Comments on: Austin and Ben, to Scale

By: Philipp Ringler

Philipp Ringler — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 00:25:19 +0000

In reply to MarRog. “In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade — which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go fuck yourself,’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.” Josh Bazell

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 22:17:47 +0000

In reply to Michael.

jörn-jören jörensön says:
September 4, 2018 at 10:35 am

To be fair (as beeing born in the metric and Celsius world), we have to admit that Fahrenheit makes more sense from a scientific and mathematical point of view.

For the sake of science I would accept learning the meaning of 50° F.

I would also consider kicking pi for tau, but that’s another story…

Honestly, I fail to see how Fahrenheit makes more sense in a scientific/mathematical way. The calibration points used by Mr. Fahrenheit are pretty much impossible to reproduce accurately(freezing point of a specific solution and the temperature of the human body).
Celsius at least relied on pure water and its physical properties(freeze and boiling point). Establishing an interval from 0 to 100 with increments of 1 seems to be very convenient and reasonable, too. At least for humans and our preferred decimal system.

My real gripe with F is that there’s no simply way to convert to and from C°. At least not as easy as cm to in or km to mi.

By: Jose Almeida

Jose Almeida — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 20:30:21 +0000

Hi,
I’m al for decimal system, but then, don’t we still have circles with 360 degrees, each with 60 minutes divded into 60 seconds? and days with 24 hours again with degrees and seconds? Wouldn’t it be more consistent to use gradians for angles and arcs and also some new decimal unit for time?

By: Bakr Mustafa

Bakr Mustafa — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 17:09:17 +0000

The Boss is doing a 50,000 MT and putting his hand in high-altitude physics.
Whereas Ben is doing a VFR.

By: VK

VK — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 23:30:21 +0000

In reply to Mads Sorensen. Why don't you cry about it some more.

By: D Neely

D Neely — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 18:06:57 +0000

In reply to Michael. It is not as hard as you'd think. Since i'm retired I fly a lot! Since I ended up converting temps to C for the plane I eventually just started using it myself. For the record where I live now, 50° F would be considered cold, however, where i was born, its considered shorts weather

By: Jolly D'Buggirr

Jolly D'Buggirr — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 22:24:09 +0000

Hey Austin, If things should suddenly seem, well, like you just need a change? King Kong is coming to B’way and we need people in the monkey suite. (I don’t mean management, although, according to commenters you would have a good shot at that too–since your so tall)_

By: XPlane Port

XPlane Port — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 18:03:23 +0000

In reply to Pascal. I shall call him mini me

By: Ron H

Ron H — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 12:41:39 +0000

In reply to Michael. As a Canadian, we have to work in both metric AND imperial. So close to the U.S. We have metric and imperial tools for the different things we need to fix and build. It's easy when you do it your whole life. :-)

By: Markku Post-Uttula

Markku Post-Uttula — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 17:21:36 +0000

Nice picture 🙂 Plus a seriously disturbing realisation of how perspective can lie (not to mention that Pascal’s edit of the picture makes things look very “lord-of-the-ringsey”:)

I also find it peculiarly strange (i.e. “strangely strange”:) that while flying, I have absolutely no trouble thinking about feet and miles and whatnot – but in everyday life, for “short distances”, it shows a serious mental struggle … for me “a foot” is a short distance … and even having anything below 10-100 of them feels somehow “small” – until I actually do the conversion and realise that that isn’t usually the case.

Weird world.