The Metric System
Yes, it's from a book called "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader" and that book was resting on a closed toilet seat in a nation that only kind of uses the metric system in certain situations... however, you'd be surprised how much you can learn after a single visit to any local fast-food joint!
71 replies
I have this book, its great! Some funny bullshit in there
Hmm... What We Did Before Smartphones. I should write a book so the Young's dont forget ye olden ways.
Literally because it scaled
Uncle John's bathroom reader!
I know this has nothing to do with the metric system, but I saw the toilet paper roll around the page number and got a surge of happy brain sauce due to the happy memories of all the copies I owned through the years: 2Heyyy I've got two of Uncle John's books on the commode right now!
The paragraph on the meter should mention that their measuring error from the pole to the equator was .02%, which, without using satellites or even electricity, is fucking impressive.
So how the hell was it done? Long piece of rope? Hot air balloon? Or having a bird fly from one point to another and timing it?
Calculations. In 240 BCE, Eratosthenes used a stick. He basically found a place where the sun was directly overhead, and measured the shadow from a stick a known distance to the north of that location. He approximated the circumference of the earth to be 25,000 miles, which was off by 99 miles.
How do we know the conversion of whatever length unit he was using, in modern units?
Uhh, educated guesses. The stadion wasn't exactly standardized. Most of the conversions I see put 10 stadia at 1 mile so that's what I went with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadion_(unit)
The main thing is his methodology was precise.
Lots of triangulation and extrapolation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_measurement_of_Delambre_and_M%C3%A9chain
That is impressive & a nice amendment on your part. Thank you for the added detail
Also, unlike the imperialist system it is not utter horseshite.
I think this snippet misrepresents the accuracy of the former definition of the metre. Sure, it's no longer the distance from the equator to the pole (the modern definition uses the speed of light and the period of transition for a particular atom), but the difference is quite small. The circumference of the Earth around the poles (so 4 times the distance from equator to pole) is 40007.863 km. In Napoleonic times scientists had a pretty good idea what the shape of the Earth was.
Earth squeezes and stretches and wobbles & rotates. Time as we know it changes in length because it is the common nature of "time" to become chaos which then becomes order. Hylomorphism or Impermanence is to Entropy as measurement is to the fundamentals of size. Who is to say that the distance between two points should be constrained to the barriers of human existence & understanding. All we have is pictures & words, maybe a few trinkets that will become dust that becomes something else that attempts to quantify reality.
Sort of, yeah, Earth is a bit wider around the equatorial axis than around the polar one.
This reads like an unfortunate confluence of psychosis, psychoactive substances and LLMs.
While I can't speak for my chemical imbalances, I can certainly assure you I am %100 not a fucking algorithm or some lame ass excuse for manufactured digital intelligence....
Thanks for explaining that a fucking ball is easier to squeeze at it's widest part, genius.
What are you talking about? That isn't what they said, and a ball doesn't have a widest point. That's more or less the definition of a ball.
The distance between the two poles is smaller than the distance from one side to the other following the equator. The earth isn't quite a ball, it's a bit squashed because of way it spins
Okay, a ball is equally wide but sometimes it gets squeezed and becomes tallish
To agree on a unified measurement system for things like engineering, science and commerce across nations and cultures is a question of practicability though, not pseudophilosophical ramblings.
I say we measure everything with how angry it makes the French.
Don't we all, Earth, don't we all...
So we only know a kilogram of water weighs a kilogram because of an arbitrary decision by the French? How much does it really weigh?
It doesn't even weigh a kilogram. It masses one kilogram. It's weight will be something like 9.8 Newtons.
Ever since that dude translated the Rosetta stone they've been up their own asses.
Love me some Uncle John’s. I’d recognize that page number decorator anywhere!
Uncle John knows the correct way to mount toilet paper.
I have two bathrooms and do both.
The real question is; which do I use for my personal lou or WC or wash closet or bathroom or powder room or shitter?
If you don't want to offend anyone, just leave the spool sitting upright on the lid
Or an apology note and a bucket full of water
Or three seashells
Someone so consistently responding to themselves is pretty entertaining.
The other fun thing is with the new calendar, they literslly reset the count to year 1. The coins for the first few years literally said "l'an 7" or "l'an 11".
"We decide when history starts" is a hell of a sentiment.
I'm still sad decimal time didn't catch on.
It would have worked so well. 2 digit timestamp gives you 15 (old)minute accuracy which is just perfect for appointments and organizing your day. Digital minutes would be a bit longer than old minutes which is fine for bus/train times etc. Digital seconds a bit shorter than old seconds which is great for timing things. I always thought a second was a wee bit longer than it ought to be anyway.
