Talk:List of unusual units of measurement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject Physics This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, which collaborates on articles related to physics.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale. [FAQ]
??? This article has not yet received an importance rating within physics.

Help with this template Please rate this article, and then leave comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify its strengths and weaknesses.
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on March 25, 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.
Sections describing units that are believed not to fullfil Wikipedia criteria for notability can be found in Talk:List of strange units of measurement/Candidates. Only if sufficient documentation and referrences can be found of actual usage and notability, can they be moved into the main article.

Archives:

Contents

[edit] Muta Scale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2yxfSRz-cw 82.36.228.136 19:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Energy or Destruction?: The Hiroshima Atomic Bomb

The Hiroshima Atomic Bomb seems to be commonly used when describing the amount of energy necessary to cause a particular level of destruction. I.e. equating the energy expelled by a natural disaster to N number of Hiroshima Atomic blasts... Morbid?

be bold. that's official wp policy. Rhialto 06:36, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
At the risk of sounding foolish, I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean :-(
I meant, go ahead and add it to the article. :-) Rhialto 15:30, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time: galactic year

This sections assumes 'GY' to be the correct abbreviation for galactic year, even though the main article 'galactic year' that it links to has no such justification. By standard metric notation, GY would seem to indicate 'gigayear' (G being the accepted metric symbol for the giga- prefix). It could be argued that the correct unit for 1 billion years is the Giga-annum, however this section utilizes the notation MY as a symbol for megayears, making the use of GY for galactic year internally inconsistent. I am not familiar with the unit and leave correction up to the community. Blackicehorizon 19:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the SI or metric unit of time defined by seconds and not by any other measure? If so, wouldn't GigaYear be mixing an SI prefix with a non SI measurement making it invalid anyway? Therefore, the abbreviation GY for Galactic Year is fine? By the way, I believe a Galactic Year is equivlant to a Cosmic Year. So, GY=CY? But there is no capital C as an SI prefix, I think. Lawrenceallie (talk) 16:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Some sources use "cosmic year" to refer to the entire history of the universe as if compressed into one year. On that kind of scale, human civilization would be a fraction of a second old, and our solar system about three months old. "galactic year" is unambiguous in referring to one rotation of the Milky Way galaxy.
As for mixing SI abbreviations and non-SI units, this is quite common and standard practice. Just because a given abbreviation is not SI-compatible, it doesn't mean that it doesn't follow a standard, somewhere. Kilofeet is (or used to be anyway, maybe still) quite a common unit used by radar technologists, and none in that industry should be confused by seeing "kft" to refer to that, although it is quite definitely not SI-compatible. Given that this article is about unusual units, it should not be at all unusual to see, well, unusual abbreviations.
According to nist, the year is not SI-compatible, although minute and hour are. As such, it has no official SI abbreviation, although yr, y, and a (for annum, year in Latin) have been seen used for a year.
Rhialto (talk) 20:44, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
When I search Wikipedia for "cosmic year" it brings me to the galactic year page. If there is an alternate description to cosmic year, should that be placed on a page citing those sources? I am not clear on those rules. Lawrenceallie (talk) 00:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Really? WP's article on cosmic year is a disambiguation page which cites four different definitions for the term. Rhialto (talk) 08:08, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Snail's Pace

Anyone have a cite for people using this as a unit of measurement? "A snail's pace is 5 furlong per fortnight" is not the same thing as "A healthy adult wildebeest can run at five billion snail paces". I suggest that this entry be removed. Rhialto 14:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Since there were no objections, I removed teh section. It properly belonged in an article about snails, not units of measurement. Rhialto 21:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hubble

I have found a reference to the hubble as 10^9 light years, in the Rowlett's site. Does anyone have an alternate cite for this unit? Rhialto 14:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of 'pint' for money in UK

I once estimated the repair cost of the microphone cable in a pub (the sound was a bit of a problem one quiz night), to the landlord, at 'a gallon'. Worthy of note in the 'pint' paragraph?

EmleyMoor 10:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

probably not, unless you got quoted in a magazine or newspaper saying that. Rhialto 11:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] nanocentury

I corrected the obvious error of 10^7 being really 10^9, and corrected the fraction to be rounded rather than truncated. That may not be in the quote, but the link is dead, and now what is on the page is more correct. First time I've done this, glad to find out what is not fully up to expected norms. Went and got a login after making this edit. (anonymous post)

Actually, I just did the maths, and the correct exponent is 10^7. Rhialto 11:10, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hitler

There seems to be a misconception that this page is a list of every fictional unit that has ever appeared in a novel, short story, or web comic. It isn't. This page is for units that have seen general usage in the real world. usage within the pages of a single web comic fail that criteria, although it might be worth noting in an article on teh fictional world of that specific webcomic.

