Those who are innumerate yes. Those who are highly numerate prefer the metric system for its very simplicity. Those who want to extract a little more information from the numbers, in the manner that I have described no. Likewise, if I see leaves being blown by the wind, I can estimate how far those leaves are going in one second, but not in one hour.
Some years ago a friend and I were trying to estimate the diameter of a sphere that contained 2000 ton(ne)s of water without resorting to pen, paper or calculator. I made the assumption that one tonne of water has a volume of one cubic metre. My friend made the assumption that one ton of water is equal to 2240 pounds and that one cubic foot of water weighed 62.5 pounds. Guess who got the answer first? -----Original Message----- From: Brian White <[email protected]> Sent: 04 August 2021 23:10 To: [email protected] Cc: Martin Morrison <[email protected]>; USMA List Server <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [USMA 1771] Re: Olympic Tennis Metrics Bah. Everyone equates it to speed in a vehicle. Simple as that. > On Aug 4, 2021, at 16:16, [email protected] wrote: > > Quoting the speed of a tennis ball, baseball ball or cricket ball in km/h is > not very helpful. Has anyone ever seen one of these balls travel for an hour. > Using m/s makes for more sense. > > In baseball, the distance from the pitcher to the plate is 18.39 metres (or > 60'6"). If the pitcher delivers the ball at a speed of 100 mph, how long does > the batter have before the ball gets to him? If he pitches it at 44 m/s (the > exact conversion is 44.69444), it is easy to see that he batter will have > about 0.4 s (18.39/44). > > Martin > > -----Original Message----- > From: USMA <[email protected]> On Behalf Of [email protected] > Sent: 04 August 2021 21:58 > To: USMA List Server <[email protected]> > Subject: [USMA 1768] Olympic Tennis Metrics > > From an internet posting: "I'm a metric system enthusiast but the Olympic > baseball broadcast is displaying pitch speed in km/h, and I am grateful that > our stupid measurement system happens to work out so that "100 = A Very Fast > Pitch." > > Actually, I have seen pitch speed in km/h for Wimbledon, and, I think, the > French Open, etc. > > _______________________________________________ > USMA mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma > > _______________________________________________ > USMA mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma _______________________________________________ USMA mailing list [email protected] https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma
