This is funny/sad.

I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to identify a profession by the units they use. For instance a person who gives the diameter of the Sun in centimetres is an astrophysicist, a person who gives altitude in hectopascals is a meteorologist, a person who gives the length of a bridge in millimetres is a civil engineer, etc. The units don’t have to make sense.

Please correct and add to the following collection of preferred units. Eg. geologist? chemist? mechanic?

Civil Engineer
Length in millimetres
Pressure in megapascals
Fluid volume in megalitres

Astrophysicist
Length in centimetres
Mass in grams

Astronomer
Length in parsecs (not light years)
Mass in solar masses

Meteorologist
Pressure in hectopascals
Length (ie altitude) in hectopascals
Speed in knots

The above I’m fairly certain of. Below is more conjecture.

Tailor
Area (of cloth) in metres
Length in inches (even in Australia, clothing sizes are most often in inches).

Pilot
Length (altitude) in feet

Mechanical Engineer
Length in millimetres
Width (of gap) in thou
Volume (eg. of car engine) in cubic centimetres
Pressure (of gas) in pounds per square inch

Chef
Mass in grams
Volume in millilitres (I suspect professional chefs prefer this to pinch, teaspoon, tablespoon, cup)

Musician
Time in bars
Frequency in cdefgab

Chemist?

Geologist?

mollwollfumble said:

This is funny/sad.

I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to identify a profession by the units they use. For instance a person who gives the diameter of the Sun in centimetres is an astrophysicist, a person who gives altitude in hectopascals is a meteorologist, a person who gives the length of a bridge in millimetres is a civil engineer, etc. The units don’t have to make sense.

Please correct and add to the following collection of preferred units. Eg. geologist? chemist? mechanic?

Civil Engineer
Length in millimetres
Pressure in megapascals
Fluid volume in megalitres

Astrophysicist
Length in centimetres
Mass in grams

Astronomer
Length in parsecs (not light years)
Mass in solar masses

Meteorologist
Pressure in hectopascals
Length (ie altitude) in hectopascals
Speed in knots

The above I’m fairly certain of. Below is more conjecture.

Tailor
Area (of cloth) in metres
Length in inches (even in Australia, clothing sizes are most often in inches).

Pilot
Length (altitude) in feet

Mechanical Engineer
Length in millimetres
Width (of gap) in thou
Volume (eg. of car engine) in cubic centimetres
Pressure (of gas) in pounds per square inch

Chef
Mass in grams
Volume in millilitres (I suspect professional chefs prefer this to pinch, teaspoon, tablespoon, cup)

Musician
Time in bars
Frequency in cdefgab

Chemist?

Geologist?

Government worker

Measurements in Close enough’s
Time in looking busy when not

probably the conversions they’re familiar with, are as important to your idea.

mollwollfumble said:

Civil Engineer
Length in millimetres
Pressure in megapascals
Fluid volume in megalitres

We civ engs are a bit more complex than that.

Survey length is in metres, even when its a chainage.
Sometimes structural dimensions are in mm and forces in N, so pressures and stresses are in MPa, but I usually use lengths in m and forces in kN, so stresses are in kPa.

In design codes, material strength and elasticity is usually in MPa, but applied loads and pressures in kN and kPa.

Han Solo – time in parsecs

Aviation has a bizarre mix of units. Minimum separation distances are given as 500 feet vertically and 600 metres horizontally; fuel is measured in litres (sometimes kilograms,) but oil in pints. Distances travelled are measured in nautical miles, but that’s actually reasonable.

btm said:

Aviation has a bizarre mix of units. Minimum separation distances are given as 500 feet vertically and 600 metres horizontally; fuel is measured in litres (sometimes kilograms,) but oil in pints. Distances travelled are measured in nautical miles, but that’s actually reasonable.

Thanks!

Chemist
Volume in millilitres
Concentration in moles per litre

(If concentration was in consistent units then it would be in moles per gram, or even better in grams per gram).

