Were the Lunar Rovers faked?

[Noldi400]

In trying to work things out from the Apollo records, it also doesn't help that they're pretty much all in EES units.

[Sus_pilot]

Well, I like knots myself, and its fun to be different.

(Runs from room snickering)

[JayUtah]

"So I was flying at 130 knots per hour..." (runs in the other direction)

I'm reasonably comfortable working in either EES or IS.  The problem is that there are two systems.  It's the number of the systems that bothers me, not the alleged superiority of one system over the other.  Decimal inches is not any more difficult for me to think in that decimal feet or decimal meters.

I remember a European engineer telling me how silly we must all feel using feet, inches, and carpenters' subdivisions (i.e., 3-3/8 inch).  He was quite surprised to learn that EES uses either feet or inches as a linear measurement for a single problem, with consistent units built around each -- e.g., "foot-pounds" or "inch-pounds" for torque, but never both in the same design.  And the base units are decimalized, just as SI.  So a spacecraft velocity could be given as "32,543.3 feet per second."  Boeing for decades engineered all their aircraft in decimal inches.  Many people are unaware how engineers use EES, just as many people grow up learning the metric system without learning the special engineering SI usage.

[JayUtah]

Well, I like knots myself, and its fun to be different.

The nautical mile at least has a basis in (true) geometry, being defined as a specific fraction of the Earth's circumference at the equator.

The English survey units are what most people think of when the refer to the crapulence of the English/Commonwealth/Imperial units.  Salt Lake City still has to deal with acres and rods and statute miles because that's the way it was laid out, and it makes little sense to measure it in SI, or even in less uncommon English units.

The base blocks is here https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/images/e/e9/Salt_Lake_Base_and_Meridian_2.JPG at Temple Square.  The meridian obelisk is one of the original USGS survey marks and sits precisely at 111 W 54 00 according to the old datum.  (Your GPS will differ.)  All the blocks are laid out on a grid with this as its origin, each 10-acre block receiving a 100-unit address block east, west, north, or south from this location.  Salt Lake City addresses are simply the coordinates of the location according to that obelisk.  (Drives visitors nuts, but it's an incredibly logical plan.  Say what you want about Mormon politics and religion -- their civil engineering was 50 years ahead of its time.)

[Glom]

"So I was flying at 130 knots per hour..." (runs in the other direction)

I'm reasonably comfortable working in either EES or IS.  The problem is that there are two systems.  It's the number of the systems that bothers me, not the alleged superiority of one system over the other.  Decimal inches is not any more difficult for me to think in that decimal feet or decimal meters.

I remember a European engineer telling me how silly we must all feel using feet, inches, and carpenters' subdivisions (i.e., 3-3/8 inch).  He was quite surprised to learn that EES uses either feet or inches as a linear measurement for a single problem, with consistent units built around each -- e.g., "foot-pounds" or "inch-pounds" for torque, but never both in the same design.  And the base units are decimalized, just as SI.  So a spacecraft velocity could be given as "32,543.3 feet per second."  Boeing for decades engineered all their aircraft in decimal inches.  Many people are unaware how engineers use EES, just as many people grow up learning the metric system without learning the special engineering SI usage.

We use carpenters' subdivisions (so that's what it's called) quite a lot.  Pipe sizes and bit sizes an obvious example.  On our wells, the 12 1/4" hole was cased with 9 5/8" casing.  I suppose our continual talk about "the nine 'n' five eighths" is a bit more lyrical than "the two four four point four seven five".

Also, choke sizes are usually given in 64ths of an inch and irritatingly, Prosper doesn't have an option for 1/64th of an inch as a unit so I keep having to convert to a decimal to run the choke calculation.  I have asked for this option.

[Abaddon]

"So I was flying at 130 knots per hour..." (runs in the other direction)

I'm reasonably comfortable working in either EES or IS.  The problem is that there are two systems.  It's the number of the systems that bothers me, not the alleged superiority of one system over the other.  Decimal inches is not any more difficult for me to think in that decimal feet or decimal meters.

I remember a European engineer telling me how silly we must all feel using feet, inches, and carpenters' subdivisions (i.e., 3-3/8 inch).  He was quite surprised to learn that EES uses either feet or inches as a linear measurement for a single problem, with consistent units built around each -- e.g., "foot-pounds" or "inch-pounds" for torque, but never both in the same design.  And the base units are decimalized, just as SI.  So a spacecraft velocity could be given as "32,543.3 feet per second."  Boeing for decades engineered all their aircraft in decimal inches.  Many people are unaware how engineers use EES, just as many people grow up learning the metric system without learning the special engineering SI usage.

We use carpenters' subdivisions (so that's what it's called) quite a lot.  Pipe sizes and bit sizes an obvious example.  On our wells, the 12 1/4" hole was cased with 9 5/8" casing.  I suppose our continual talk about "the nine 'n' five eighths" is a bit more lyrical than "the two four four point four seven five".

Also, choke sizes are usually given in 64ths of an inch and irritatingly, Prosper doesn't have an option for 1/64th of an inch as a unit so I keep having to convert to a decimal to run the choke calculation.  I have asked for this option.