According to WP:V, "As a rule of thumb, sources of dubious reliability should only be used in articles about themselves." and "Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources." Also, in Wikipedia:Notability, "a topic must be notable enough that it will be described by multiple independent reliable sources."

A weblog is a source of dubious reliability as noted in that policy page, and as such that blog should only be used as a source for articles about the blog itself.

In any case, the source still does not claim the unit sees any usage outside the fictional universe of that webcomic, and the wording in fact implies that the unit does not exist outside said fictional universe. Rhialto 05:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Millirubbia

The article does not say exactly how a Rubbia is calculated. Even the "Helen" gives a method of calcution. This is especially troublesome, since speaking rate can easily measured (i.e. words per minute, syllables per minute, etc.). I feel the definition should be update or removed

Agreed. I moved it to Talk:List_of_strange_units_of_measurement/Candidates. Maybe someone can provide a usable cite for it. Rhialto 04:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cunt hair

I inserted this, and intend to copy some of the discussion over here from Talk:Cunt. I won't reinsert it again unless there is some kind of consensus here, but I have some lingering worries that its removal may be influenced by prudery. As I said in an edit summary, it is as real a unit as any on the page, very common in the military, and wikipedia is not censored. I really don't want to seem like I'm making a WP:POINT here, but if the cunt hair fails to qualify for the article, so would an awful lot of the material presently here. --Guinnog 08:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unit of Measure (copied from Talk:Cunt)

There seems to be some disagreement on this topic in the editing, so I thought I'd bring it to the Talkpage. I've heard variations on "thin as a cunt hair" and "move it over just a cunt hair" in almost every region of the U.S. While it certainly enjoys popular usage, you can't reasonably expect to find it in a technical dictionary. A ref from a dictionary of slang would seem to be appropriate under the circumstances; that's what the usage is. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 04:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

This debate seems to have moved here from [strange units of measurement]. One issue is that without a valid cite, it looks like gratuituous profanity. Nothing wrong with including swear words where appropriate to an article, but equally where there is no valid cite, it gives the appearance of profanity for the sake of profanity, not to mention original research.
The cite that is in there now a dictionary of playground slang, and as such has extremely dubious validity (I'd say none) for any attempt to show usage by aircraft mechanics, enginners, or cooks.
Urbandictionary.com was also given as a cite. I removed that as it is not a reliable source according to wikipedia standards.
I realise this is an informal phrase and as such cites are hard to obtain. However, lack of cites is by wikiepdia standards, a reason for removing the item entirely, not a reason for leaving the item in uncited. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Finally, (relevant to strange units of measurement, but not this article) I have serious issues about including the hair's breadth section at all. As popularly used, it is an expression used to denote a very small distance, and not a true unit. The litmus test for this distinction is whether or not it would be natural to refer to "five hairs' breadth". It should be possible to add a number to the unit and still make sense as natural speech for it to be a unit of measurement. Shedload, bee's dick and others have already been removed from that article for failing this criterion. Items that fail this are more properly figures of speech to denote small or large (depending on expression) quantities, and not true units of measurement.
Rhialto 05:04, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
As much as I found the original reference amusing, your eminently well-reasoned discourse compels me to agree with you on every point. In truth, I've never heard it used as an actual technical term, just a colloquialism. Further, there's no question that unsourced (or improperly sourced) material needs to be weeded out. I wasn't involved in the actual editing, I just didn't want to see this article turn up in WP:LAME :) --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 08:05, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

(text copied from talk:cunt ends here)

Most of my reasons for removing it are outlined on the talk page of the cunt article. I wasn't motivated specifically by prudery. It was perfectly valid to remove it as an unsourced statement anyway. To be honest, I feel that not only the specific line about cunt hair, but the entire hair's breadth section, should be removed form this article, as a hair's breadth is not used as a unit of measurement. The litmus test for this is whether people commonly (in as much as the unit in question is commnly used anyway) say "five (unit)s". I have not come across any source which suggests that people do this for hair's breadth.

As for the "awful lot of other material presented here" which supposedly fails to qualify for this article, I agree with you totally. I am slowly working through this article in an attempt to clean it up. It might be worth creating a page under this talk to archive items that are definitively rejected from this page, unless a page is made for expressions such as these. Rhialto 08:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I am glad we seem to be in some sort of agreement then. Should we though, first establish a consensus that a "unit" does not qualify for inclusion here unless it is capable of being used in the way you describe, a principle I think I could live with, but which would decimate the article somewhat from its present state? --Guinnog 08:54, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
As one of the people who deleted it, I can tell you my motivation was not through prudery. I use the word often and have been the subject of it more than once :) I added Poofteenth and Bee's Dick to this article some time ago but they were removed because they were considered to be just examples of slang and not really measurements at all. It's just something humorous we say when we mean a "little bit" and is not a finite measurement. I reluctantly accepted the argument and didn't pursue it. I think that cunt hair falls into the same category and is not really an example of what this article is about. I also agree that many of the items added to this page in the last year or so don't really belong here. Maybe there needs to be an article for humorous and fictional units of measurement. SilentC 21:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFC - Criteria for inclusion

