How many inches are there in your foot?

[Donna_Pedro]

Funny thing I have witnessed today. Just wanted  to share. I was invited for a job interview to a local Employment svc company and there were two mexican girls sitting there taking their personal assessment tests. I was sitting in another room, my interviewer left to send a fax, and the door was open so I could hear what was going on in another room...

First voice - How many inches are there in a foot...

Second voice - I dont know...

First voice - Do you have a ruler? No?   let me try it this way...

And it slowly comes to me what she was about to do, I  stood up and poked my head in the door and... I could not believe my eyes...  - SHE WAS MEASURING HER DAMN FOOT!!! She was studying her own foot, trying to figure how many inches there would be in her foot.

Me  -  Its not your foot they are asking about.

She - are you sure?

Me - absolutely. Just put 12.

She looked so pityfull I could not laugh. I think its funny though.

[Bruno]

Donna, do you know how much meter you have in a miles :cool:

1 Brittish mile is 1609 meter

1 Irish mile is 2048 meter

1 international mile is 1609.34 meter

1 nautical miles international is 1852 meter

1 Brittish nautical mile is 1853.18 meter

1 scottish mile is 1814 meter

... :? ... so, don't laught over the Mexican woman... she was tring measuring Mexican foot :D:D ...

I am happy that here we use the metric system... a base 10 system, more easy for count... and a meter stay a meter, he don't change in function of country or in function of surface ( ground or water )

Now, a little training for you... i need to go from a Irish village to a Brittish one... between the two village you have a river... Each village is 10 local miles from the border of the river... the river is 5 international nautical mile of width... What is the distance between the Irish and Brittish village in Scottish mile ?


I was forget, a site for convert all ... http://www.onlineconversion.com/

[Turboguy]

I never cease to be amazed at what people do.  That was a cute story about how many inches in a foot. 

When we hire someone for my office we give a short test.   One of our questions is to name three states that start with the letter "C"    You would be surprised how many people list Chicago and Canada in their answers. 

 

[Bruno]

I never cease to be amazed at what people do.  That was a cute story about how many inches in a foot. 

When we hire someone for my office we give a short test.   One of our questions is to name three states that start with the letter "C"    You would be surprised how many people list Chicago and Canada in their answers. 

 

Sorry for the cute story... he have only remember my own problem with mile and nautical mile when i was in Navy... and when i have find the link and see that it was so much different sort of mile... i have not resist to make a humorous post...

Now, about test, i don't use it... it show only the level of education... when my boos ask my meaning about  a potential worker, i use a other method... i give him some work material and some task... if the task is good make, it is because he can work and know enough theory for the work... i have see a lot of people who was fresh from college but with two left hand... my actual help gardener have only make basic school but he have gold hand... he is specialist in nothing but know a little of all... he have spare a lot of money to my boos... he can make several little repair on the material, don't need call a expensive specialist for each little problem of the life...

I don't value somebody with what he know but more how he can apply in the work what he know... some are real encyclopedie but cannot produce some work with all these knowledge... usualy, i value more old people because they have a lot of experience...

[anono]

donna, back in sixth grade, we had what the kids called "retard tests".  even for a sixth grader, these were silly tests. i still do not know why they tested us this way. sure enough, one of the other kids was measuring his foot when asked the same question..i will never forget it...

[Turboguy]

It is amazing sometimes the things people don't know.   That test with the "Name three states that start with the letter C" actually started out in Hershey Park amusement park.   I was there with my 21 year old american girlfriend (when I was 45) and we were waiting in line for the coaster.   They had tv screens  to help you pass the time in the long lines and they put that question on.   Her answer was the same as I gave before.   Conneticut, then she paused and added Chicago and Canada.   

We deal with people from all over the world.  It is helpful for someone to have a bit of knowlege.  For someone to know that Belgium is not a state of the USA.  To know that California and Arizona are close and things like that.   We have a lot of questions that some people might consider basic and stupid but we learn a lot from it.  When we hire someone for production our short test for them has two lines and we hand them a ruler and ask how far apart the two lines are.   50% can't do it.   If we need a peice of metal cut 6 5/8"  it is nice to know you can ask anyone and they can do it.   I agree with the way you like to do it Bruno.  We do the same thing in a similar way.