We still do it, we just celebrated new year 235
https://calendrier.dera.page/
It's only consequencial if you want to get rid of anything that was imposed by the church.
I like that sentiment if it starts with us having the knowledge to be better than before
Americans could at least have the decency to spell "metre" correctly, but no, they have to go and change the spelling of a measurement system they don't even use.
It's called "meter" in lots of metric countries though (I know because I live in one).
I'm willing to give them the spelling if they just adopt the fucking metric system.
I'm on the phone with them.
They said they'll do it after France or Canada does first. Not sure if they got the memo, or if they are just being silly again.
i think it is ok, as meter more correctly matches the pronounciation
Got two letter 'e's in it, and they're both pronounced differently. To be fair, it's far from the most divergent spelling-to-saying word in English. Some wrong-looking abomination like 'meetir' would be even better.
Well...at least most of them pronounce data as DAY-TUH because of Star Trek.
The other pronunciation is horrendous.
Speaking of which, aluminum is pronounced fwaganah-schreple.
*aluminium
Watch or I'll go nucular on your ass
I mean yeah, Metric scales.
Everything can be scaled. 1 can be two halves & 3 can be 12 .025's. or we can all just agree that everything is based on various systems of measurement invented by humans who can hardly agree on their own origins and the purpose of their existence, or even the right to exist.
I don't think anyone can in good conscience say that inches scale to small measurements. Sure, you can use them, but subtracting 8/1000 out of something that is 1 5/8 and noting the final length is just unwieldy.
You don't need to get super existential about it, imperial was invented before we invented 0 and the decimal system and it shows. Sure the difference in basic units is irrelevant, no one cares what the meter or inch is defined as, the "superior" one is just what you're used to and have an intuition for. But having units that relate to each other in round ways and can be easilt rescaled to the precision/range required can be nothing but a benefit
Maybe you've never heard of decimal inches. Anything under 1/32" people start using 'thou' as in thousandths of an inch.
Subtracting fractions is something you can learn. Children can even do it.
Measurement works because it's accepted on it's own terms.
If I were to believe that 1 is 2, it would be very difficult to explain that 2 is indeed double the normal amount of 1.
The same goes for some alien species that has too many or not enough fingers and doesn't use prime numbers because of this.
I don't personally believe that math is truly universal. But maybe I'm being existential ;)
Is someone really arguing that prime numbers are a thing because we have 5 fingers?
So you just learned it exists or what?
Did you just learn about insults? Because I'm your Mum and you should know better than to speak to me like this.
Maybe you should learn a bit more about them because that was a terrible attempt.
If you'd like a better insult, I recommend you go into a dark room and think about why I would bother even responding.
Facts to remember the next time some French guy on the internet makes fun of Freedom Units™. The Metric system is basically arbitrarily defined as well, since the thing they meant to base it on was incorrect.
Edit: I forgot the /sarcasm tag and pissed off some French guys on the internet.
Hey it's me some French guy on the internet. I think the main argument for the metric system is how they all connect together in a simple way. 1km is 1000m, one cube meter of water is 1000L, etc. We don't really care what the base unit is.
Or my favourite ratio, 1l of water is 1kg and it's close to that for most food grade liquids.
It is great when cooking, your kitchen scale (which you should own!) works as an easy way to measure liquids as well. Need 500ml of water? Just measure 500g and you are done.
While technically it is only true for very specific water and temperatures at sea level, for everday cooking it is close enough with almost any liquid.
Dimensional analysis is really neat
I think you need to look up what arbitrary means. This is by definition not random
This sounds like something a sassy person might say whilst pushing up their glasses to view a document which is rolled up tightly into a scroll and shoved into their own anus after they realize the room is watching them try to read the outside of a butthole scroll.
I’m sorry, for clarity which system are you considering Freedom Units?
"Freedom units" is a satirical term implying a system of measurement used by Americans
otherwise known as "arbitrary nonsense units"
"Arbitrary Nonsense Units, Silly"
That spells ANUS.. m o o n
Whatever USA decides to use to measure something, whether its inches & feet, bananas, football fields, or other randomly decided units of measurement.
Trump uses buildings as a system of measurement, having ass-hattedly used the empire state building to measure the horizontal length of the freedom pool, a desecrated monument of freedom which is now more or less a peeling swimming pool in front of the once beloved and now gilded in tacky gold flake/ grifted trophies; "white house"
Sacré bleu!!!