The criteria I have been using so far is as follows:

  • Units created for their humour value go in humorous units, unless they have since become significantly mainstream. So far, the only example of that is the Big mac index.
  • Units must naturally be usable in conjunction with any number to qualify as a unit of measurement. Only such measurement units should be included on this page. I have so far held off from serious editing on this point because I wasn't sure about consensus.
  • In considering the above point, it should be bourne in mind that the usual correct usage of the unit doesn't always imply "(number) (unit)". The "nines" unit is one such example. however, it should be possible to include a number somewhere in the usual expression.
  • It should also be bourne in mind that some set phrases for non-measures do include a number, but can be seen as set phrases and not true measures by the fact that they do not get used with numbers other that the limited samples of their set phrase.

Currently, we have a talk subpage for candidates; units which are identified as needing cites. I suggest we also add a subpage noting units that are definitely considered not suitable, to save ourselves arguing the same topic every time a new editor discovers this page. Thoughts? Rhialto 09:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

My original understanding of this page (once the poofteenth debate was over) is that units included here are sourced from some technical publication, not just amusing things that people say. For example, the Sydharb was originally used as a joke at some presentation in Sydney regarding water, but later it actually appeared in a scientific journal and is now in legitimate use in that field. I'd have thought that this is more in line with the intent of the article, than just satisfying the criteria that it can feasibly be used as a unit of measurement. So I would suggest that in addition to your criteria, there be some formal recognition of the term by the community that uses it. That might be hard to establish, but without this test, anyone can add any amusing unit that they come up with at work. SilentC 21:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I think the general wikipedia requirement for citations would prevent that from happening. Wikipedia is not for thinsg you made up, and wikipedia requires citations. These two criteria should prevent random cool ideas from creeeping in, if we enforce them properly. Essentially, it should be usable as a measurement, and there must be cites from a reliable source. That cite doesn't necessarily have to be directly from a community that uses it (any reliable source will do), but where a cite mentions a specific community, the article must obviously agree with the cite. Intentionally amusing units people say, but which are cited, belong in humorous units, not here. Uncited items don't belong in wikipedia at all. Rhialto 21:58, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
OK, well let's look at an example: The Happy. I have watched an episode or two of this show. Dave Gorman is a comedian and his concept of 'The Happy' is a piece of comedy. It's totally inappropiate as a measurement because it's definition is subjective. If I give you a pound coin, how happy it makes you is dependent upon how many pounds you already have. A pound coin is of no use to me whatsoever, because it is not legal tender in Australia and I would probably lose most of it's value in exchange fees. Obviously it's not intended to stand up to scientific scrutiny any more than the entire concept of his show is. He would argue that is does, but that's part of the joke. Yet, it's possible to say (as he does on the show) that my happiness has increased by 2 happies. It is cited, as it appears in his show, which you can get on DVD. So does it meet the criteria for inclusion on this page? SilentC 22:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
No, it is clearly intended to be a humorous unit, and so belongs to in the list of humorous units, not here. I'm going to hold off any major edits until we have some kind of consensus on this rfc though. In comparison, NASA's garn is probably equally as subjective in measurement, but no suggestion (none citeable that I've come across anyway) that it is intended as a piece of humour, so it gets to stay. Rhialto 23:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I think it is fair to say that if a unit first appears in an entertainment programme or web comic, and has not reached mainstream usage within its specialised fucntion (no known examples), that unit should go in humorous. Rhialto 23:54, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Nice to meet you two. I think we can do business, improve this article and at least two others. Thanks for your thoughtful comments. Glad my unworthy suspicions of prudery have proved to be unfounded. More tomorrow when I've had some rest. Best wishes to you from Scotland. --Guinnog 00:32, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Just to add, I don't think there should be any requirement that a unit should be objectively measurable by mechanical means. If this page gets sufficiently large, it may be worth splitting them off into another page, or into their own section within this article (may do that as part of the general cleanup). But just because the definition and measurement is subjective, that doesn't mean it isn't a unit of measurement. Its certainly true that such a unit isn't particularly scientific, but this article isn't specifically about scientific units of measurement, I think. Rhialto 00:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
How does that sit with the opening paragraph: "Strange and whimsical units are sometimes used by scientists, especially physicists and mathematicians, and other technically-minded people such as engineers and programmers, as bits of dry humor combined with putative practical convenience." That says to me that the units listed here should be practical as well as strange and/or whimsical. Maybe it's this paragraph that needs to change? SilentC 01:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
The problem there is that if we specifically exclude units that cannot be objectively measured, then we muct exclude the scoville heat unit, used to measure intensity of flavour (specifically pepper) concentration. As defined, it cannot be measured objectively, but is used purely in scientific and non-humorous contexts. Besides, I would argue that a unit can be practical without necessarily being measurable by objective means. Rhialto 02:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
OK, you realise I'm just playing devil's advocate. I'm open to anything really. That said, although it is somewhat subjective, the use of a panel of 5 tasters does lend the scoville heat unit a bit of scientific credibility: it's a statistical sample of the population, albeit a small one. The practicality of a unit would largely depend upon it's scope. If I said that, for all intents and purposes, one metre is roughly half my height, then I would be within a 10% margin of error, which is OK for some situations. However, if my friend who is only 5'4" tall based her 'metre' on the same premise, she would come up short, so to speak. But if she was to adopt her own version of a metre and use it exclusively within her own context, then it is repeatable, measurable and reasonably reliable (as long as she doesn't start wearing high heel shoes) for most purposes. I guess the question I am asking is, does a unit of measurement imply a standard that is understood outside the immediate situation in which it is taken? Is it practical to have a unit that is unreliable or meaningless out of context? It depends on your reason for taking the measurement, but if I asked my friend to build her doorway 2 metres tall, I would have to stoop to walk through it. SilentC 03:33, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Historical weights and measures have a long tradition of being subjective and varying from city to city. That is to say, a "pound" in one city was often heacvier or lighter in a neighbouring city, which historically did cause issues. It wasn't even too rare for human-scale units to be literally measured off against an appropriate body part. I don't hold objectivity in measurement to be a criterion for inclusion. Doing so would shred the corresponding articles on historical units. My criteria are: 1) It must be primarily a unit in an English-speaking country (non-Anglophone based units have their own articles), 2) It must see meaningful use in the present day (i.e. not a primarily historical unit, those have separate articles), 3) It should not have been coined as a humorous unit (these have their own article); an exception is made for humorous units which have since entered use in serious contexts, 4) It must be a unit of measure which is used in conjunction with arbitrary numerical values of a scale appropriate to the items measured (without a number it is more properly a superlative expression or figure of speech). Rhialto 06:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