Funny you mention carpenters. Round here, nuts bolts, self tapping screws are metric, yet oddly, woodscrews are imperial. People still talk of mpg, even though it's now officially kilometers per litre, and convert to boot. In local stores, people still ask for a pint of milk, even though it is now half a litre, yet oddly, if you order a pint of beer to get an old imperial pint. Perhaps it's a cultural thing.

[Sus_pilot]

"So I was flying at 130 knots per hour..." (runs in the other direction)

AACK!  I hate when people say that.  That's like saying "I was awake at 4:00 AM in the morning."

Anyway, the thing that really makes me crazy is doing date/time math.  I find myself converting things (assuming the software doesn't have native interval functions) to decimal hours and minutes, then doing the math, then converting back into hours and minutes.  Bleah.

[JayUtah]

We use carpenters' subdivisions (so that's what it's called) quite a lot.

Yes, when I say "decimalized" I don't mean necessarily roundly decimalized.  I still design with alignment holes 0.2504 in in diameter to accommodate a 0.2500-in dowel pin, because at heart a "quarter-inch dowel pin" will always be a quarter-inch dowel pin.  However, we still put electronics headers on 0.1-in centers, so there.

[JayUtah]

AACK!  I hate when people say that.  That's like saying "I was awake at 4:00 AM in the morning."

I know.  It annoys me too, hence I knew it would antagonize you appropriately.

Anyway, the thing that really makes me crazy is doing date/time math.  I find myself converting things (assuming the software doesn't have native interval functions)...

I always have a terminal window open to a MySQL server for that purpose

[cjameshuff]

Anyway, the thing that really makes me crazy is doing date/time math.  I find myself converting things (assuming the software doesn't have native interval functions) to decimal hours and minutes, then doing the math, then converting back into hours and minutes.  Bleah.

Now think about what you have to do to handle the calendar, leap seconds, and daylight savings time. Our time and calendar system is really quite absurdly complicated, to very little benefit.

And electronics is in a weird place where almost anything these days involves a mishmash of components measured in decimal inches and ones measured in SI. It's moving toward metric, but there's still a lot of 0.1" pitch components and connectors, and things like printed circuit board trace widths and spacing are generally specified in mils.

Like this:
http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-eEuKlkwdxVk/TCjg_ugVfyI/AAAAAAAAAQo/_ewzRRKjMcY/s971/rf231side.jpg

0.1" pin header on the left, while the transceiver IC is a 0.5 mm pitch QFN package.

I always have a terminal window open to a MySQL server for that purpose

Pry here.

[Ranb]

"So I was flying at 130 knots per hour..." (runs in the other direction)

AACK!  I hate when people say that.  That's like saying "I was awake at 4:00 AM in the morning."

Just think of it as accelerating at .02 meters/sec^2 (if I got my math right). 

Ranb

[smartcooky]

In the photographic trade, even outside of the US, people still routinely use imperial units to describe photographic sizing; 6x4, 7x5, 8x6 etc. Some of us even still use the old descriptions; 4R, 5R, 6R, 4S etc. People come into my shop and ask for a 7x5 frame, not an 18x13 or 180x130 frame

Also, while centimeters are not used generally in engineering, they are used in radar. Equipment operating around 10 GHz (X band), such as airborne primary weather radars, are generally known as "3cm radar", those operating around 3 GHz (S band), such as ground based surveillance radar, are known as "10cm radar".

Show me a piece of waveguide, and I could tell you what band it operates in and what probably what the radar was used for.


PS: and you know that little screw hole on the bottom of your camera that allows you to attach a tripod? Well, that screw hole has a ¼" British Standard Whitworth thread.

Even today, the latest digital cameras on the market made in Japan, China, Taiwan or Korea, are all equipped with the same ¼ BSW threaded hole that the 1950's 35mm film camera had.

[beedarko]

"So I was flying at 130 knots per hour..." (runs in the other direction)

AACK!  I hate when people say that.  That's like saying "I was awake at 4:00 AM in the morning."

"degrees Kelvin" is my cringe.

[Peter B]

Australia went metric in 1974, when I was in Year 2. I have a vague memory of being taught a lot that year about weights and measures, including one experiment where I tested my ability to drink successively 10 ml, 100 ml and 1000 ml of water. Not surprisingly, I succeeded with the first two amounts and failed with the third. Our heights were also recorded, and I remember being 121 cm tall, one of the shorter kids in class.

Yet despite being officially metric now for nearly 40 years, there are still some strange Imperial holdouts. While hospitals record baby birth weights in kilos, newpaper notices and informal discussions still often refer to pounds (when talking to people about the birth of our daughter, I always gave her birth weight in kilos, but made sure I knew what it was in pounds for those who looked confused). Milk is sold in 1, 2 and 3 litre bottles, but smaller cartons come in 600 ml and 300 ml, which are close to the pint and half-pint. And TVs are advertised with their screen sizes specified in inches.

I've always been comfortable thinking in Imperial distances, but for some reason I've never been able to sort out Imperial weights. A little more obscurely, I can work reasonably well with pounds, shillings and pence.

[gillianren]

Well, I like knots myself, and its fun to be different.

(Runs from room snickering)

Since I don't have a stake in the "units" race, can I complain about the apostrophe error?