[corp]

Donna, I wonder what she would have done if the question was...
 "How many feet in a yard?"
Conversation might have went like this...

First girl: How many feet are in a yard?

Second girl: I'm not sure I live in an apartment, we don't even have a yard.

First girl: See if that lady with the funny accent knows this answer too.

Second girl: Yeah, she seems like a real "sweetheart".

[jb]

There are 5,280 feet in a statute mile, 6,000 feet in a nautical mile.  EOS

The nautical mile is tied to latitude and longitude, (degrees, minutes and seconds), both horizontally and vertically for ocean navigation purposes. If you use any other measuring system as you navigate, you will get lost.  We also use it because it is compatible with 24 hours in a day as we calculate time zones, which comes from an even older system of measurement of time and distance.

For those who don't know the history of where the meter came from, it is French.  The French hated the English, (the English figured this stuff out which is why GMT is located in London, not Paris) and they created the "meter" to be different.  They described the meter as to be one/millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the center of Paris.  They weren't even close.  Not surprising,,, now we accurately define the "meter" as (I think the one/fifth faction of the wave length of an element (maybe krypton of superman's planet) heated to some level of excitation, in other words, science has found something that equals 39 inches and that's what they use.

What I am saying is that the measurement system of inches and feet have basis in science, while the metric system is based on fantasy and French nationalist pride.  Do not get too proud of the metric system, you really can't do very much with it without doing a lot of conversions and using the old fudge factors.

 

[Bruno]

For those who don't know the history of where the meter came from, it is French. The French hated the English, (the English figured this stuff out which is why GMT is located in London, not Paris) and they created the "meter" to be different. They described the meter as to be one/millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the center of Paris. They weren't even close. Not surprising,,, now we accurately define the "meter" as (I think the one/fifth faction of the wave length of an element (maybe krypton of superman's planet) heated to some level of excitation, in other words, science has found something that equals 39 inches and that's what they use.

First correction : GMT is not located in London... Greenwich, England has been the home of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) since 1884.  GMT is sometimes called Greenwich Meridian Time because it is measured from the Greenwich Meridian Line at the Royal Observatory  in Greenwich.  It is the place from where all time zones are measured. Now, the time in UK is GMT+1... summer time... and not GMT time...

Some little correction over the meter : http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmetric.html

Dear Straight Dope:

Just wondering if you could tell us a bit about where the "meter" originally came from? I've heard about the French "meter of the archives" and how it was pretty much the same compared to the meter we use today; is this true? Also, what's the whole deal with the metric system anyway? --usman d, Lahore, Pakistan

SDSTAFF Alphagene replies:

Both the meter and the metric system have their origins in France. While it is hard to explain "the whole deal" with a lot of French things, this topic is relatively straightforward. The length of the meter hasn't changed much since it was established in the late 18th century, but the precision by which it is measured has improved dramatically.

The idea of a metric system of units is older than most people think. Some authorities credit Gabriel Mouton, a French vicar, for originating of the metric system in 1670. Other note that the concept of a decimal-based system of measurement was advocated in Simon Stevenius's book De Thiende, written back in 1584. But for a long time, the metric system was just an idea.

Then, in 1789, the French had themselves a revolution. Among other things, the French saw this as an opportunity to improve upon the awkward traditional units of measurement. In 1791 the French Academy of Sciences was instructed to create a new system of units. It was decided that this new system should be based on powers of ten and that the fundamental measuring units of this system should be based on natural values that were unchanging.

To this end, FAS decided to figure out the distance of an imaginary line that began at the North Pole, ended at the equator (AKA a quadrant) and ran through Paris. They would then divide this line into exactly ten million identical pieces. The length of one of these pieces would be the base unit for the new system of measurement.