One thought I was going to keep until tomorrow, but what the hell: I read New Scientist magazine and it regularly carries semi-humorous pieces on what the popular news media of various countries use to explain things like areas to their readers. Here in the UK, for example, areas are often expressed as multiples of the area of Wales. Would the "Wales" therefore qualify, do you think? There are many, many others, some more commonly used than others, but all (no doubt) verifiable in a reputable source... --Guinnog 00:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I have no problem with including "size of wales" style units; indeed, they already are. That style is also used by the CIA factbook, which gets quoted by just about every atlas around. Rhialto 01:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
For clarity: CIA factbook normally states an area as (e.g.) "2.5 times the size of Washington, DC". This meets the criterion for using a number in conjunction with the unit. Rhialto 22:12, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article refactoring?

As part of teh general clean-up, I'd like to refactor the article. I'd suggest sorting units first according to whether it uses a SI or non-conventional scale, then, within the SI section, which scale is used. The headers would be organised as follows:

    • Systematic Sets of units
      • FFF system
      • other systems(none others known for this section)
    • Conventional units
      • Length: unit name
      • Length: unit name
      • Area: unit name
      • Area: unit name
      • Volume: unit name
      • Volume: unit name
      • Mass: unit name
      • Mass: unit name
      • Time: unit name
      • Time: unit name
    • Unconventional units
      • Scale: unit name
      • Scale: unit name
      • Scale: unit name

This would follow the same general organisation seen in other weights and measures themed articles. In addition, it makes it easier for new authors to determine which section a unit should go in, as some of the categories are subjective, and depended on regional usage. This also removes teh special emphasis/ghetto that has been created for only some metric units (metric inch vs obscure metric units, for example). If no one has any objections, I'll begin refactoring some time next week. Rhialto 22:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Foreign Units

As a general policy, I'd like to suggest that any units that are mostly or only used in a foreign country, regardless of the strangeness of that unit, should be moved to an appropriate article that deals with the weights and measures of that country. This is because, by virtue of their being foreign, all of them would by definition be strange to the usual readership of the English language version of this wiki, and there are far too many to include all of them, and no good reason for only including some of them. If no one has any objections, I will begin moving them out to talk/candidates or the relevant article (if known) some time next week. Rhialto 22:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

When you say 'foreign country', does that mean if a unit is only used in the US, by virtue of the fact that the US is a 'foreign country' to me, it should be moved to a US weights and measures page? ;) Perhaps you'd better define what you mean by foreign. SilentC 21:53, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Specifically, when I said foreign, I meant any country that does not have English as the dominant language. I guess "foreign" is a poor word for this. "Anglophone", perhaps? Rhialto 01:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jerk

