Meters, Yard, Same Thing . . .
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@AndyCanfield said:
And I'm in a country that uses metric, and every weight scale in the nation; hey, every weight scale in the CONTINENT (Asia), is calibrated in kilograms and/or grams and/or tons. Never in Newtons.
... which, from a purely physical (as in related-to-physics, not any other sense of that word) point of view, is wrong. It's just a typical case of "we've always done it that way" and the reason why most people don't get the distinction between mass and weight.I admit, it is not completely wrong, since weight is a consequence of mass, but it relies on the assumption that there just happens to be a reference mass nearby - earth - whose gravity field is fairly constant over the ranges where humans can comfortably live. But once we start settling other planets and star systems - something which I'm sure is just around the corner, any time now - we'll sorely realize just how terribly wrong we were all this time when the local grovery store is short-changing us on that "kilogram" of sandurian quatloo-berries due to the higher gravity on planet Flarboog VI.
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@Anonymouse said:
@AndyCanfield said:
And I'm in a country that uses metric, and every weight scale in the nation; hey, every weight scale in the CONTINENT (Asia), is calibrated in kilograms and/or grams and/or tons. Never in Newtons.
... which, from a purely physical (as in related-to-physics, not any other sense of that word) point of view, is wrong.
Which is why no one cares.
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The only thing they weigh in Newtons is Figs.
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@Anonymouse said:
But once we start settling other planets and star systems - something which I'm sure is just around the corner, any time now
Don't worry, that won't happen any timesoon.
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@ender said:
Don't worry, that won't happen any time
soon.The link is irrelevant. The problem of going faster than the speed of light, and the problem of Andy appearing in orbit around Sirius, are two entirely different problems. For example, see wormholes.
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@AndyCanfield said:
@ender said:
Don't worry, that won't happen any time
The link is irrelevant. The problem of going faster than the speed of light, and the problem of Andy appearing in orbit around Sirius, are two entirely different problems. For example, see wormholes.soon.Or that episode of Voyager where Tom Paris goes faster than transwarp and then he turns into God and then he turns into a gecko lizard thing and then he kidnaps Janeway and then he turns her into a gecko lizard thing and then they have gecko lizard thing sex and gecko lizard thing babies.
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Download Celestia, a very good cosmos simulator.
You're at Earth.
Hit Q (reverse)
Tap A (go faster) for a while and sit back as you more away from earth. Speed is indicated at the bottom-left.
(optionally, O for toggling orbits)
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Moon becomes visible. Earth is now a dot.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Get fed up and tap A some more, because once you've got the inner planets in view, going at some small factor of light speed isn't nearly enough to actually make things happen on screen.
Tap more A.
The solar system disappears into the void. Sun's visible as a dot. Hale-Bopp's orbit is a tiny oval and then vanishes out of distance-LOD.
Then nothing happens, but you're still moving.
Tap A.
Nothing happens.
Tap more A.
The local stars slowly start moving away.
These are the kind of distances and voids we're dealing with. It's ridiculous.
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@dhromed said:
@dhromed said:Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
@dhromed said:Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Get fed up
@dhromed said:Nothing happens.
Sounds like a super fun game.
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@blakeyrat said:
Sounds like a super fun game.
It is! :D
But seriously, Celestia's not a game. It's a simulator that aims to be correct rather than entertaining. I saw similar software on an iPad once, and it aimed more to be entertaining than accurate; being all iGlossy. Fun, but it didn't really offer much. It basically was the equivalent of a list of objects in our solar system with a super fancy interface. :\
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@dhromed said:
Shake.
Shake.
Shake.
@dhromed said:
Shake.
Shake.
Shake.
@dhromed said:
Shake your booty.
@dhromed said:
Shake your booty!
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@dhromed said:
Drop.
Drop.
Drop it.
@dhromed said:
Drop.
Drop.
Drop it.
@dhromed said:
Drop it like it's hot.
@dhromed said:
Drop it like it's hot.
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@blakeyrat said:
@dhromed said:@dhromed said:@dhromed said:
@blakeyrat said:
@dhromed said:@dhromed said:@dhromed said:
@dhromed said:
@blakeyrat said:
@dhromed said:
@blakeyrat said:
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@dhromed said:
Download Celestia, a very good cosmos simulator.
