Technology can tempt us to snub mental math and to trust machines to tell us everything. Well, call me old-school, but I like keeping my brain engaged in reality\u2019s texture. For those of similar mind, I\u2019m going to mention a few basic tidbits that have proven useful when straddling the worlds of metric measurements and English measurements. Saipan often juggles both worlds. <\/p>\n
Actually, I don\u2019t even know if \u201cEnglish\u201d is the correct term for the system of measurement that I\u2019m calling \u201cEnglish,\u201d but I\u2019ll use it anyway. <\/p>\n
These tidbits are only useful if they\u2019re easily remembered, so this is an exercise in minimization. <\/p>\n
Temperature:<\/strong> My temperature tidbit is a favorite with pilots. It\u2019s also important when serving tourists. I\u2019ve mentioned it before. You can get a ball park conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit by doubling the Celsius and then adding 30. Thus, 27C becomes an estimated 84F. The precise answer, for comparison, is 80.6F. The two figures are certainly close enough for advising a client on how to pack for a trip, and this technique is also useful as a sanity check on precise calculations.<\/p>\n Length:<\/strong> One useful tidbit is the fact that there are 2.54 centimeters to the inch. That\u2019s such a commonly-used number I think it\u2019s often memorized. For mental math it\u2019s easy to round it to 2.5.<\/p>\n Another tidbit is that a 10K run (a common distance for such things; the \u201cK\u201d means kilometers) is equivalent to 6.2 miles. Of course, if you\u2019re going to travel 6.2 miles you might as well get some lunch while you\u2019re at it, so it makes sense to fire up the car and hit the drive-through. <\/p>\n Well, so far, so good, but what sticks in my craw is going between yards and meters, or feet and meters. This can be a headache for a fast conversion. The best I\u2019ve come up with is that a meter is about 10% longer than a yard, but when I\u2019m in these situations I usually need an exact answer so I wind up scrambling for a pencil or calculator. <\/p>\n Weight:<\/strong> There are 2.2 pounds in a kilogram. I think that a kilogram is technically a unit of mass, while a pound is a unit of weight, but I\u2019m not a scientist so I don\u2019t have to care. <\/p>\n Volume:<\/strong> There are 3.8 liters in a U.S. gallon. While this is certainly no secret, I don\u2019t think many people keep it in mind.<\/p>\n Gallons are tricky things, since there\u2019s also an \u201cImperial\u201d gallon used by the British. I\u2019ve never paid any attention to this. However, if I get the E-type Jaguar I\u2019ve always wanted, I\u2019ll revisit the issue.<\/p>\n Summary:<\/strong> In summary, then, some basic tidbits that have stood the test of time, at least in my noggin, are: Double it and add 30; 2.54; 6.2; 10%; 2.2; and 3.8. Presented in this thumbnail manner, the information can be used to test ourselves on the relevant contexts and related information. <\/p>\n I suspect that the English system will continue to decline in relative importance to the metric system. After all, the long-term trajectories of the underlying economies certainly favor the latter.<\/p>\n But for the sake of posterity, I\u2019ll mention there\u2019s some human-scale wisdom behind an inch being the width of a thumb; a foot being, well, about as long as a foot; and a mile being 1,000 paces. On that last note, the term \u201cmile\u201d is derived from the Latin \u201cmilia\u201d for thousand. <\/p>\n If you read the British press you\u2019ll encounter the term \u201cstone,\u201d which equates to 14 pounds of weight. Now you know. For some reason, I have never been able to memorize this simple fact. I guess the rocks in my head don\u2019t have room for one more stone. <\/p>\n But there is room in the garage for an E-type Jaguar, so I\u2019ll just keep dreaming of using one for my next 10K run. <\/p>\n \u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n Speaking of measurements, I\u2019m going to refine some rough items from last week\u2019s column about the Orion constellation. I referred to the star Rigel as white. Then I mentioned that Rigel is a blue supergiant. So, what\u2019s up? Well, the \u201cblue supergiant\u201d designation is a technical specification that came from a NASA Web page. By contrast, in my very non-technical stargazing, Rigel seems more whitish than blue, hence the white in my observational notes. I also mentioned that our solar system sits on the Orion Spur, also known as the Orion Arm, of our galaxy. I should have also mentioned that our galaxy is called the \u201cMilky Way.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Technology can tempt us to snub mental math and to trust machines to tell us…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}