After a six-year survey ending in 1795, this unit was determined to be 39.37008 inches in length. The name "metre" was chosen for this unit based on metron, the Greek word for "measure." Yes, my fellow Americans, the correct, official, internationally-approved spelling is "metre," not "meter." Technically speaking, a "meter" is not a unit of measurement but a device that measures stuff, like a parking meter. But seeing as how "meter" is pretty much the way all of us Americans spell it, that's the way I'm spelling it from here on in.

Interestingly, there were other ideas about how to define the standard unit of length. More than a century before the French Revolution, Dutch astronomer and founding member of the FAS Christiaan Huygens suggested that a good standard of length would be that of a pendulum having a period of one second. The problem with this definition is that the period of a simple pendulum depends not only on its length but also the force of gravity. Earth's gravitational pull is not uniform in different locations. The acceleration of gravity varies slightly with changes in elevation, latitude, and other factors. For this reason the FAS turned down this suggestion.

The meter became the basis for other metric units. A gram was defined as the weight of a cubic centimeter of water at maximum density. The liter was defined as one thousandth of a cubic meter. In 1799, a one-meter platinum bar (as well as a one-kilogram platinum weight standard) was placed in the Archives de la République. The meter was defined as the distance between the two polished ends of the bar at a specific temperature.

A lot has changed since 1799. For example, the gram is no longer considered a unit of weight but a unit of mass. This distinction was made official in 1901. Additionally, both technology and scientific theory have made considerable strides since the French first archived slabs of platinum. As a result, various international conferences have been held over time to further clarify these base units, including the meter.

The problem with the first meter prototype was that it was a bit too small. It seems that when the French computed the quadrant they based the meter on, they didn't compensate enough for the earth's tendency to flatten out due to its rotation. In 1872, the International Commission of the Meter recognized this discrepancy, but declared that it really didn't matter. The 1799 meter remained the standard. By 1899, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures had crafted and distributed new prototypes for the meter based on the 1799 standard. This new prototype was an X-shaped graduated standard made out of a platinum-iridium alloy. The meter was then defined as the distance between the two graduation lines at 0 C.

In 1960 the metric system was officially named "Système International d'Unités" or SI. At this time, it was also decided that there was a more precise way to define a meter than to rely on hunks of metal in France. Light waves could now be measured with great precision. Many elements give off light waves at specific wavelengths when their atoms make what is called a transition. Since these transitions are uniform for a given atom, it was thought that the meter could be based on one of these wavelengths. It was finally decided to use atoms of the isotope krypton-86. Specifically, one meter was defined as being equal to 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red line (corresponding to the unperturbed atomic energy level transition between levels 2p10 and 5d5) in the spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum. Got that?

Most recently, the meter was defined using yet another unchanging value, one that is known with great precision: the speed of light in a vacuum. As of 1983, the meter is officially defined by the General Conference on Weights and Measures as "the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second." This not only standardizes the length of a meter, but it also sets the speed of light in a vacuum at exactly 299,792,458 m/s.

It's a credit to the FAS that their system of measurement, created more that two centuries ago, is not only still around, but the dominant system in the world. It's even crept its way into the stubborn American frontier. With that kind of longevity, it makes one wish that the French entertainment industry was under the control of the FAS. They probably would have advised against that whole Gérard Depardieu thing.

--SDSTAFF Alphagene
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board

 

[Ste]

Didn't the French also try to metrify everything? Around the time of the French Revolution, 10 days in week, 10 months a year sort of thing?

Remember, here in good ole Blighty we like awkward measures. Prior to 1971 we had 12 Pence in a Shilling, and 20 Shillings in a Pound. So 240 Pence in the Pound. Also we had the Guinea, at One Pound, One Shilling or 21 Shillings or 252 Pence.

We certainly new how to add up and multiply in those days! OK, quick test, in UK Old Money. whats:

£10/15/8 plus £6/10/6?

Plus 7% Purchase Tax as we had then.

Christ, I sound like my Dad......

Ste

PS We also had a Dollar, which was 4 shilling or 48 pence as I remeber. And Half-Crowns but no Crowns - 2/6 or 12.5 New Pence. That was my pocket money for which I was eternally grateful and blew on pop and crisps. Oh to be young....

