A Questions Regarding Pounds and Ounces

[David Thomas]

The short answer is 0/0 is undefined, but 0/0 can be whatever you want it to be.

Want it to be 12?

Evaluate (1/(x-6)) x ((x^2-36)/1) at x=6 and you get 0/0. But as x approaches 6, its value is 12.

[David Thomas]

Nick: Is that a K&E Decilog? K&E was top of the line, back in the day and set a college engineering student back a far bit, monetarily.

I love that scene in Apollo 13, the movie, after, "Houston, we have a problem" and everyone in mission control reaches for their slide rule.

[Luke Schmidt]

"How long is a cotton picking minute"
Franco a cotton picking minute is much shorter than a Coon's Age. I believe its a bit longer than a "New York Minute" if only because things tend to be a bit more laid back in the southern states compared to the northern states.

[James Marco]

Exactly my point.

[spelt with a t]

I use this. There are many online sites but I don't find them as user-friendly (plus this is portable and weighs less than the index card of conversion factors I used to carry in my calculator case ;). This won't give you lb.tenth -> lb/oz, but it will do lb.tenth to total ounces, which is then easy to divide by 16 to get pounds plus remainder ounces.

[Nick Gatel]

@ Dave,

It is a Post Versalog with a bamboo slide. It was issued to me in the 60's when I was a freshman at the Air Force Academy. I think it was the only rule ever used at the Academy.

I still have my Pickett 1010 aluminum rule with the original box, case, and manual from high school.

A little trivia… both the Air Force and Navy Test Pilot School patches have a slide on top of a plane.

I think slide rules are cool :)

[Clint Wayman]

If my southern rearin' is of any use:

+ A cotton-pickin' minute is the amount of time that it takes for one to get 'over yonder'
+ 2 cotton-pickin' minutes would be the amount of time that it takes to travel both hither and yon.

[Carl Zimmerman]

how long is a cotton-pickin' minute ?

It depends if it's Metric or 'Merican. :)

[David Thomas]

Nick:

My 11-year-old gave me a slide rule app for Christmas.

If I have my iPhone with me, it saves me the weight and bulk of the slide rule. *joke*

Er, yes, I realize the iPhone has a calculator. It's the irony of it that is appealing. And I use slide rules to teach mathematical concepts – particularly logarithms.

In the same vein, I have a rotary dial app. Because I was trying to explain why Alaska's area code is lousy (907) while NYC got the best one (212).

[Nick Gatel]

I have an iPhone, which works pretty good as a phone to call people. Voice mail is great, as I don't usually answer it either. I don't need all the other stuff. As far as "apps" go, I find the free metrics converter app I got works well… as I like inches, yards, miles, ounces, and pounds. But this is the most useful app for me.

When I hike, I mostly go alone and don't take a phone. Last year I took some young guys on a trip and brought my iPhone because I felt responsible for the group and it might be handy in case we were attacked by a squirrel or something worse. Well after hiking all day on a 8,000 foot elevation gain, we checked into the Ranger station to show our permit, and the Rangers told us to get off the mountain because a freak storm was coming in and they expected winds of 90 mph. So we headed down with the intention of calling my wife to pick us up. When we got to an area where one bar showed on my phone, it would not work. Someone suggested that in poor coverage, texting sometimes works. Pfttt… I had to ask them how one would text.

[Bob Gross]

"Someone suggested that in poor coverage, texting sometimes works. Pfttt… I had to ask them how one would text."

Nick, that's OK. My phone is black and has a rotary dial. I've never had to replace batteries in it.

–B.G.–

[David Thomas]

I find texting handy on the trail in exactly that setting – intermittent one bar of reception. If my text goes out, it went, accurately. And if I leave my phone on, an incoming text gets received as soon as I pass a section of trail with a bit of reception. That's actually how I find the spots with reception – where I've received texts.

[Anonymous]

"how long is a cotton-pickin' minute ?"

Depends on who's pickin' the cotton.

[Franco Darioli]

First serious post for the year
(I knew this was going to happen sooner or later…)
I have to thank Ken for asking because I think that I have been confused by the use of the decimal point too.
Matter of fact I am still confused now but aware of it.
Franco
BTW, I am reading another Bill Bryson book " Made in America"
All about how the language evolved over there (if you are there than read "here")
For some reason my brain is on Auto Erase, so I forget what I read only 2 moments after I do.

[Nick Gatel]

Pounds, ounces, and fractions of pounds seem self-evident and logical to me. It is this silly forced conversion the metric system that is mind-boggling. I still get centimeters confused with centipedes. A quart sounds so nice, as does a quark. But a liter sounds like a bunch of kittens. Gallons and Galleons sound majestic. And who would want to travel 104,000 kilometers under the sea? The old mariners were in a league of their own. And what happened to the most classic athletic event of all time; Dr. Bannister has been insulted and trivialized — and the sport in chaos; high schoolers running 1600 meters and older more skilled collegians & pros pulling up short by 100 meters. Blasphemy I tell you! And I can no longer safely hike solo because I can't figure out how to measure 28.34953 grams of prevention versus 453.5924 grams of cure. One good thing though — I could never figure out the difference between a kilo, can or lid of pot — so I abstained. Actually I understood the can and lid — the kilo lost me. And would we know who the Byrds were if the were 12.87475 kilometers high, or if Eminem hung out on 12.87475 Road — would that make Detroit bigger. I can't visualize Tom Hanks walking the Green 1.609344 Kilometer or Peter Straus running the Jericho 1.609344 Kilometer. It's kill-o-ing me. I can't figure out if a Kilo is the weight of the food in my pack or how far I usually hike in 30 minutes. Conspiracy I tell you!!! And if Colin Fletcher had walked 1609 kilometers in 1958 the title wouldn't have sold and backpacking would be a lot different. The whole metric thing is so depressing. Well, I'm going to go read some poetry by Ezra Lessthanhalfakilo and eat a piece of Lessthanhalfakilo cake and see if that cheers me up. Maybe 200 mililiters of Scotch would help; but the liquor store only had 1/2 pints. Sigh.

