I think you would have been more effective if you had interrupted him during his sermon and gave him the correct value. This way the whole congregation would have heard you as well.
I hope you told him there is no correct value in miles as 299.792 458 km/s / 1.609 344 km/mile results in a number that never ends. What was his response to what you did tell and show him? Jerry ________________________________ From: Pierre Abbat <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 11:55:13 PM Subject: [USMA:44173] The speed of light The pastor today preached a sermon in which, to give some idea how big the universe is, he gave the distance to various stars and galaxies in light-years and explained what a light-year is. He gave the speed of light in miles per second. I corrected him afterward, saying that the speed of light is a defined constant in meters per second, which I pulled up on my calculator. Where he got the figure I don't know. I heard it when I was little, before metrication started here, but he grew up in Colombia. I also noticed that the thermostat downstairs (we meet in a building belonging to another church, along with a congregation of Hmongs) is a bimetallic spring jobbie with both Celsius and Fahrenheit scales. My thermostat (which is currently turned off because of the season) displays in Celsius, but it's an electronic one. Pierre