Media – water in number of “insert local famous harbour/river/lake” worth

Geologist:

Time in Ma. (Millions of years.)

Length rarely in millimetres.

Doctor Who

Time – “A big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff”

Worm hole energy – Bernards and Malcolms

• If concentration was in consistent units then it would be in moles per gram, or even better in grams per gram

It depends but moles per whatever is better than grams per whatever because if you were doing any sort of working out you’d need to convert the grams to moles anyway…

> We civ engs are a bit more complex than that.

Yes.

Cymek said:

Media – water in number of “insert local famous harbour/river/lake” worth

LOL. Yes.

Meteorologist
Length (rain) in mm

btm said:

Aviation has a bizarre mix of units. Minimum separation distances are given as 500 feet vertically and 600 metres horizontally; fuel is measured in litres (sometimes kilograms,) but oil in pints. Distances travelled are measured in nautical miles, but that’s actually reasonable.

Does that mean aircraft speed in knots?

Michael V said:

Geologist:

Time in Ma. (Millions of years.)

Length rarely in millimetres.

Great. Like that.

printers, length in picas.

Cymek said:

Media – water in number of “insert local famous harbour/river/lake” worth

“Plan to increase Wivenhoe by two Sydney Harbours”, April 4, 2017.

mollwollfumble said:

btm said:

Aviation has a bizarre mix of units. Minimum separation distances are given as 500 feet vertically and 600 metres horizontally; fuel is measured in litres (sometimes kilograms,) but oil in pints. Distances travelled are measured in nautical miles, but that’s actually reasonable.

Does that mean aircraft speed in knots?

Yes, horizontal speed is measured in knots; vertical speed is measured in feet (sometimes hundreds or thousands of feet) per minute.

• “Plan to increase Wivenhoe by two Sydney Harbours”, April 4, 2017.

The SI Unit is olympic swimming pools…

KPI are used to measure performance in many government jobs

• KPI are used to measure performance in many government jobs

Fixed…

> Swimming pools

Yes. Also hair’s breadth. Not sure about “truckload”, how is money measured?

Looked up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement

Had me PMSL. eg. the attoparsec is about 3.086 centimetres.

A few other websites in a similar vein
https://royal.pingdom.com/2009/07/13/strange-funny-and-baffling-units-for-measuring-almost-anything/
https://www.ranker.com/list/weird-units-of-measurement/ranker-science

I have no idea why those websites consider a “barn” to be a ridiculous unit of measurement. I use it all the time.

Nuclear physicist
Area – barn
Energy – mega-electron-volts

Nuclear physicists used to use the Gauss, Rad, Rem
Not sure if they’ve switched over to the Tesla, Gray, Sievert or stayed with the older units.
Tesla or Gauss
Grey or

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement

furious said:

• KPI are used to measure performance in many government jobs

Fixed…

Yeah, you wouldn’t see council workers using KPI.. more like..

Time… Minutes until next break
Volume… Litres re:capacity of Esky

• Time… Minutes until next break

I would have though it would be more like “Stop” and “Slow”…

Oceanographers… Sverdrup (symbol: Sv) is a non-SI unit of flow, with 1 Sv equal to 1,000,000 cubic metres per second

Michael V said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement

Oh I like this. Very much.

I stand corrected on “Electron volt”, it’s more often used as a unit of mass.
Double-decker bus, Football field, Eiffel Towers.

The one quantity where units are all over the place is hardness. Which hardness units do you use?

Mohs
Vickers
Brinnell (BHN and HBW)
Janka
Knoop
Meyer
Rockwell (HRA, HRB and HRC)
Shore
Barcol
Leeb

Ian said:

Oceanographers… Sverdrup (symbol: Sv) is a non-SI unit of flow, with 1 Sv equal to 1,000,000 cubic metres per second

Like.

Units of radiation dose…

Banana equivalent dose

Gray

Person-rem/year

Rad

Roentgen

Roentgen equivalent man

Röntgen equivalent physical

Sievert

Strontium unit

Working level

mollwollfumble said:

This is funny/sad.