[1], teh authority on this matter, says, "It is requested that the results of calorimetric experiments be as far as possible expressed in joules". they have a few other cites as well which use "joules". That should firmly establish that English convention is to use -s as a suffix to mark plurals, and that the unit name is in lower case. Please stop reverting this. Rhialto 10:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Refactoring Complete

A few items still need cite tags added, and there are still a few items that need moving or removing from this article. Any item with a cite tag is a candidate for removal if cites are not found. But I now consider this refactoring essentially complete. My only concern is the non-standard units section. It is rather long, but I can't think offhand of a simple, objective, and instantly understandable for new editors, way to split that section. Rhialto 22:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused about why this page has the type of measurement stated in its title, and then again restated in each of its subtitles. Isn't the first enough? Do we really need
  • Area
    • Area: nanoacre
    • Area: football field
etc., instead of simply
  • Area
    • Nanoacre
    • Football field
and so on? I changed it to the latter in the case of Length before realizing it was a style across the board. I suppose someone can either change my revision back or change the other sections to match, but I really don't understand why each title is restated in each of its subtitles. -BlackTerror 19:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
The reasoning was that it isn't always clear from the name of a unit exactly what it measures. That was more for the benefit of those items in the lower section, a catch-all for units that can't be compared to any SI unit. For the SI-convertible units, I'm not all that bnothered either way (but make them consistent). For the others, I regard it as rather essential information. Rhialto 21:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
All right, I removed the subtitled units from all but the "other" and "unconventional" sections. --BlackTerror 15:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction with another wiki entry for the Firkin unit

It seems that this entry : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firkin defines the Firkin as a volume unit. Which one is right ? I can't tell. Maybe some of you can fix this issue. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.175.65.238 (talk • contribs) 14:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC).

Traditionally, the firkin was indeed a unit of volume. And within the FFF system, a firkin is a unit of mass. No contradiction here, simply a case of the same word being used for different units. You probably don't want to know how many definitions of the "foot" there are floating around Rhialto 06:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Do we not also have the cubic furlong available in this system?

Presumably the unit of volume under this system would indeed be the cubic furlong. I don't know of any practica use for such a unit though, although I'm hard pressed to think of much prtactical use of any unit derived from these. I'm not aware of any citable authority which defined the cubic furlong though (even though the derivation is obvious), so we can't actually include it here without being accused of original research. Rhialto 16:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Firkin is a unit of capacity, being a 'little-quarter'. The unit refers to a barrel-unit (eg beer), and thence, the net weight of what might be in the barrel (ie without the barrel). The DENT dictionary of measurement gives it as a British unit, (furlongs and fortnights are also british), as being 56 lbs. --Wendy.krieger 10:51, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of unusual units of measurement

I would propose renaming this page to "List of unusual units of measurement". Yes, some of these are indeed strange, but most of them are clearly defined units based on other well-known units, and are hardly "strange". They're just unfamiliar to most people. "Strange" also has some flavor of POV. I'll give this a week or so, and if no one complains, I'll move it. Denni talk 02:25, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't see any reason not to make the move. Rhialto 04:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Seeing no opposition to my proposal, I shall make it so. Thanks for your feedback, Rhialto. You've put a lot of good work into this article! Denni talk 21:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cubic Volume: Olympic-sized swimming pool

There is a contradiction here with estimations on other areas of Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_size_swimming_pool states that the volume of an olympic swimming pool is 2.5 million litres —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TimDavies4 (talk • contribs) 00:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

I noticed the same thing. It's easy to calculate with the dimensions given. I updated the article to reflect this. Chroz 02:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] afd proposal

See [afd]. We passed it this time, but as the comments show, this article does need more cleaning up. Feel free to discuss here. Rhialto 22:34, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tokyo Dome

I have removed this entry from the page. As per an earlier discussion regarding the contents of this page, any unit which is essentially used only in non-anglophone contexts is inherently unusual, and to allow one of them would justify allowing all of them in, and there are just too many to include that way. Units sourced from non-anglophone communities should be placed in a page that discusses the units from that country. Rhialto 09:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Friedman Unit

I suspect this more properly belongs over in list of humorous units. The wiki article on the unit notes it as being tongue-in-cheek, which is a convincing reason in itself. I'll leave it here for the now, but if there are no cites to show serious usage soon, I will be moving it. Rhialto 12:12, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] State of Kansas

I removed the following section from the article. A google search revealed no pages that demonstrate Kansas being used as a unit of length, and no weather pages that aren't directly related to maritime usage that use knots as a primary unit for wind speed. Seeing as how this page has been nominated for deletion, and this subheader has been left uncited for a month, we need to be strict in keeping out potentially spurious entries.

