On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
> They did a good job of translating all horrible imperial units to
> SI. Except once. They mention a runner that makes "400 yards
> in 45 seconds". What the hell is that?
>
> Well, I know that 1 foot = 28 cm (see previous message), and 1 yard =
> an integer but weird number of feet (or is a mile that is an integer
> but weird number of yards? - oh, forget it).
No. 1 foot = 30.48 cm. (See other people's posts as to why your 1 foot =
28 cm is half-assed.)
> So, lemme guess:
>
> if 1 yard = 2 feet, then v = 5 m/s (hmmm.... too slow)
> if 1 yard = 3 feet, then v = 7.5 m/s (hmmm... this seems to
> be ok)
Actually, 1 yard = 3 feet
so 400 yards = 1200 feet = 36576 cm = 365.76 m
and so v = 8.1 m/s, which is close to your 7.5 m/s and probably "ok" as
well.
> if 1 yard = 4 feet, then v = 9.956 m/s (hmmm.... for a 100m
> spring this is a very fast speed, but I don't think anyone can
> keep this speed for 45 seconds!)
>
> So, 1 yard = 0.84 meters
No, 1 yard = 0.91 meters. (Actually, the conversion table I have in front
of me has 1 ft = .3048 m so 1 yard = 0.9144 m; the table gives 4
significant digits where it has room to do so. The conversion table for
length, converting between 6 different measurements of length, is 48 mm
wide by 13 mm high, so when you're getting into things like the number of
miles in a centimeter, it just doesn't have enough width to do more than 3
significant figures before it has to do the 10 to the appropriate power.
I'll be happy to transcribe this table for Alberto, but he has to ask for
it.)
Julia