I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to identify a profession by the units they use. For instance a person who gives the diameter of the Sun in centimetres is an astrophysicist, a person who gives altitude in hectopascals is a meteorologist, a person who gives the length of a bridge in millimetres is a civil engineer, etc. The units don’t have to make sense.

Engineers use millimetres and metres. Dressmakers use centimetres.

Proctologists – Courics

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

This is funny/sad.

I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to identify a profession by the units they use. For instance a person who gives the diameter of the Sun in centimetres is an astrophysicist, a person who gives altitude in hectopascals is a meteorologist, a person who gives the length of a bridge in millimetres is a civil engineer, etc. The units don’t have to make sense.

Engineers use millimetres and metres. Dressmakers use centimetres.

Um….no.

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

This is funny/sad.

I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to identify a profession by the units they use. For instance a person who gives the diameter of the Sun in centimetres is an astrophysicist, a person who gives altitude in hectopascals is a meteorologist, a person who gives the length of a bridge in millimetres is a civil engineer, etc. The units don’t have to make sense.

Engineers use millimetres and metres. Dressmakers use centimetres.

Except for French engineers, who adopt the dressmakers convention.

Gravediggers use feet.

kii said:

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

This is funny/sad.

I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to identify a profession by the units they use. For instance a person who gives the diameter of the Sun in centimetres is an astrophysicist, a person who gives altitude in hectopascals is a meteorologist, a person who gives the length of a bridge in millimetres is a civil engineer, etc. The units don’t have to make sense.

Engineers use millimetres and metres. Dressmakers use centimetres.

Um….no.

I can’t speak for dressmakers, but in those parts of N America that are not Mexico or Canada they of course use inches, except when they use feet.

They also have a variety of more esoteric units, such as kips, poundals and slugs.

Electrical engineers quite often hate using time (s) as a unit and will convert a circuit into the s domain (frequency) via a Laplace transformation.

Saves us doing all those weird intregrodifferentail equations that every one so loves. We are a simple lot and therefore prefer to use algebra.

• Gravediggers use feet.

And they chuck them into the ocean when they are finished with them…

The Canadian sea where severed feet keep washing up ashore

The Rev Dodgson said:

They also have a variety of more esoteric units, such as kips, poundals and slugs.

Ya. When an engineering paper starts using poundals and slugs I walk the other way.

Thanks to Ian, Cymek and sibeen.

kii said:

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

This is funny/sad.

I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to identify a profession by the units they use. For instance a person who gives the diameter of the Sun in centimetres is an astrophysicist, a person who gives altitude in hectopascals is a meteorologist, a person who gives the length of a bridge in millimetres is a civil engineer, etc. The units don’t have to make sense.

Engineers use millimetres and metres. Dressmakers use centimetres.

Um….no.

Inches for hems. Because 1 and 2 inch hems are neat.

I also use my hands to measure hems. The first part of my thumb is approximately 1”. So I’ve been known to not bother with the tape measure and pin up using my thumb to measure.

The rubbish has mostly been cleaned out of geophysics, though of course every now and then one must peruse archival data with imperial units.

In all of my creative endeavours where dimensions are of relevance, I use mm.

buffy said:

I also use my hands to measure hems. The first part of my thumb is approximately 1”. So I’ve been known to not bother with the tape measure and pin up using my thumb to measure.

Is that your rule of thumb?

Bubblecar said:

In all of my creative endeavours where dimensions are of relevance, I use mm.

…except when designing things on computer, I sometimes also use pixels.

dv said:

The rubbish has mostly been cleaned out of geophysics, …

What, even in the USofA?

The Rev Dodgson said:

dv said:

The rubbish has mostly been cleaned out of geophysics, …

What, even in the USofA?

Yes

dv said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

dv said:

The rubbish has mostly been cleaned out of geophysics, …

What, even in the USofA?

