Dear Jim,
Here's a few thoughts to help you get started on your 'survival crib sheet
for travellers'.
I hope its of some use.
Metric measurements for USA tourists A Starter Set
Walking
For most people you walk at about 100 metres per minute. This means that you
can go 1 kilometre in 10 minutes. It also means that you are walking at 6
kilometres per hour.
Bush walking
Although your normal walking pace on a good road or foot-path is about 100
m/min or 6 km/h you won¹t be able to keep this pace up in rough conditions.
To work out the distance you can walk allow 4 km/h without a pack and reduce
this to 2 km/h if you have a heavy pack. Without a pack, a fit walker should
be able to easily walk 30 km in a day or about 15 km if you carry a pack
that¹s about a quarter of your body mass. If you¹re walking without a pack
in hilly country, allow 20 minutes per kilometre plus 10 minutes for each
100 m rise in altitude.
Marching
Defence force personnel are trained to march with 750 millimetre paces at
120 beats per minute. This means that armies march at 90 metres per minute
or 5.4 kilometres per hour.
Pacing
One metre is a long pace for a tall person, or two short paces for a short
person.
Your body
The original metric system was designed with human measures in mind.
Approximations for men (these are usually a little smaller for women):
1 millimetre (mm) = the thickness of your thumbnail (About the same for
women)
10 mm = the width of your smallest fingernail (For women this might be a
different fingernail)
100 mm = width of a man's palm across the knuckles (Women's palms vary from
about 75 mm to about 95 mm)
1000 mm = 1 metre (m) = the length of your leg - from your heel to your hip
(Shorter and more variable for women)
1000 mm = 1 metre (m) = a long stretched pace
1.75 m = average height for men; 1.65 = average height for women
Your hand span from thumb-tip to little fingertip is about 250 mm for men
and about 200 mm for women.
If you are travelling in Biblical areas a cubit is the length from your
elbow to the tip of your longest finger. This is about 450 mm to 500 mm for
men and about 400 mm to 450 mm for women.
A man's chest measurement is about 1 m (= 1000 mm or 100 cm) and his waist
measurement is about 0.9 m (= 900 mm or 90 cm). For women, measurements of
about 95 cm 60 cm 90 cm are much admired!
Rooms
Doors are about 2 metres high and 800 mm wide.
Ceilings are about 2.5 metres high.
A bedroom might be 3 m by 4 m or 12 square metres (m2).
A living room might be about 5 m by 6 m or 30 m2.
Benches and sinks are designed to be about 900 mm high.
Mass
1 gram (g) is about the mass of a large thumbtack.
1 kilogram (kg) is about the mass of ten medium peaches or 10 medium apples.
Women, on average, have a body mass of about 60 kg, with a normal range from
about 40 kg to about 95 kg.
Men, on average, have a body mass of about 75 kg with a normal range from
about 55 kg to about 95 kg.
An average baby is about 3.5 kg; babies range from about 2.5 kg to about 4.5
kg.
Volume and capacity
5 millilitres (mL) = one teaspoon.
15 mL = 1 Tablespoon (20 mL in Australia)
250 mL = 1 cup
1 litre (L) = 4 cups
100 L = capacity of a bar refrigerator
200 L = capacity of a standard oil drum
400 L = capacity of a kitchen refrigerator
Temperature in Celsius degrees
Zero is freezing,
10 is not,
20 is pleasing
30 is hot,
40 frying,
50 dying.
Some common temperatures are:
Lowest recorded air temperature = 89 °C
Freezing point of pure water = 0 °C
Human internal body temperature = 37 °C
Highest recorded air temperature = 58 °C
Boiling point of pure water = 100 °C
on 2001-02-21 08.48, James R. Frysinger at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Hooray! I've broken the language barrier. Finally, a member of the
> college's language department (or perhaps she's in the International
> Studies Department) responded and it was an affirmative answer!
>
> This Friday, they are sponsoring a "fair" for those planning on or
> interested in studying abroad. First they agreed to provide some copies
> of my college page materials on the SI and to have some computers there
> for people to see the pages "live". Now, they've agreed to give me
> half a table for a display also. ("Table" is not a standard unit; I have
> no idea how big this thing will be.)
>
> I'll not only be there to answer questions (for 2.5 h) but I'll have
> some posters there as well (they haven't heard that part yet) and
> perhaps some handouts. Of course, this being a college event, I have to
> keep it non-commercial.
>
> I wish I had more notice of this so that I could have arranged to get
> some supplies here at my house by Thursday. But anything I do have on
> hand relating to the SI is fair game, as far as I am concerned. I'll
> probably make up a survival crib sheet for travelers, for one thing.
> And I've got a decent supply of NIST conversion cards in wallet size.
> Any ideas out there? My back-of-the-envelope estimate is that there
> will be ~100 people showing up. How do you say "Metric go braugh!"?
>
> Jim
>
> --
> James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston
> 10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
> Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street
> 843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424
> http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
>
