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Apollo: One gas environment?



 
 
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  #31  
Old May 3rd 04, 06:55 PM
Jay Windley
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"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
|
| Hardly. He's criticizing SI because this particular relationship doesn't
| work in practice, but SI has never claimed it did...

That's true, Henry. I momentarily blurred the distinction between SI and
"the metric system".

--
|
The universe is not required to conform | Jay Windley
to the expectations of the ignorant. | webmaster @ clavius.org

  #32  
Old May 3rd 04, 07:16 PM
Ami Silberman
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An American baker is happy baking cookies in Fahrenheit. A French baker

is
happy baking cookies in Celsius. Does it really matter? My argument is
that it does not, and that any measurement system that claims to be based

on
"natural" relationships is probably not.

And a British baker is happy baking cookies in "Gas Marks". Are these
actually calibrated, or correspond to anything? It confuses me when I watch
Jamie Oliver on the Food Network.


  #33  
Old May 3rd 04, 07:26 PM
Nicholas Fitzpatrick
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In article ,
Doug... wrote:

But remember -- a pint's a pound the world around!


Costs a lot more than a pound these days ...

Nick
  #34  
Old May 3rd 04, 07:38 PM
Mary Shafer
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On Mon, 3 May 2004 11:22:40 -0600, "Jay Windley"
wrote:

I'm reminded of a (probably apocryphal) story about MIT engineering students
who were asked to design and construct a bridge using the unit of "smoot",
Professor Smoot being their instructor. His linear, volumetric, and mass
properties were the measurement units for the project. Steel had a density
of so many smoots-mass per smoots-volume, for example. In doing that, you
would gain a deeper appreciation for where these "accepted" values for
everything actually come from, and greater insight into the arbitrary nature
of practically any measurement system.


Your version is apocryphal. The truth is much less complex and much
more random.

Oliver Smoot was a student in 1958, when his fraternity pledge class
measured the Harvard Bridge (364.4 smoots, plus an ear) and marked it.
The markings are renewed biennially.

One smoot is 5' 7", in case you wonder.

An American baker is happy baking cookies in Fahrenheit. A French baker is
happy baking cookies in Celsius.


And the British baker is baking biscuits in Gas Marks.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

  #35  
Old May 3rd 04, 07:42 PM
Mary Shafer
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On Tue, 4 May 2004 00:15:04 +0800, "Neil Gerace"
wrote:

"Jay Windley" wrote in message
...

For example, the relationship between liter and kilogram seems
wonderfully logical until you forget to take into account just under what
precise (and largely arbitrary) conditions a kilogram and a liter of water
can be considered equivalent.


Most normal situations. What about the relationship between the gallon and
the pound? And by the way, which gallon and which pound?


For everyday purposes, one gallon of water weighs eight pounds. This
is for the standard cooking gallon, measured in a marked cup, and
pound, measured on a scale. The corrections for temperature, etc, are
smaller than the tolerance in the measurements and this is appropriate
for situations using gallons.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

  #36  
Old May 3rd 04, 08:03 PM
Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker (zili@home)
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Am Sun, 02 May 2004 16:23:50 -0500 schrieb "Herb Schaltegger":

[...] There are no "localized versions" at issue
with any of them vis a vis Apollo.
[...]
1 U.S. gallon = 3.79 liters

US gallon... localized version... QED scnr


cu, ZiLi aka HKZL (Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker)
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  #37  
Old May 3rd 04, 08:13 PM
Herb Schaltegger
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In article ,
"Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker (zili@home)" wrote:

Am Sun, 02 May 2004 16:23:50 -0500 schrieb "Herb Schaltegger":

[...] There are no "localized versions" at issue
with any of them vis a vis Apollo.
[...]
1 U.S. gallon = 3.79 liters

US gallon... localized version... QED scnr


Look at the Subject header, why don't you? Does the word "Apollo"
provide any context? It should, after all. If understand that Project
Apollo was a U.S. program, than any "localization" issue with regard to
the subject at hand is moot.

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
Columbia Loss FAQ:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html
  #38  
Old May 3rd 04, 08:24 PM
Henry Spencer
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In article ,
Doug... wrote:
Exactly. I mean, we Americans could have sat around making fun of those
British who had a difficult time converting from Lsd currency to decimal
currency -- we've had decimal currency since the very beginning. But,
last I heard, not a single American I know ever drug the British over
the coals over that one.


Believe me, there were some. Canadians too. :-)
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |
  #39  
Old May 3rd 04, 08:25 PM
Henry Spencer
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In article ,
Jay Windley wrote:
I've seen kilograms-force (kgf) gain popularity as a competing unit of
force. In my mind that's just revisiting the fiasco between pounds-mass and
pounds-force in English units...


Fortunately, I think that use is fading rather than growing -- it's a relic
of some of the pre-SI metric systems.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |
  #40  
Old May 3rd 04, 08:36 PM
Jay Windley
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"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
|
| The least he can do is extend the same courtesy to the
| metric system.

Yes, fair enough. I think my opinion lacks focus. You're obviously correct
in that any system intended to be consistent can be used consistently as
long as its practitioners take appropriate care. Obviously someone who uses
meters and kilograms may also (inconsistently, according to SI) use Celsius,
and that's not really any better than Fahrenheit when it comes to scientific
applications. That's why SI wisely uses Kelvin for temperature. If you're
asking me to justify the confusion between variants of English units, of
course I can't.

I think what I was trying to look at -- and what got sidetracked into the
consistency argument -- was the notion that SI was physically-based. That
is, derived from "natural" basic relationships and not from the size of King
George's shoe or whatever. When you get right down to it, the basic pieces
of any measurement system will be arbitrary.

Let me emphasize that I'm not trying to trash *any* measurement system. Are
there good arguments for using SI and also the metric system? Yes, there
are.

--
|
The universe is not required to conform | Jay Windley
to the expectations of the ignorant. | webmaster @ clavius.org

 




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