Yes

TGW Trump will fix that as soon as he has finished building the wall.

Racehorse Trainers/Punters:

Height… Hands

Length… Furlongs, Miles

Length, Winning Margin… Length, Neck, Head, Nose

Odds… Even money, 2:1 on etc

a forensic scientist will measure in

ranges
is consistent with
the likelihood of
has the appearance of
with an error rate of
+-n

Ian said:

Racehorse Trainers/Punters:

Height… Hands

Length… Furlongs, Miles

Length, Winning Margin… Length, Neck, Head, Nose

Odds… Even money, 2:1 on etc

Like.

> The rubbish has been cleaned out of geophysics

Please explain.

Do you mean like using the Moment Magnitude scale instead of Richter scale? Or using metric instead of Imperial.

Meteorologists use the Extended Fujita scale for extreme wind speed. Do ships still use the Beaufort scale?

The Rev Dodgson said:

kii said:

Spiny Norman said:

Engineers use millimetres and metres. Dressmakers use centimetres.

Um….no.

I can’t speak for dressmakers, but in those parts of N America that are not Mexico or Canada they of course use inches, except when they use feet.

They also have a variety of more esoteric units, such as kips, poundals and slugs.

I don’t care what the rest of this country does. I always try to use metric even though I was originally taught imperial. I’m doing some sewing now and I am metric-ing my little heart out.

btm said:

Aviation has a bizarre mix of units. Minimum separation distances are given as 500 feet vertically and 600 metres horizontally; fuel is measured in litres (sometimes kilograms,) but oil in pints. Distances travelled are measured in nautical miles, but that’s actually reasonable.

Close, but there’s more to it than that.
Short distances are in metres or sometime kilometres. Longer distances are in nautical miles. Heights are in both metres and feet. Altitudes are most likely to be in feet but there’s still large chunks of airspace that use metres. Fuel can be ordered in pounds, kilograms, tons, tonnes, litres, US gallons, and UK gallons. Oil can be in pints quarts, or litres.

btm said:

mollwollfumble said:

btm said:

Aviation has a bizarre mix of units. Minimum separation distances are given as 500 feet vertically and 600 metres horizontally; fuel is measured in litres (sometimes kilograms,) but oil in pints. Distances travelled are measured in nautical miles, but that’s actually reasonable.

Does that mean aircraft speed in knots?

Yes, horizontal speed is measured in knots; vertical speed is measured in feet (sometimes hundreds or thousands of feet) per minute.

There’s still some Russian gear that uses km/h for indicated speed*, and vertical speed in m/s.

*Indicated speed is what’s read from the air sped indicator. It’s not the true airspeed, that’s a different value and is almost always faster. The reason for that is because air speed indicators don’t measure speed, but a modified pressure reading that’s of more use than true airspeed. The reason for that is because the wing (and other parts) work far more consistently with an indicated airspeed, as for example a wing might stall at, say, 100 kts indicated at sea level. At 40,000’ it’ll still stall at 100 kts indicated but the true airspeed will be more like double that. So it’s easier to use an indicated speed as many of the various limiting speeds don’t change greatly with altitude.
Anyway all of what I just wrote also isn’t quite correct because a wing stalls at an angle and not a speed. For example if the wing stalls at 100 kts indicated at sea level in level flight, if you crank in a 60° banked turn, which will generate 2 G’s force in the plane, the wing will now stall at about 141 kts indicated. (A √2 thing)
Anyway, that’s not quite correct either as higher up in the atmosphere that stalling angle increases, due to the thinner air being able to break away more easily from the upper surface of the wing, so for a wing that might stall at 100 kts in level flight at sea level, it’s actually stall at a higher speed (I can’t remember the correction factor sorry) because of the thinner air.
So to attempt to make the aircraft safer, and Angle of Attack system is sometimes installed. It measures the angle of the oncoming wind to the longitudinal axis of the plane, and if the angle is getting a bit steep it’ll set off a warning horn.
It’s all fun when you get used to it.

