Forwarded as requested ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gregory Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: 2001February06 13:26 Subject: [USMA:10875] Re: Strange Conversion Factors in CNN/AP Article The following letter was sent to AP and to CNN. Satellites reveal shrinkage of polar ice sheet February 2, 2001 Web posted at: 11:43 AM EST (1643 GMT) http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/02/02/sci.meltingice.ap/index.html WASHINGTON (AP) -- ... Now, satellite studies show that about 7.5 cubic miles (12 cubic km) of ice have eroded from a key area in just eight years. ... It covers 740,000 square miles (1,184,000 square km) of the frozen continent. ... Antarctica contains about 7.2 million cubic miles (11.5 cubic km) of ice, ---- Above are three horrible errors made in this article. Quite simply, you cannot divide square and cubic km by 1.609*344 and expect to get square or cubic miles. 1 mile = 1.6 km 1 mi² = 2.59 km² and 1 mi³ = 4.168 km³ One must square or cube the conversion factor in order to achieve the correct answer. Knowing that the research was done by professional scientists (and I truly hope that this article was NOT written by a professional journalist... if so how many other gross errors are there!) I would have to assume that the correct figures are the metric numbers. Note that 12 km³ is 2.9 mi³, not 7.5 mi³ (a difference of 4.6 mi³!); 1,184,000 km² is 457,000 mi², not 740,000 (a difference of 283,000 mi²!); and 11.5 million km³ is 2.8 million mi³, not 7.2 million (a difference of 4.4 million mi³!) For this very reason America should adopt the metric system. How many other errors does AP report when the editorial staff cannot understand simple mathematics. If you report the correct, original, metric values only then there would be no need to tax your mental abilities to translate the values to those that Americans can supposedly understand better. We already saw a multimillion-dollar fiasco at NASA when they were unable to convert from English values to proper metric values. Please don't insult us by assuming we don't understand metric quantities. Please don't insult us with your ignorance. Please clean up your act and report metric stories in metric only. Sincerely, Gregory Peterson >>> "Bill Potts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2001-02-05 09:30:44 >>> See the report at http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/02/02/sci.meltingice.ap/index.html. Apparently, either AP or CNN has forgotten that the conversion factor from cubic miles to cubic kilometers is the cube of the miles to kilometers conversion factor: "Now, satellite studies show that about 7.5 cubic miles (12 cubic km) of ice have eroded from a key area in just eight years." Also, one of their conversions is out by a factor of about 2.5 million: "Antarctica contains about 7.2 million cubic miles (11.5 cubic km) of ice ..." I'd write them, but I'm pressed for time at the moment. Anyone else like to have a go at them? Bill Potts, CMS San Jose, CA http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
