sherryl wrote:
> "J. van de Griek" wrote:
> >
> > CPS means cycles per second. That makes sense and tells you exactly
with it is.
> >
> > Not in German, French, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, Swahili or Afrikaans.
>
> That might not be exactly correct. You'd have to find an old audiophile
> who was from one of those countries and see what term was used when we
> used cps. Then you have to ask him what it meant to him. There are
> many words in all languages that become known and accepted in other
> languages.
They might use their own term for it, which is exactly what I meant. But
Hertz is an international standard (ISO) term, and like I said, any person
that knows his business knows what the term means.
> So while a particular language might have their own words for each of
> the individual words in their language, they might also understand the
> phrase "cycles per second" to mean exactly that.
Yes, they might understand the phrase, when translated, but they will not
necessarily understand it in Engliish. But if an English-speaking engineer
writes down that a device is made to operate at 60Hz, an Swahili-speaking
engineer will know exactly what he means.
> What language is the word Kilometer?
Latin. Kilo = 1000, meter (metrum) = measure or rythm.
As an aside, the meter and the second are the base of the while
international system of measures (the metric system); a kilogram is the
weight of a cubic decimeter (0.1x0.1x0.1m) of water; the unit of torque is
the Newton (1kgm, kilogram-meter); the unit of power is the Joule (1kgm/s^2,
or the power needed to give a mass of 1kg an accelleration of 1 meter per
second per second), and so on.
A meter, by the way, was once meant to mean 1/10,000 of the distance from
north pole to equator over the meridian of Paris; however, nowadays it is
defined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in a certain period
of time. So, basically, all metric units are essentially based on time.
> It is understood in many
> countries. The first thing that pops into my head (no pun intended)
> when you the "official" terms for both male and female oral sex are not
> English words. We have other slang words that are more common, Yet most
> people would understand the foreign words.
Yep, the official terms are Latin, like with most official terms. They are
expected to be known to any person who claims the leat bit of expertise in
the field (theoretical expertise, as in being a sexuologist in this case,
and not practical expertise, as in being a nymphomaniac. ;-)
> Now here is where my dyslexia comes in when it comes to spelling. So
> just sound it out, I'm sure the following phrase is not spelled
> correctly. In Flagrant DeLecto or Inflagrandi. We have English words
> to describe that (by the way, that's the way I want to die-in my
> eighties with all of my faculties and a 21 year old model on top of me
> just like my hero Nelson R. I'd like to be as rich as him too).
Sounds great to me!
> > It's Hz,
> (my dyslexia again)
I wasn't being nasty. But in the metric system, almost every letter is used
once or twice to denote either a unit or an amount. Thus, using the wrong
case for a measure can result in it actually meaning the wrong think.
Example:
kP: kiloPascal, or a pressure of 1000 kilograms per square meter;
KP: Kelvin-Pascal, or a temperature change of 1 Kelvin per Pascal of
pressure increase.
> and everyone who knows remotely what they're talking about will
> > know what you mean. A Hz is a second to the power of -1.
>
> Everyone? I'll bet that there are many, many people who know that a
> stereo with 20 to 20,000Hz is supposed to be very good (these same
> people have never heard of the word "flat") but haven't a clue what the
> Hz stands for.
If they do not even know what Hz stands for, shame on them. Then again, this
sort of thing is the same everywhere; computers are constantly advertised
mentioning the speed of the CPU (800MHz! Whoah!), and many people will go by
just that. There are, however many other factors that determine the speed of
a computer.
Likewise, there are other factors that make a stereo geed besides a
frequency response of 20Hz-20kHz. Anyone who merely goes by these numbers
when selecting a stereo deserves to be punished by the devil himself (the
devil in this case being an equally clueless but shrewd salesman cramming a
stereo they don't need down their throats).
> (US: 60Hz,
> > Europe: 50Hz), etc.
>
> But in the spoken word I still hear people refer to it as cycle as in
> "sixty cycle". People don't call it Hertz.
Perhaps that's just the Americans, who also still insist on using inches,
miles, feet, yards, gallons, ounces, pounds, etc...
Really, the only times I come across the term "cycle" for Hz, is when
dealing with American equipment.
> Just for the hell of it a checked a very old amp that I have. It states
> "60~" So at one time "~" meant cycle.
LIke another poster said, "~" is a symbol for AC (alternate current). But it
might also have been used at one time for cycle. Or Hertz... :-)
> Once again one of my dumber posts has lead to a long thread and now it
> even seems it has gotten to the point where people are starting to get
> mean about it.
Sorry if I sounded mean. I didn't mean to. (Pun intended, even though it
wasn't very funny).
,xtG
.tsooJ
--
Joost van de Griek
Applications Developer
Yacht ICT
http://www.yachtgroup.com/
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