I just found out that ‘tires’ (reading from a US text) are measured in vehicle type, mm, %, make type, and inches

Arts said:

I just found out that ‘tires’ (reading from a US text) are measured in vehicle type, mm, %, make type, and inches

Yes tyres are a bit if a mixed bag as well. Something like a 205/50-15 tyre has a tread width of 205 mm, a 50% sidewall ratio (height of the sidewall to the width of the tread), and it fits onto a 15” wheel. That being said, some French cars still use tyres that are fully metric. (I haven’t checked if that’s the case for a decade or two though)
Racing car tyres are different, for example I run 10.5/23-13’s on the rear of my old car. That’s the tread being 10.5” wide, the overall diameter 23”, and they fit on a 13” diameter wheel.

Spiny Norman said:

There’s still some Russian gear that uses km/h for indicated speed*, and vertical speed in m/s.

A friend who’s flown in France (I haven’t) told me that they use metric across the board, so km and m for distances, L for volumes, etc.

btm said:

Spiny Norman said:

There’s still some Russian gear that uses km/h for indicated speed*, and vertical speed in m/s.

A friend who’s flown in France (I haven’t) told me that they use metric across the board, so km and m for distances, L for volumes, etc.

Nope. They use international measures, like I mentioned a post or three above. I was based there for some time. However, Airbus claim to be metric but they often use things like 6.25 mm bolts. (which is exactly 1/4”)

Spiny Norman said:

Arts said:

I just found out that ‘tires’ (reading from a US text) are measured in vehicle type, mm, %, make type, and inches

Yes tyres are a bit if a mixed bag as well. Something like a 205/50-15 tyre has a tread width of 205 mm, a 50% sidewall ratio (height of the sidewall to the width of the tread), and it fits onto a 15” wheel. That being said, some French cars still use tyres that are fully metric. (I haven’t checked if that’s the case for a decade or two though)
Racing car tyres are different, for example I run 10.5/23-13’s on the rear of my old car. That’s the tread being 10.5” wide, the overall diameter 23”, and they fit on a 13” diameter wheel.

firstly, you need more branding on the vehicle…

secondly, I can appreciate why racing tyres don’t have the ‘p’ or the ‘LT’ *but maybe they should have an ‘F’ (for fucking fast car) but why don’t they have an ‘r’ ‘b” or ‘d’?

Arts said:

Spiny Norman said:

Arts said:

I just found out that ‘tires’ (reading from a US text) are measured in vehicle type, mm, %, make type, and inches

Yes tyres are a bit if a mixed bag as well. Something like a 205/50-15 tyre has a tread width of 205 mm, a 50% sidewall ratio (height of the sidewall to the width of the tread), and it fits onto a 15” wheel. That being said, some French cars still use tyres that are fully metric. (I haven’t checked if that’s the case for a decade or two though)
Racing car tyres are different, for example I run 10.5/23-13’s on the rear of my old car. That’s the tread being 10.5” wide, the overall diameter 23”, and they fit on a 13” diameter wheel.

firstly, you need more branding on the vehicle…

secondly, I can appreciate why racing tyres don’t have the ‘p’ or the ‘LT’ *but maybe they should have an ‘F’ (for fucking fast car) but why don’t they have an ‘r’ ‘b” or ‘d’?

There’s marking on the tyres that are unique to each manufacturer (Avon, Dunlop, Bridgestone, Khumo, etc) that as well as the physical dimensions also show how soft/hard the rubber is. Softer tyres stick better but also wear faster than harder tyres. They’re also easier to overheat.

