that matter) limits the understanding that APOD is trying to foster.

Darned right...let's use intuitive units that everyone can understand:

one mile -- 1.6 km -- 4.94 Eiffel Towers
570 feet -- 175 m -- 190 shoelaces
300,000 ton -- 272 million kg -- 359,000 Volkswagon Beetles
130 feet -- 40 m -- 130 breadboxes
26,000 miles per hour -- 41,839 km/h -- 19.3 times the Concorde
9 miles across -- 14 km -- 3431 Volkswagon Beetles

Actually...aren't the captions written by quite a few different people? I don't know the editing process for the APOD's, although I gathered it was managed completely separately from nightskylive.

Regardless, if I had to pick just one, it would be metric because of international commonality. I can usually convert numbers in my head with enough accuracy to appreciate the gist of the caption.

Nice one

The default should be metric units. Surely!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SI-m ... -world.png

I voted for Imperial. When I read that a light year is 9,460,730,472,580.8 km, it's a pain to have to convert that to miles just so I can visualize it better.

I was afraid that I might be the only "IMPERIAL" voter for a while,
I think that both should be used since APOD and the Internet itself is world wide.

iamlucky13 wrote: one mile -- 1.6 km -- 4.94 Eiffel Towers
570 feet -- 175 m -- 190 shoelaces
300,000 ton -- 272 million kg -- 359,000 Volkswagon Beetles
130 feet -- 40 m -- 130 breadboxes
26,000 miles per hour -- 41,839 km/h -- 19.3 times the Concorde
9 miles across -- 14 km -- 3431 Volkswagon Beetles

Laughed so hard I about fell out of my chair!

As you might surmise from my moniker, my location is the USA, state of Arizona, but I claim Scottish as part of my ancestry. Therefore, I'm thinking that weights in 'Stones' ought to be included in parentheses! 8)

My point is that any number of exotic systems of weights & measures may be included under the category "Other", and those users may be justified in asking for equal time (as it were) once the door is opened to include anything in parentheses.

btw, my vote was for "Imperial", whatever that is!

AZJames wrote:

iamlucky13 wrote: one mile -- 1.6 km -- 4.94 Eiffel Towers
570 feet -- 175 m -- 190 shoelaces
300,000 ton -- 272 million kg -- 359,000 Volkswagon Beetles
130 feet -- 40 m -- 130 breadboxes
26,000 miles per hour -- 41,839 km/h -- 19.3 times the Concorde
9 miles across -- 14 km -- 3431 Volkswagon Beetles

Laughed so hard I about fell out of my chair!

As you might surmise from my moniker, my location is the USA, state of Arizona, but I claim Scottish as part of my ancestry. Therefore, I'm thinking that weights in 'Stones' ought to be included in parentheses! 8)

My point is that any number of exotic systems of weights & measures may be included under the category "Other", and those users may be justified in asking for equal time (as it were) once the door is opened to include anything in parentheses.

btw, my vote was for "Imperial", whatever that is!

IMPERIAL because invented by the Brits to use in their Empire.

Face it.
It's the USA's last link with real culture & civilisation. Why else would you hang on so to a complicated system like that?

Personally I still talk about pounds, shillings & pence, (& florins ie two-bob pieces, half-crowns ie "two-and-a-kick", & Aberdeen half-croons ie the old octagonal 3d pieces).

iamlucky13 wrote: 300,000 ton -- 272 million kg -- 359,000 Volkswagon Beetles
...
9 miles across -- 14 km -- 3431 Volkswagon Beetles

Seing how they united the measures of length and time in SI'83*, your system opens even wider perspective to unite the measures of length and mass.

*The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second.

And I believe that the Yard is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/327,360,000 of a second.

According to wiki, The most commonly used yard today is the international yard which by definition is equal to 0.9144 metre. But who will trust wiki, any way? The point was, that in 1983, the SI unit of length (meter) was derived from unit of time, while before that it was one of primaries.

toejam wrote:Face it.
It's the USA's last link with real culture & civilisation. Why else would you hang on so to a complicated system like that?

Personally I still talk about pounds, shillings & pence, (& florins ie two-bob pieces, half-crowns ie "two-and-a-kick", & Aberdeen half-croons ie the old octagonal 3d pieces).

Oh! Low blow!
Just to confuse the issue, the US Navy and Air Force and all civilian pilots use the nautical mile as a unit of measure (and velocity; ie, knots).

Now, it turns out that a nautical mile = 1,852 meters, exactly.

And to make things even more muddy, we have 360 degrees, with 60 minutes per degree and 60 seconds per minute. This means that every minute, the sun moves 15 minutes across the sky. Or put another way, it moves a minute every 4 seconds.

yes this division is unbelieveably ancient (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_%28 ... bdivisions)

Inches, feet, yards, metres (meters in the US), light years, parsecs.... It seems that nobody uses such as perches/poles, furlongs, chains anymore.

Ah well, a flagon of ale will do me nicely right now. Cheers all.

Incidentally, what happens to all the light when it meets the edge of the Universe or is that expanding quicker than the speed of light so it will not happen (until the Universe ever starts contracting). Wow, deep thought! I really do need that flagon now.