You're at Earth.
Hit Q (reverse)
Tap A (go faster) for a while and sit back as you more away from earth. Speed is indicated at the bottom-left.
(optionally, O for toggling orbits)
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Moon becomes visible. Earth is now a dot.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Get fed up and tap A some more, because once you've got the inner planets in view, going at some small factor of light speed isn't nearly enough to actually make things happen on screen.
Tap more A.
The solar system disappears into the void. Sun's visible as a dot. Hale-Bopp's orbit is a tiny oval and then vanishes out of distance-LOD.
Then nothing happens, but you're still moving.
Tap A.
Nothing happens.
Tap more A.
The local stars slowly start moving away.
These are the kind of distances and voids we're dealing with. It's ridiculous.
Or you can just watch this 1977 film.
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@dhromed said:
Download Celestia, a very good cosmos simulator.
Is that what Celestia is? Odd, because I've been mostly using it as reference material for worldbuilding my scifi stories. And it's quite good for that (at least on the rare occasion where you feel the need to mythologize and draw some DIY constellations visible from some hypothetical planet)
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@Weng said:
@dhromed said:
Download Celestia, a very good cosmos simulator.
Is that what Celestia is? Odd, because I've been mostly using it as reference material for worldbuilding my scifi stories. And it's quite good for that (at least on the rare occasion where you feel the need to mythologize and draw some DIY constellations visible from some hypothetical planet)I thought it was a baked potato topping!!
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@Weng said:
@blakeyrat said:
I thought it was a baked potato topping!!
And a very good one at that.Well, I have been using it as a vital ingredient in my roux, so there's that.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Weng said:
@dhromed said:
Download Celestia, a very good cosmos simulator.
Is that what Celestia is? Odd, because I've been mostly using it as reference material for worldbuilding my scifi stories. And it's quite good for that (at least on the rare occasion where you feel the need to mythologize and draw some DIY constellations visible from some hypothetical planet)I thought it was a baked potato topping!!
It's actually a pony princess.
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@Spectre said:
@blakeyrat said:
@Weng said:
@dhromed said:
Download Celestia, a very good cosmos simulator.
Is that what Celestia is? Odd, because I've been mostly using it as reference material for worldbuilding my scifi stories. And it's quite good for that (at least on the rare occasion where you feel the need to mythologize and draw some DIY constellations visible from some hypothetical planet)I thought it was a baked potato topping!!
It's actually a pony princess.
SQUEEEEE
Her hair is so WAVEY!
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@blakeyrat said:
Her [b]wings[/b] [b]are[/b] so [b]pretty[/b]!
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOP3BhQjlzQ]FTFY[/url].
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@Spectre said:
@blakeyrat said:
Her wings are so pretty!
FTFY.
Wow, she SAYS that? What a stuck-up self-centered bitch!
I'm joining the Nightmare Moon camp.
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@boomzilla said:
Or are you foreigners just biased against word play riddles like that?
No, you fatuously racist idiot; I was quite fairly pointing out that his word-play joke only works when spoken, so that "ton" and "tonne" can sound the same, but is complete fail when written out in words, since doing so removes the ambiguity on which the word-play fucking depends. Duh.
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@AndyCanfield said:
Ton maman!@da Doctah said:
@AndyCanfield said:
I just took a vote; searching Google for "ton" gives "About 727,000,000 results"; searching for "tonne" gives "About 32,000,000 results". So the vast majority of computers spell it T-O-N.
Bearing in mind that you have to subtract the ones where "ton" has some other meaningValid point. Also I did not allow for web pages not in English; perhaps "ton" is a valid French word.
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@Anonymouse said:
If everyone and their grandma AND wikipedia AND the OED call it a unit of weight not mass, isn't it possible that you are wrong rather than the only unique genius in the whole world who is right? I mean, you can argue that the word has the wrong meaning and it ought to mean something other than what it does, but it's not a persuasive argument. A kilogram is an SI unit of mass. The ton is a unit that was defined many many years ago, way before kilograms were invented (and I suspect before the distinction between weight and mass was clearly understood), and it was defined in terms of a given number of imperial pounds, which were unquestionably a measure of weight not mass. (It was not until 1963 that the pound was for the first time redefined as a mass rather than a weight.)@DaveK said:
A ton weighs the same in any gravitational field, but in Boston (elevation 43m) you will need slightly more mass of steel to weigh a ton (or a tonne) than in Bangkok (elevation 2m).