Spiny Norman said:

Arts said:

Spiny Norman said:

Yes tyres are a bit if a mixed bag as well. Something like a 205/50-15 tyre has a tread width of 205 mm, a 50% sidewall ratio (height of the sidewall to the width of the tread), and it fits onto a 15” wheel. That being said, some French cars still use tyres that are fully metric. (I haven’t checked if that’s the case for a decade or two though)
Racing car tyres are different, for example I run 10.5/23-13’s on the rear of my old car. That’s the tread being 10.5” wide, the overall diameter 23”, and they fit on a 13” diameter wheel.

firstly, you need more branding on the vehicle…

secondly, I can appreciate why racing tyres don’t have the ‘p’ or the ‘LT’ *but maybe they should have an ‘F’ (for fucking fast car) but why don’t they have an ‘r’ ‘b” or ‘d’?

There’s marking on the tyres that are unique to each manufacturer (Avon, Dunlop, Bridgestone, Khumo, etc) that as well as the physical dimensions also show how soft/hard the rubber is. Softer tyres stick better but also wear faster than harder tyres. They’re also easier to overheat.

ah thank you

Arts said:

Spiny Norman said:

Arts said:

firstly, you need more branding on the vehicle…

secondly, I can appreciate why racing tyres don’t have the ‘p’ or the ‘LT’ *but maybe they should have an ‘F’ (for fucking fast car) but why don’t they have an ‘r’ ‘b” or ‘d’?

There’s marking on the tyres that are unique to each manufacturer (Avon, Dunlop, Bridgestone, Khumo, etc) that as well as the physical dimensions also show how soft/hard the rubber is. Softer tyres stick better but also wear faster than harder tyres. They’re also easier to overheat.

ah thank you

… and I just remembered that there’s also usually a white or yellow arrow or mark on the tyre sidewall. That’s where the tyre air valve is supposed to line up with, as it’s the lightest part of the tyre. That’s so the slightly heavier part of the tyre roughly counteracts the weight of the tyre valve. The less balancing weight on the wheel the better.

Just a quick diversion …. I’m not into drag racing but I’m fascinated by the Top Fuel drag cars. Late last year they cracked the 11,000 hp mark. But the bit that really blew me away was how fast the initial acceleration is. In a video I saw recently the team engineer said that when launching, when the rear wheels go over the line the car is doing 160 km/h. So that’s doing 0 – 160 km/h in 300” or about 7.6 metres.

In this video you can see how the tyres absorb some of the energy from the engine, like a big spring, then release it gradually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hspem5l2DOU

Spiny Norman said:

/cut/…Late last year they cracked the 11,000 hp mark…/cut/..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hspem5l2DOU

be an interesting camshaft grind compensation for the crank twist

Spiny Norman said:

Just a quick diversion …. I’m not into drag racing but I’m fascinated by the Top Fuel drag cars. Late last year they cracked the 11,000 hp mark. But the bit that really blew me away was how fast the initial acceleration is. In a video I saw recently the team engineer said that when launching, when the rear wheels go over the line the car is doing 160 km/h. So that’s doing 0 – 160 km/h in 300” or about 7.6 metres.

That’s an acceleration of just over 13G. That’d straighten out the spine :)

Top Fuelers are Awesome.

Spiny Norman said:

Just a quick diversion …. I’m not into drag racing but I’m fascinated by the Top Fuel drag cars. Late last year they cracked the 11,000 hp mark. But the bit that really blew me away was how fast the initial acceleration is. In a video I saw recently the team engineer said that when launching, when the rear wheels go over the line the car is doing 160 km/h. So that’s doing 0 – 160 km/h in 300” or about 7.6 metres.

In this video you can see how the tyres absorb some of the energy from the engine, like a big spring, then release it gradually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hspem5l2DOU

Nice video, SN. Note also that the tyres are well over twice the diameter at the top end of the track – centrifugal force of the tyres changes the effective gear ratio.

Peak Warming Man said:

Top Fuelers are Awesome.

Fred? Is that you Fred?

Oh, I see now. It’s the temperature you are referring to.

;)

wookies are known to use the rule of thumb

wookiemeister said:

wookies are known to use the rule of thumb

Hey hey Wookie. Long time no read.

Divine Angel said:

wookiemeister said:

wookies are known to use the rule of thumb

Hey hey Wookie. Long time no read.

not missed much