[Bob Gross]

I understand a car speedometer that measures miles per hour. Or, I can flip a switch and it measures kilometers per hour. What's up with that? If it was metric/scientific, it would be something per second, not something per hour. I need to switch it to meters per second or furlongs per fortnight.

–B.G.–

[Nick Gatel]

I bet it is a lot of fun figuring out your miles per gallon in those other places too. I bet it would be expensive to switch new car measurements for the Monroney stickers.

[Bob Gross]

"I bet it is a lot of fun figuring out your miles per gallon in those other places too."

It is automatically done by the fuel computer.

I don't know. What do you use your car's fuel computer for?

–B.G.–

[Nick Gatel]

My car doesn't have a fuel computer. But it does have a radio and a trailer hitch.

[Tor Magnus Castberg]

It seems to me that when metric is taught in the US they're missing out some important points.

The basic measurement is grams for mass, meters for distance and liters for volume.

You can convert these to larger or smaller values and put a prefix on the description to make them easier to deal with.

Kilometer(*1000), Meter(base unit), Decimeter(/10), Centimeter(/100), Millimeter(/1000). (You can also refer to it by half or quarter for ease of use such as half-a-meter (Some places also use a metric mile which is 10 kilometers (f.ex. Norway))

Liter(base unit), Deciliter(/10), Centiliter(/100), Milliliter(/1000). (A recipe should ask for 2dl of water, not 200ml. Again you can use half or quarter measures.)

Kilogram(*1000), Gram(base unit), Milligram(/1000). (Interestingly enough not many intermediary units are used for weight. Don't ask me why, but for daily use it doesn't seem to be very useful. Again you can use half or quarter measures.)

Not sure if that makes it easier or worse?

[Mark Fowler]

Usually fuel consumption is measured as litres/100km the inverse of miles/gallon.

A litre is 1,000 (10^3) cubic centimetres (cc) with 1 cc of water at standard conditions weighing 1 gram so a litre weighs 1kg. Once you get the hang of it it is easy to convert.

Just to add to the confusion, a hectare is 10,000 sq metres (10^4) (approx 2.5 acres) so some of the common units used in metric system countries do represent useful "on the ground" measures.

I was taught to do long division of pounds, shillings and pence at school. It is no different to working in any mixed multiple system (pounds & ounces or galleons, sickles & knuts). The real advantage of the decimal system is that you get to work with a single unit always base 10, rather than several units each with it own base (ounce 16 –> pound 14 –> stone, or fluid ounces 16 US or 20 imperial –> pints 8 –> gallons).

[Nick Gatel]

The US monetary system is base 10. The problem is that that tiny dot-point is easy to lose or misplace. Seems our politicians misplace or lose it a lot, especially when building a budget. When they find it and reconstruct the numbers too often they put the dot too far to the right.

Numbers be our friends. Metric numbers are cold and impersonal. Our measurement numbers have pizazz, character, mystic and are fun to play with. Metric is just plain Nerdy — no personality. Next thing you know, some nerd is going to try and force a base 10 day, month and year on us! There is no greater thrill than looking into the past, which is deep sky objects and contemplating millions of light years. I like light years a lot.

[Franco Darioli]

Our measurement numbers have pizazz, character, mystic and are fun to play with.

Yes, it is nice to cling to what we know , makes us feel all warm and fuzzy.
(I felt like that when I used to poo my pants but apparently the feeling did not last)

All the great empires did that.
Kind of funny that China was one.
Like other great empires, they did not see any reason to look at what was happening everywhere else because they were so ahead of the pack not to have to bother.
Or so they thought…
Now having learned that lesson , they are just happy selling you guys all the toys you want and buying your Government Bonds with your money.

Franco

[Nick Gatel]

But, Franco… would you like to walk a kilometer in my shoes? That phrase doesn't bring me miles of smiles, or blow up my kilt. Metric-speak may be okay if one always writes in iambic pentameter. And I don't think any country will overtake the US because our speedometers read MPH… and I get your point about the reluctance to change, in an ever changing world.

I can deal with any measurement system, they are just numbers and I don't misplace my decimal points.

And as Tevye said, "Traditions, traditions. Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as… as… as a fiddler on the roof!"

Oh, maybe not a progressive as a UL hiking philosophy, but then I still have a couple Svea 123s and Kelty external frame packs. And they still work quite well, thank you. :)

[Franco Darioli]

maybe not a progressive as a UL hiking philosophy,/b>

Progressive ? All I see is stagnation.

Anyway , I wonder if anyone can beat the 328' sprint record held by Usain Bolt. With a name like that it is going to be a touch challenge.
Franco

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