[jb]

Bruno,

Just once, I'd like you to write about something you actually knew something about instead of doing a google search and copy/pasting something somebody else wrote.

My account of the origins of the meter is fundamentally and historically accurate.  If it offends your French pride, tough~!  Why do you think so many laws of physics are named for Englishmen and Americans?  Because they figured it out, and science generally honors the scientist by naming the phemon after the man who sorted it out.  Like "Ohm's Law", "Newton's Law", the Coulomb, the Faraday, the Henry, the Britsh Thermal Unit (BTU), and a hundred other things named for men who weren't French.  Because they figured it out first.  The stupid French are lucky to have a bread named after them.

Give me a break~!

[BC]

Is interesting that plumbing never went metric. A 3/4 inch fitting is exactly 3/4 inch everywhere.

It is 26 degrees here and just had a midnight dip in the pool.

[Bruno]

Bruno,

Just once, I'd like you to write about something you actually knew something about instead of doing a google search and copy/pasting something somebody else wrote.

My account of the origins of the meter is fundamentally and historically accurate. If it offends your French pride, tough~! Why do you think so many laws of physics are named for Englishmen and Americans? Because they figured it out, and science generally honors the scientist by naming the phemon after the man who sorted it out. Like "Ohm's Law", "Newton's Law", the Coulomb, the Faraday, the Henry, the Britsh Thermal Unit (BTU), and a hundred other things named for men who weren't French. Because they figured it out first. The stupid French are lucky to have a bread named after them.

Give me a break~!

 

Dear JB, why do you feel yourself always attacked ... it was only some correction about the meter... about my personal knowlegde, i have some... but i find nothing wrong to control it in the more big library of these world, internet... and sometime, this allow my personal knowlegde to grow...

About name of finding or invention, i am good placed for know it... i am birth in Dinant, a French speaking little city from Belgium...



These city is the city of Adolf Sax, the man who have invent the saxophone... in reality, you can find invention in each country of the world... and everybody can feel honor for his own country...

[Ste]

Is interesting that plumbing never went metric. A 3/4 inch fitting is exactly 3/4 inch everywhere.

Reminds me a the old joke:

Chap walks into the ironmongers (hardware store in US?) and says:

"Got any 4" by 2", mate?"

"All metric now, mate, no 4" by 2", u have to ask me for 100mm by 50mm now"

"Ok, I'll have some 100mm by 50mm, how much is it?"

"10 Shillings a foot, mate"!

Exit stage left.......

Ste

[jb]

By the way....

Bruno wrote

First correction: GMT is not located in London... Greenwich, England has been the home of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) since 1884.  GMT is sometimes called Greenwich Meridian Time because it is measured from the Greenwich Meridian Line at the Royal Observatory  in Greenwich.  It is the place from where all time zones are measured. Now, the time in UK is GMT+1... summer time... and not GMT time...

This is only half true, while in fact:  GREENWICH ENGLAND is a borough of London on the Thames river, and has a population of 228,030. Greenwich, London is home the National Maritime Museum, Queen's House and Royal Observatory.  But it is located in London.

I had thought to let this slight pass, but I'd hate for anyone to think I was so uneducated as to not know where the Prime Meridian (GMT) is located.

[Bruno]

Fully agree, now Greenwich is in London... but in the time of cretion of GMT time, in 1884, it was around one hour of London city... JB, you are not uneducated, far from this... but i have search the little detail because of the arrogance of your post, specialy your modification over the French meter... don't be worry, several people don't know that GMT is located in UK or what GMT mean... if i have not work in the Navy, i have certainly forget it too...
" Since 1833 its red timeball has fallen daily at exactly 1300 hours to enable ships to set their clocks accurately. Britain's first telegraph cable linked it to a similar timeball in Walmer on the south-east coast for the benefit of shipping in the English Channel. In keeping with this naval tradition, a cannon is sounded daily on the deck of the Cutty Sark at 1300 hours.

Since 1884, the world has set its clocks according to the time of day on the Meridian of Greenwich, longitude 0°--an imaginary line joining the North and South Poles through the dead centre of a specialised telescope installed at the Observatory in 1851. "