Did you notice that whooshing sound just slightly above your head? Oh well, never mind. Still, if you have to be picking nits, you could at least try to get it right. Even if the popular usage keeps conflating "weight" and "mass", you seem to be aware of the distinction - except you got it right only halfway. A "ton" is not a unit of weight (even if everyone and their grandma keeps calling it that), it is a unit of massTons are defined in terms of pounds, and pounds were (at the time of that definition) weight not mass. Hence tons are weight not mass. QED.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_(mass)#Relationship_to_the_kilogram
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@dhromed said:
How about this one?@da Doctah said:
Or you can just watch this 1977 film.
Not enough impact.
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Dictionary.com, my refernce standard for the English language, defines "ton" as:
1. a unit of weight, equivalent to 2000 pounds (0.907 metric ton) avoirdupois (short ton) in the U.S. and 2240 pounds (1.016 metric tons) avoirdupois (long ton) in Great Britain.2. Also called freight ton. a unit of volume for freight that weighs one ton, varying with the type of freight measured, as 40 cubic feet of oak timber or 20 bushels of wheat.3. metric tonSo we can have a ton of steel in Boston, Bangkok, and Bristol, and they Bristol weighs the most, followed by Bangkok and then Boston. What a crazy!
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@DaveK said:
@boomzilla said:
Or are you foreigners just biased against word play riddles like that?
No, you fatuously racist idiot; I was quite fairly pointing out that his word-play joke only works when spoken, so that "ton" and "tonne" can sound the same, but is complete fail when written out in words, since doing so removes the ambiguity on which the word-play fucking depends. Duh.Hey, did you know that you put an extra "ne" at the end of one of your tons? The joke works for me both ways!
Edit: Also, it has 5 'a's: raaaaacist.
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@DaveK said:
@dhromed said:
How about this one?@da Doctah said:
Or you can just watch this 1977 film.
Not enough impact.
yezz
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@AndyCanfield said:
Here, let me help draw your attention to the relevant part for our discussion:Dictionary.com, my refernce standard for the English language, defines "ton" as:
@AndyCanfield said:
QED.1. a unit of weight, equivalent to 2000 pounds (0.907 metric ton) avoirdupois (short ton) in the U.S. and 2240 pounds (1.016 metric tons) avoirdupois (long ton) in Great Britain.2. Also called freight ton. a unit of volume for freight that weighs one ton, varying with the type of freight measured, as 40 cubic feet of oak timber or 20 bushels of wheat.3. metric tonSo we can have a ton of steel in Boston, Bangkok, and Bristol, and they Bristol weighs the most, followed by Bangkok and then Boston. What a crazy!
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@AndyCanfield said:
A yard is a meter, to about plus or minus ten percent. A very useful conversion. Also a liter is a quart.
Here's one for you: Which is heavier? A ton of steel in Boston, or a ton of steel in Bangkok?
The ton of steel in Bangkok is heavier, because it's a metric ton, 1000 kilograms, 2200 pounds. A ton of steel in Boston is only an archaic ton, 2000 pounds.
An Imperial ton is 2240 pounds, not 2000. 1 Cwt. = 112 pounds, 20Cwt = 1 Ton. So there's only -40 pounds difference in fact, ie. it is lighter in Bangkok. Unless there's a USian ton, which would add to the general WTFness of US measurements.
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@method1 said:
Unless there's a USian ton, which would add to the general WTFness of US measurements.
What's a "USian?"
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton says In the United Kingdom, the ton is a unit of measure which, when it ceased to be legal for trade in 1985, was defined in British legislation as being a weight or mass equal to 2,240 pounds (1,016 kg). In the United States and Canada, however, a ton is defined to be 2,000 pounds (907 kg). To avoid confusion, the former is more specifically referred to as a "long ton" and the latter, a "short ton"; neither should be confused with the metric ton, which is 1,000 kilograms (2,205 lb).
