h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Try to guess how much a cubic foot of water weighs.....































Seriously... Try to guess......























Ok.... are you thinking of a weight?.....


























You're probably not as close as you think...........




























Try really hard to estimate the weight of a cubic foot of water (without looking it up!)....







































Did you guess 62.43 lbs?


Were you close?

Well, it's approx 30 cm cubed = 27000g = 27kg.

Don't know what this is in archaic units.

A ten year old child, roughly!


(I was part of that cheated generation that was taught the metric system in the seventies only to have the rest of the country ignore it. So I'm not comfortable with imperial nor metric units.)

Also, when I was at schoo9l, I was taught the IUPAC nomenclature for organic chemistry, and was told this was the "dogs b*ll*cks". We were taught not to use the previous nomenclature but had to know it because this was what we would read in textbooks, and was still used in industry. So, we had to know both systems. Well, I have been teaching 'A' Level chemistry for 18 months now and am staggered that, to an extent, the nomenclature has reverted back to the old. e.g. methanol, ethanol, propanol etc belong to the homologous series of ALKANOLS (as I was taught). However, nowadays, although the IUPAC nomenclature is used for the names of the individual alkanols, the homologous series is referred to as ALCOHOLS. The same is true for most of the other homologous series. i.e. alkokoxyalkanes are nowadays referred to as ethers, alkylalkanoates as esters, alkanoic acids as carboxylic acids...

I leave worrying about this nomenclature to my son, who studies chemistry (I am an Arts person, me ). I am glad ot that, it sounds very copmplex!

I am part metric, part Imperial. For instance, lengths, metric, weight, metric for things, Imperial for people, but non-American, so stones nor pounds for people. Pounds, to me, suggest vegetables, as my Mum bought potatoes by the pound, I buy them by the kilo...

Imperial is obviously the best system. Pounds? That's a weight, not a unit of currency. And what's all this kilo stuff? Kilo sounds like a fruit. And a meter is a device; a mile is a unit of distance. So you see, Imperial is the best, especially for those of us who like meaningless numbers (like 5,280 feet to a mile), and of course, those of us who just grew up with it and are far too lazy to change now.

>> Pounds? That's a weight, not a unit of currency. <<

Actually, it's both. From days of yore when a pound of money actually *meant* a pound weight.

RF

I was talking to a Scot Saturday about this... He hated when they converted to the metric system... but he did say he was able to make quite a bit of money at it. Like everyone else he raised his prices and blamed it on the metric system. He told his employees (apparently he's a building contractor) that he would now be paying them to paint by the sq. meter. He was able to raise his prices by nearly half. It lasted for a few months until everyone started questioning it.

I apply different systems to different things:

- People are in feet and inches, stones and pounds
- Cheese is in ounces
- Most other foods (fruit, veg) can be in Kilos or pounds
- Hashish is in to the 2 to the minus n ounces.

(oops) ....Hashish is in 2 to the minus n ounces.

About three percent of pet owners give Valentine's Day gifts to their pets

The world's record for keeping a polo in the mouth with the hole intact is seven hours and 10 minutes.

Bill Gates gets four million e-mails each day, but only about 10 make it to his in-box because of his anti-spam software.

Brad Pitt was paid $5 million to be in a commercial.

uma thurmans dad was the first american to be ordained a buddist monk

only 13% of scientists are women

I wonder how they did that - I've only managed about 6 minutes (BTW - surely you mean with the annulus intact?)

What some people will do to get into the record books...

The one physical act that's recognized in every known society is the shrug of shoulders to mean, "I don't know."


In poker, a pair of queens is also referred to as a "Siegfried & Roy."

<<In poker, a pair of queens is also referred to as a "Siegfried & Roy.">>