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4hv.org :: Forums :: General Science and Electronics
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Blue whales, tennis courts and other non-SI units

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Dr. Slack
Thu Feb 22 2018, 11:14AM Print
Dr. Slack Registered Member #72 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:29AM
Location: UK St. Albans
Posts: 1659
I was trying to explain forces and energy to somebody recently, and used the 'an apple weighs one Newton' equivalence.

I then wondered whether larger forces were similarly imaginable, and imagine my delight when wikipedia confirmed that 1MN is within the typical weight range for a blue whale.

10^6:1 is a rather large range, so we need something in the middle. What weighs 1kN? A 100kg (220lbs) (fairly large, so rugby player, or Your Mom) human.

Any other favourites?
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Sulaiman
Thu Feb 22 2018, 01:29PM
Sulaiman Registered Member #162 Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 10:25AM
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3140
I do not know why but the above reninded me of a time in the early '70's when I submitted a report using all metric units.
My boss wanted it in 'imperial' units, so I converted everything
from metres, kilogrammmes and seconds, to furlongs, firkins and fortnights.

On a separate occasion the same boss asked me to re-write a report because although all pertinent information was clearly presented on one page,
it did not sound 'technical' enough.
So using my best approximation to obfuscational legaleese I submitted a seven page report,
that no one, including me, could decipher ... much better ... AAAAARGH!

I hope that my interruption has ammused more than annoyed ... bye.


P.S. later, the factory floor adopted Firkin as a standard measurement for everything,
e.g. two firkin heavy, too firkin hot, too firkin difficult ....
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Nik
Thu Feb 22 2018, 05:46PM
Nik Registered Member #53 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 04:31AM
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 638
When describing energy and power I like to use 'highway-pickup trucks' or 'highway-pickup trucks per second.' It helps people understand why I don't want to work on 600v switch gear while it is live.

A 20kA short (it's really close to the transformer) can supply ~10 highway-pickup trucks per second before the breaker trips.
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Patrick
Thu Feb 22 2018, 09:46PM
Patrick Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639
One pixy fairy wing is 3/7ths of a mm.
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Conundrum
Wed Feb 28 2018, 09:47AM
Conundrum Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4059
Spooner, the unit of AI uprising where 1Sr is a full Skynet AI "Ah Hell NO" uprising where heading to the bunker(s) is recommended and a 50-100 mSr is a mere takeover of the Echo Dots by advertisement on the TV. (cough cat food /cough)
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DerAlbi
Wed Feb 28 2018, 09:59AM
DerAlbi Registered Member #2906 Joined: Sun Jun 06 2010, 02:20AM
Location: Dresden, Germany
Posts: 727
Stupid me ranting about a missunderstood phase because i am not a native english speaker
I find it irresponsibly to talk about such things in an educational manner with such lack of accuracy. Newton is a Force not a weight. An apple can weigh 1kg, which exerts a force of 9.81N against the earth, but never ever can an apple weigh 1 Newton.

Just use proper terminology, educate in terms of what things mean in their simplest formulas.
1N accelerates 1kg of mass in such a way, that after one seconds its speed increased by 1m/s, after two seconds 2m/s and so on. If this is not understanable for the person, wait until the person matures enough, but never start by educating wrong things - overly simplified.. ok - but never wrong! Its much better to shut up at such a point.

The next step is that you assign Watts to energy and Joule to Power or treat Energy and Power as interchangeable (which is common in english language, but nevertheless totally wrong). Dont. Pure cancer.
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Dr. Slack
Wed Feb 28 2018, 12:00PM
Dr. Slack Registered Member #72 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:29AM
Location: UK St. Albans
Posts: 1659
Nice rant Mr Albi.

Weight is a force, forces are measured in Newtons, mass is not a weight, masses are measured in kg. The guy on the street uses mass and weight interchangeably, as do I when I'm buying potatoes, whose mass is estimated by comparing their weight to a reference, usually the stress in a spring, but also used to another weight. A typical apple weighs about 1 Newton (exerts a force on whatever is supporting it) at sea level, 1 bar atmospheric pressure, and 23 degrees Celcius. Actually, with the variability of typical apples, we don't need to worry about standard conditions, or the difference between 9.81 and 10.

Let's say you're a technician (that is, not a scientist), working in a field where forces tend to be expressed in kN. You need to have a feel for what a kN is when you go to interact with that, do you need mechanical handling or not? One big(gish) person weighs one kN. Job done.

Check out my other posts, you'll travel a long way before you find another person who's as keen an energy/power Nazi as myself. As it happens, the conversation I was having that inspired this post was how much energy could be stored in various media. A 40Ah car battery stores the same as a 17 tonne mass would release falling through 10m (when the local g is 10m/s2 (I didn't add that last bit at the time(figuring that this potato-buying person would know what I meant)))

I am also an English usage and spelling Nazi.


I find it irresponsibly to talk about such things in an educational manner with such lack of accuracy. Newton is a Force not a weight. An apple can weigh 1kg, which exerts a force of 9.81N against the earth, but never ever can an apple weigh 1 Newton.

Just use proper terminology, educate in terms of what things mean in their simplest formulas.

What part of speech is irresponsibly? Do you mean irresponsible? And the plural of formula is formulae, not formulas.

I think I know what you are trying to say, even with your spelling errors.

You know what I am trying to say, even though you don't seem to understand force and weight, and are choosing not to see the needs of my target audience, implied by the context of the OP, who will not be 'maturing' into physics anytime soon. You also seem to miss the light tone of the OP, which is sad.
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DerAlbi
Thu Mar 01 2018, 12:25AM
DerAlbi Registered Member #2906 Joined: Sun Jun 06 2010, 02:20AM
Location: Dresden, Germany
Posts: 727
Continuing my piontless point..
So its me who does not understand force and mass, i see cheesey
Your argument is basically, that the everyday guy uses force and mass interchangeably and even its wrong you can do it too then and even support the wrong thinking.
The same argument applies to basically everything if you need to: just look for the stupidest person in the room, use the knowledge and wrong concepts of thinking as reference to set your acceptable level of "good enough" and teach it to others. This will bring pure degeneration.
An apple does weigh some amunt of kg, never ever Newtons. Only because your thought model is about the apples gravitational force to earth, it does not mean that you can count weigh in Newtons in any weight.
An apple in an accelerating car changes its exerted force Newtons while its mass (resistance to a change in velocity) stays allways the same.
Also there will never be an current flowing through a wire thats is counted as "10 Volts". Or a voltage of a battery does not have 10 Amperes. Those are exactly equivalent sentences to your "an apple weighs a Newton" bullshit.
In every case between the thing you wanted to measure (weigh, current volts) and the unit given (Newton, Volt and Amps) is an relation (ratio) of something else (acceleration, resistance, conductance).

If you have a known 1 Ohm resistor, and you measure a current though it, you never anser its "2 Volts", even thats technically what you actually measure at 2A.. (like the spring measures force actually force in a scale).
You see how ridicules those sentences are, but yet you accept "an apple weighs a Newton" because of social acceptance for stupidity and not knowing better is cool or what not. It is absurd..
You can argue all day long, mixing units will never be right nor will it be acceptable. If the everyday guy gets it wrong, the only thing to really should talk about is what has gone wrong in his education and what can you do to improve his condition. Being a bad example your self is not an improvement.
But you choose to stand here and argue why the clearly wrong is acceptable, picking on spelling mistakes in your defence like a cedible man does it..

And no worries, it get it. The fact alone that i am the 4th participiant in this trhead and no one else even gets the bullshit and notices it, draws me in a pretty alone position. Its still the right thing to cry out for respect for physics.
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Dr. Slack
Thu Mar 01 2018, 06:55AM
Dr. Slack Registered Member #72 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:29AM
Location: UK St. Albans
Posts: 1659
<sigh> Link2 (wikipedia) and Link2 (stack exchange physics)

It really doesn't matter what you Mr. Albi choose to call things, as long as you keep the names to yourself. But if you want to converse with scientists, then you need to use the agreed vocabulary. It's been agreed that weight, force on a mass due to gravity, is measured in Newtons.
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DerAlbi
Fri Mar 02 2018, 07:59AM
DerAlbi Registered Member #2906 Joined: Sun Jun 06 2010, 02:20AM
Location: Dresden, Germany
Posts: 727
Holy shit, then i owe you an appologie big time. Thats my fault. You are right, its a problem with vocabulary. My confusion comes from phrases like "this weighs a ton" and "my weight is 200 punds", "the scrap metal is weighing in several kg".. and stuff, so i assumed the weight being a measured mass in kg and therefore one cant have weight in Newtons. I wouldnt have thought that such common terms are so messed up..
The example "the scrap metal is weighing in several kg" yields a perfect translation of what i thought it meant if put through google translate. There it actually translates into a mass-related word. In German we have the concept of "weight" being a mass while we use the conecpt of word concetination to be more specific about some things, so the gravitational force of a mass is tought as (1:1 word-to-word translation) "weight-foce" or "mass-force".
..again i am sorry, but i hope you understand why i was mislead by this.. inconsistency.
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