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@boomzilla said:
@method1 said:
It's a Jamaican sprinter.Unless there's a USian ton, which would add to the general WTFness of US measurements.
What's a "USian?"
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@boomzilla said:
@method1 said:
Unless there's a USian ton, which would add to the general WTFness of US measurements.
What's a "USian?"We should just start calling everybody by their country abbreviation + -ian. Method1, are you a UKian? Or maybe a CAian?
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@blakeyrat said:
@boomzilla said:
@method1 said:
Unless there's a USian ton, which would add to the general WTFness of US measurements.
What's a "USian?"We should just start calling everybody by their country abbreviation + -ian. Method1, are you a UKian? Or maybe a CAian?
Sure, but c'mon, the USA isn't even the only country with "United States" in its name on the continent. It is the only one with, um, "America" in its name, though.
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@boomzilla said:
Sure, but c'mon, the USA isn't even the only country with "United States" in its name on the continent. It is the only one with, um, "America" in its name, though.
Oh the other hand, ignoring the centuries-established term for another which is more accurate (but in reality isn't really) is the perfect kind of pedantic dickweedery that keeps this forum going!
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@method1 said:
An Imperial ton is 2240 pounds, not 2000. 1 Cwt. = 112 pounds, 20Cwt = 1 Ton.
That's right, folks. A "hundredweight" is 112 pounds.
And the "Hundred Years' War" lasted 116 years.
And the "12 Girls Band" has thirteen members:
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This is in a slightly different track than the thread has been going, but all I can say is that a meter and a yard are obviously different, because there are such things as thermometers but, as far as I know, no thermoyards. There are also micrometers (whee double meaning!) but no microyards (at least not in common use).
Of course, one has to give credit to the yard, because of yards of ale (I've not heard of the metric equivalent).
Hopefully this has contributed sufficiently little to the conversation for a late Friday evening.
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@da Doctah said:
One of the people in the picture is a guy, so the name makes sense. I'll let you figure out which one.@method1 said:
An Imperial ton is 2240 pounds, not 2000. 1 Cwt. = 112 pounds, 20Cwt = 1 Ton.
That's right, folks. A "hundredweight" is 112 pounds.
And the "Hundred Years' War" lasted 116 years.
And the "12 Girls Band" has thirteen members:
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@too_many_usernames said:
Of course, one has to give credit to the yard, because of yards of ale (I've not heard of the metric equivalent).
I think it is still called a "yard glass" or a "yarder" but is slightly longer than a yard. I know I have used a few such glasses.
I remember when I first heard of the term "yard" and thought it would have to be around 20 metres, since that was the width of my house's block of land (so the width of the front yard). (I was about 7)
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@dhromed said:
Celestia, a very good cosmos simulator.
This is one of the best practical astronomy demonstrations that I've ever seen... http://www.solar.york.ac.uk/
Highly recommended to anyone who just happens to be cycling in or around York.
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@RTapeLoadingError said:
This is one of the best practical astronomy demonstrations that I've ever seen... http://www.solar.york.ac.uk/
I like this very much.
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Found this one in the Aug. 29 issue of TIME:
They served in Iraq together, and they nearly died together on Nov. 15, 2004, when their humvee was blown up by an antitank mine. [...] The humvee flew [b]200 ft. (60 km)[/b] through the air and landed upside down.
The amazing thing is that one of the men it's talking about survived, despite being trapped inside the humvee on its epic aerial journey.
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@Scarlet Manuka said:
Found this one in the Aug. 29 issue of TIME:
They served in Iraq together, and they nearly died together on Nov. 15, 2004, when their humvee was blown up by an antitank mine. [...] The humvee flew 200 ft. (60 km) through the air and landed upside down.
The amazing thing is that one of the men it's talking about survived, despite being trapped inside the humvee on its epic aerial journey.
Suddenly the bit with the fridge in the last Indiana Jones film doesn't seem so far fetched.
(Although it's possible that a humvee is a bit more solid than a 1950's fridge.)
Kilogram - Wikipedia
