Or, as the engineer said when his bridge fell down "damn that decimal point!" D. -----Original Message----- From: kilopascal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: September 9, 2001 15:18 Subject: [USMA:15166] Re: Fwd: Innumerate Journalists >2001-09-09 > >Yep, I'm way off. > >1 acre would be 0.4 ha (200 m x 20 m), thus 2000 acres is 800 ha. 800 ha >would be 8 km�, or 8 km x 1 km as you note, which would be 10 times longer >than a football field and about 160 times wider. > >I missed the 10 000 factor. Sorry! > >John > > > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Louis JOURDAN" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Sunday, 2001-09-09 14:57 >Subject: [USMA:15162] Re: Fwd: Innumerate Journalists > > >> At 12:58 -0400 9/09/2001, kilopascal wrote: >> >I do agree with his assessment of using thousands of acres to describe >areas >> >of land. In his example, 2000 acres is made to sound big, but, when >> >converted to sensible metric units, it sounds very small. 2000 acres is >800 >> >ha, which is 100 m x 8 m, which is about 6 times narrower then a football >> >field. >> >> Hmmm ? >> >> 800 ha = 800 x 100 x 100 m = 8 km x 1 km. >> >> I know that everything is bigger in the US, but your football players >> should be real sportsmen ! >> >> May be you know that the French decree of 1 Aug. 1793 defined the are >> as a square of 100 by 100 m. We can derive derive that an hectare >> (1793) was a square of 1 km by 1 km. 800 ha would mean a field of >> some 9 by 9 km ! >> >> The are = a square of 10 x 10 m was introduced by the decree of 7 April >1795. >> >> Louis >> >