Meteorologists in the United States use the state of Kansas, which spans 3 degrees of latitude, as a distance scale on weather maps of the contiguous United States. One nautical mile used to be defined as exactly 1 minute of arc along a meridian. [citation needed], and since there are 60 minutes to a degree, it can be seen that Kansas is 180 nautical miles from North to South. Since meteorologists typically measure wind speed in knots (nautical miles per hour) the use of nautical miles in measuring distances is convenient. Also, the lack of a printed distance scale makes room for other keys, such as color codes and date information [citation needed]

--Rhialto 05:06, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pov in introduction

Could this be anymore subjective and point of view? Strange and whimsical units are sometimes used by scientists, especially physicists and mathematicians, and other technically-minded people such as engineers and programmers, as bits of dry humor combined with putative practical convenience. --Crossmr 04:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

fixed Rhialto 08:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nominees

1). Megatons/Meter This is a neasure of effeciency of nuclear weapons expressed as megatons of explosive yield per meter of weapon length. (Source Howard Moreland, "The Secret That Exploded" (I think). 2). Scoville Units (Not certian of spelling) A measure of relative hotness of hot peppers.

Basesurge 19:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Scovilel units are already in there. As for megatons/metre, if you can find a proepr referenced cite or three, then you are free to add it yourself. Because of the tendency of people to add cool stuff they thought up in an idle halfhour to this page, unreferenced material is quite aggressively removed from this page, in order to prevent it getting nominated for deletion, so multiple cites are pretty much essential here unless the single cite is extremely well-known/respected. Rhialto 20:48, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


3). Human hair / Head of a pin These are commonly used as a comparative reference for small things, e.g. "one-fifth the thickness of a human hair" or "so small you could fit 20 of these on the head of a pin". — DIV (128.250.204.118 06:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC))
References: [2], [3], [4]; [5]. On reflection, the "human hair" does sound like a unit (cf. 'Cunt hair' discussion above), the "head of a pin" perhaps not. — DIV (128.250.204.118 06:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC))

This one has already been rejected after a big discussion. Our standard criteria for units in this article is that the people must regularly (within the context of the unit in question) say "five (units)". For this item, people only use it in a comparative sense to describe a very small distance, and not to actually attempt to measure a specific distance. Rhialto 06:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:IPodgra.jpg

Image:IPodgra.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 18:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non-English speaking countries

The intro says "For units that are primarily used in non-English-speaking countries, please see the article on units specific to that country." But there is no link and no obvious way to get to those lists. I assume such lists exist, else the statement makes no sense. If not, this is not done the right way. Info should only be split off from an article if a sub-article exists. Also, shouldn't the title of this article then be "List of unusual units of measurement in English speaking countries"? A bit long, I must admit, but still. DirkvdM 08:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

That line was originally included because otherwise, units such as the Japanese shaku and the Maltese qasba would logically be placed in here, making this article ridiculously long. I guess it would be worth including a list of links directly, instead of linking to the official list article (Systems of measurement). Some units, such as the "reindeer piss" have been moved from here to the Finnish units article. Rhialto 08:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Those are normal units of measurement. This article is about unusual units of measurement. If the list would become too long, then wouldn't it make more sense to start an article List of unusual units of measurement in non-English speaking countries? Maybe start it at the bottom of this list and then make the separate article when it gets too long. And then when that list becomes too long, specific countries might start splitting off. That is the normal way Wikipedia grows, as I understand it. Anyway, it can't be right to refer to other articles but not provide a link to them. DirkvdM 18:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
In the previous discussion on this area, it was pointed out that any 'normal' unit originating in a non-anglophone country, within the context of being read in the English version of wikipedia, must inherently be unusual simply by virtue of being foreign.
As for the list becoming too long, it already became too long twice before, the first time resulted in the entire article barely surviving a request for deletion, one of the prime criticisms at the time being that it was too broad in scope. opening it up to non-anglophone units restores that threat of the article being deleted.
However, I am fully in favour of an equivalent article being started elsewhere within this wiki. I just don't think it should be appended to this article, as otherwise it broadens the scope of this article to a level that threatens its existence. I am going to add the link to that index article for foreign units too. Rhialto 18:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Like I said, once this article gets too large, things can be split off (in stead of deleted - I am a fervent anti-deletionist). Starting with the foreign languages section. I just proposed to start it here because there are not enough entries too warrant a separate article (or are there?). Once there are, it can split off.
An alternative would be to add those to separate sections in specific country units articles, but there are no such articles. Maybe those should be created, again preferably starting with one overall article List of units of measurement in non-English speaking countries or just Units of measurement in non-English speaking countries and then splitting off when it becomes too large. DirkvdM 07:46, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't like deleting stuff either. But because this article has been threatened with deletion in the past before in a formal vote because fo a lack of focus and lack of verifiability, it is extreemly important to be vigilant in removing anything unfocused or uncited.
An aditional danger with starting a foreign language section is that the items might not, within the context of the English wikipedia (though not so within the context of that language-specific wikipedia) be sufficiently notable. A reasonable case could be made that such a split-off article for unusual units in non-anglophone countires isn't sufficiently notable, let alone sufficiently focused.
It is also my opinion that the language-specific articles on units, for example Finnish units of measurement (which includes the reindeer-piss as a unit of length), do allow for such unusual measurements to be included.
Finally, any unit which doesn't have a specific 'list' article can always appear in its own article. This does of course raise an extra issue of notability, but that should not be a problem if the unit in question is well-cited and actually notable enough in its own right. Adding non-notable units to this article simply raises teh danger of the entire list article being deleted. Rhialto 09:37, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hoppus Foot

