Originally Posted By: Art_in_FL
I once had a chemistry teacher that imposed alternative measurement systems. One use for velocity was "furlongs per fortnight". "Flyweight" and "stone" were two of the weight standards.


I like that! Furlongs/fortnight.

Another reason I didn't like the units in my zillions of science classes were too many blasted fractions in the darn definitions of units! Yeah, I admit that foot-pounds and horsepower don't make much sense if you really try to break them down, but Joules, kPa, Torr and kg/m/sec don't help either. Like, well, shouldn't the last one really be (kgxsec)/m? The 'per' really threw me off for a year, and that's just to define what the unit is trying to measure!

Anyway, a kilometer feels like half a mile, ish. I'm actually OK with km simply because I was in cross country in high school. A 5km race is 3.1 miles. Which was too long, mainly cuz I was a track boy that did XC only to stay in shape off season.

Edit: Come to think of it, I have friends in the UK that use "stone" to refer to the weight of a person.


Edited by MDinana (01/17/08 02:46 AM)