A unit used for raw lumber, corresponding to a cylinder 4 feet in circumference, and one foot or inch long.

'Oxford Dictionary of Weights, Measures and Units" by Donald Fenna (isbn 780198605225) gives thus as 4 foot circumference, and one foot long, while ASA 1375 gives this as 4 feet in circumference, and one foot long.
I have seen also this applied to a hoppus board foot (4 feet circumference * 1 inch), this is 4/pi board feet. Wendy.krieger 10:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
A google-search on 'hoppus foot' brings up many entries, with a hoppus board foot = 1 inch, hoppus foot = 1 ft, and hoppus tun = 50 ft, all of a cylinder 4 feet in circumference. --Wendy.krieger 09:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
I can't see any reason for you not to add it to the page. Rhialto 09:42, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cubic Acres

There are plenty of references in Google for "cubic acre", and where the measure is given size, is translated as 208.3 acre-feet. Watch out for 'cubic acre foot', which is the same as 'acre foot'.

Many science-educated people get confused with the subtle difference between "cubic" (which refers to volume), and cubed (which refers to the third power). So one takes 'cubic acre' as 'acre cubed'. It isn't. In the rough, 'cubic', 'square', and 'linear', apply to the dimensions that a unit might be applied to: volume, area or length. It is quite acceptable to use a unit without this prefix (eg 'yard of soil'), even where the unit is used for a different quantity.

So, there are indeed many references to 'cubic yard', and the meaning is perfectly clear, except for those who make the cubic/cubed confusion. --Wendy.krieger 11:01, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Liberalism: The Brennan Scale

I've moved this unit out of the main article, since it is uncited, a quick google search reveals no obvious signs of such usage, and as the alleged unit is named after a real person, it could be construed as a personal attack (wp:bio). Rhialto 06:40, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Planets

How about Planets as a measure of ecological footprint, as seen at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7057346.stm ? It's sort of mentioned in the article for ecological footprint, but as this is becoming increasingly popular in the media, I think it should be added here, and on the disambiguation page for planet. Nick Fel 10:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] units in non-anglophone countries

As has been noted in teh opening paragraph for many months,

"For units that are primarily used in non-English-speaking countries, please see the article on units specific to that country, links to which can be found in Systems of measurement."

Without this limitation, the scope of the article would be so broad as to make the article impossibly long for any modern web browser to handle the complete article. This doesn't mean that such units have no place within the overall wiki, just not within thsi specific article. Rhialto 18:09, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I can see why you might wish to restrict the scope. My motivation for rewording the introduction was only to *clarify* that scope as I now understand it. The statement that some units can be found elsewhere does not preclude their presence here, so I made that more explicit. Did I get that wrong? Thunderbird2 18:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Half-a-Heartbeat

I remember many moons ago that a teacher would use the phrase "half-a-heartbeat" when requesting something to get done; for example, "you got half-a-heartbeat to get back to your seat". Would this be an unusual measurement or just a dead metaphor? Lawrenceallie (talk) 00:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd think it's just a metaphor, unless you can find serious publications which do things in terms of half-a-heartbeats. mattbuck (talk) 02:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] An irrelevant joke

It stuck to my mind that a Finnish CGI comedy series about the country's government (yes, really) began its space musical special (yes, really) with a news broadcast about an incoming asteroid roughly the size of Texas. As Finnish viewers live on an entirely different side of the planet than the state, it then immediately clarified that Texas is roughly the size of a large asteroid.

In other news, could someone from a country that uses it add "breadbox" to the article and dig up an instance or two of its use? --Kizor 13:09, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] nano-c

In some discussion in our german WP we just came across speed and why the speed of light c is not used as the general reference for all speeds, as it is such a universal constant. When looking deeper into the issue, the "nano-c" might be useful, as it's fairly comparable to the common European speed unit km/h: 100 km/h = 92.6 nano-c, or 1 nano-c = 1.07 km/h. So there's only a 7 % difference between the two. So this could become fairly usable. So this is per assumption a new invention and probably not found in any sources. Or? --PeterFrankfurt (talk) 00:37, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

That looks like original thought to me. Rhialto (talk) 07:42, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
And you are mixing up quantities and units here. The speed of light is c (italic), not 1 c (roman). Prefixes are only attached to unit symbols. So first you would have to define a unit whose symbol is c, and then take it from there. --DrTorstenHenning (talk) 12:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
It's even closer to foot/sec.  :-) 1 nanocee = .98357 ft/sec Nik42 (talk) 03:58, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

It was just a sudden idea. And the original discussion entry (from someone else) wanted to use c as one of the basic units in a measurement system similar to SI. At first I found that hilarious, but after reasoning, I began to sympathize with the idea. And this is of course the discussion page, not the article, I know that such stuff would need "a bit" more support before full publication. --PeterFrankfurt (talk) 22:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

An interesting idea. The basic unit of length could be defined as the distance that light travels in one nanosecond. The second, of course, would be defined the same as it is now. This would make the basic unit of length be 29.9792458 cm or 11.8028526772 inches, i.e., very close to a foot. Perhaps, you could even use the name "foot" ("scientific foot" if you need to distinguish from the "traditional foot"). The basic unit of volume would be the cubic "decifoot" or "inch" (26.94 ml or .911 oz). The basic unit of mass would be equivalent to the weight of one 1 cubic decifoot of water (26.94 g or .95 oz). Ironically, those units come pretty close the the American system ... :-)
By definition, foot/sec would be equivalent to nanocee Nik42 (talk) 03:58, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] iPod nano index

There's a slight problem with this one, so I hope it was just supposed to be a spoof on the Big Mac index (which itself would be subject to similar...) - the company selling the item also has a hand in setting the price, as well as all the other market forces. And with something like the ipod, Apple has a fairly free reign, thanks to their all-conquering marketing blitz (it's not that better rival products don't exist, for a lower price ... just no-one brainwashed by floaty Feist music and wierd imagery into running out and getting a shiny 2Gb mp3 player in a range of colours will have heard or be bothered to learn about them), they can almost name their price, so long as they think it'll still sell in sufficient numbers to comfortably crush the opposition.

Add to that, for the UK, the "transatlantic gadget exchange rate", where things importing from the USA (market - regardless of it being made in china) to the UK seem to be sold at a dollar:pound exchange rate of 1:1, regardless of what the true value is. This has become even more absurd since the dollar has settled at an almost $2.00:£1.00 real rate, and since Apple tried to sell music tracks that were 99c in the states for 99p in Britain, even though it's all going over the internet and there isn't even the excuse of shipping costs (flimsy at best even for the ipods - I know what INDIVIDUAL carriage charges from the orient and the USA are like and have an idea of bulk ones, and they're not on the magnitude of £100 for package the size of a normal paperback book). This traditional, groundless and much lamented price-gouge by major electronics manufacturers must surely skew the result some, even though the country's purchasing power on a range of other more important and, on aggreagate, more economically valuable things (food, fuel.. cars.. labour..) is completely unaffected by these shenanigans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.46.180.56 (talk) 06:12, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Possible addition: kilobase

The kilobase (abbreviated kb, confusingly) is a common term used in genetics to refer to the length of a gene sequence; it's equivalent to 1000 base pairs. So bacterial plasmids, usually between 4 to 10 thousand base pairs, are 4-10 kb. This is for both size and distance, so one sequence may be 3 kb downstream of another. Larger sequences may be measured in megabases, gigabases, etc. The article on Base pair discusses these units, but perhaps a mention here is warranted as well. 74.236.79.85 (talk) 09:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] jiffy

Jiffy as 1/60th of a second predates computing; I've seen an American English dictionary (don't remember the publisher) from the 1920s with "jiffy" listed in the unit conversion tables in the back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.166.154.249 (talk) 16:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Outhouse

I'd just like to point out that it isn't obvious nonsense- there is a link on the outhouse (unit) page to a site defining this unit, and the link looks reasonable to me. Loggie (talk) 10:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay. I'll revert my edit. That reference looks reasonable. I'd seen many references in the past to barns and sheds, but this was the first one to an outhouse. It possible has issues in terms of notability (as it ever actually been cited elsewhere? Is there any other source that notes the existence of the unit, or is it a deliberate bad data he made in his site to spot data miners and detect copyright thieves?) But it would take an unreasonable amount of effort to find more data on whether it should be included. Rhialto (talk) 11:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I was able to find other sources for the shed article, but I haven't had any success with the outhouse, but then, I am only looking online as I don't have access to paper sources. So, I can't answer those questions, sorry. Loggie (talk) 11:07, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Distance as "minutes"

This is hardly a Philippines "phenomenon" or in the US, limited to the "southern region"; nor is it really all that 'unusual'. Throughout the US, when travel is involved, using time instead of distance is quite common -- especially in (but not limited to) cities of all sizes. vmz (talk) 16:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)