Marcus de Sautoy's weights and measures

[JimbobVFR]

Dogwatch said:

Once saw a boxed kitchen unit on which the printed dimensions in centimetres for France and millimetres for the UK.

All the trades quote measurements in millimetres. I once confused a kitchen fitter when he was giving me a hand while wiring some downright, I asked him to leave about 10cm of the cable he was helping me pull through the wall, he asked me what that was in mils :-) Although to be fair he did then laugh at himself.

[SpeckledJim]

Simpo Two said:

'British metric' doesn't seem to use cm, it's all mm or m. Never mind, you can always use inches to fill the middle bit

Cm and mm are too close together, potential for cock up.

[Simpo Two]

SpeckledJim said:

Cm and mm are too close together, potential for cock up.

On the plus side, my boat could have been 270 feet long instead of just 27

On the other hand it could have been 2.7 feet...

Looks down at boat:
'It's a bit fking small mate'
'We could make you one for the other foot sir...'

[Mojooo]

Local Authorities also keep a weight liek the one shown in the documentary in a lab - which is then sued to check scales in shops etc

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How do we know that the weights and measures that we use to check equipment used in trade, are accurate? Trading Standards maintain 'Local Standard' weights and measures of length, in controlled conditions. They are kept under lock and key and have to be handled with special gloves so that their accuracy cannot be affected in any way. The weights and measures (known as "Working Standards") that are used by inspectors to check traders' equipment, are regularly checked against these Local Standards. They in turn are compared with National Standards kept by the National Weights and Measures Laboratory.

[Mojooo]

Forgot to say - we officially only went over to metric from the 60's onwards (and not because of the EU)

[RosscoPCole]

I thought it was amusing that a team in America were trying to perfect the perfect kilogram, yet America hasn't signed up to use the metric system. Why are they doing it then?

[Simpo Two]

To show the Frogs how it's done, then sell it to them for millions of dollars?

[Flibble]

MartG said:

Not all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEYUoISCQ5w

See also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoASZyihalc

[MartG]

Flibble said:

MartG said:

Not all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEYUoISCQ5w

See also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoASZyihalc

Episode 3 - 'nuculus' , 'nuculi'

[Zad]

I never trust a "scientist" who cannot pronounce nuclear, and who thinks gravity stops a few miles up. The nucular thing reputedly started with a US president, who couldn't pronounce nuclear, and nobody dare correct him. I await the QI klaxon...

I'm afraid some fairly fundamental points have spoiled the credibility of this series.

[Zumbruk]

Zad said:

I never trust a "scientist" who cannot pronounce nuclear,

de Sautoy is a mathematician. And given that his stuff is orders of magnitude better than most TV science shows, I'll forgive him the occasional mispronunciation (which may be there with an eye (ear?) to the American market anyway.)

[Halmyre]

Zumbruk said:

Zad said:

I never trust a "scientist" who cannot pronounce nuclear,

de Sautoy is a mathematician. And given that his stuff is orders of magnitude better than most TV science shows, I'll forgive him the occasional mispronunciation (which may be there with an eye (ear?) to the American market anyway.)

Carl Sagan had some odd turns of phrase, but then he's an American. For example, the 'ute' sound as in 'Royal Institute'.

[Simpo Two]

Halmyre said:

Carl Sagan had some odd turns of phrase, but then he's an American. For example, the 'ute' sound as in 'Royal Institute'.

And Mars became Morruz. But as you say, you can forgive Americans.

Sautoy potatoes anyone?

[MartG]

Simpo Two said:

And Mars became Morruz. But as you say, you can forgive Americans.

And the 'yooman' race

I guess a lot of Sagan's ( and some other 'merkin's ) pronunciation is down to their family being immigrants from non-English speaking countries, so they were brought up by people to whom English wasn't their first language

Edited by MartG on Sunday 30th June 17:07

[Mojooo]

Felt it was a bit light on the science TBH

Just watched episode one - all that talk and then at the end he talks about the speed of light but doesn't explain what it is or going into any further detail even though its the most current method.

[jimmy156]

Simpo Two said:

Anyone see this this evening?

If so why did they go to so much trouble to make a perfect sphere? Wouldn't a cube have done equally well and been infinitely easier to make?

And didn't Mr Avogadro know what his number was?



Also Mr de Sautoy, please stop pronouncing nuclear and nucleus as 'nucular' and 'nuculus'!

I think Avagadro suggested that the number would exist and some years later someone else (probably a german) worked out what the number was.

[Simpo Two]

IIRC it was 6.23 x 10-23 when I was at school, though I agree it probably has more dps than that.

The whole thing seemed backwards to me; a constant should be determined mathematically, like e or c or pi, not have someone try to make a perfect kilogram and then try to count all the atoms one by one... we don't calculate pi by drawing a big circle and attacking it with rulers... they knew the sphere wasn't perfect so the result was going to be wrong before they started!

[jimmy156]

6.02 x 10-23, number of atoms in a mole. The number comes from the number of atoms in 12g of carbon-12.

Most constants (in chemistry) aren't strictly constant though, pi is an exception. A lot of constants are dependent on temperature for example and are only constant for a specified temperature.

[Simpo Two]

So to find out a mole by 'counting', would it not have been easier to take 1g of carbon 12 than 1,000g of silicon? I thought the whole point of a mole was that it was the same number of atoms for any element.

[jimmy156]

Simpo Two said:

So to find out a mole by 'counting', would it not have been easier to take 1g of carbon 12 than 1,000g of silicon? I thought the whole point of a mole was that it was the same number of atoms for any element.

It is, 1 mole of Carbon 12 will weigh 12g and contain 6.02x10-23 carbon atoms. 1 mole of Aluminium will weigh 26.9g and contain 6.02x10-23 Al Atoms.

1 mole of water would weigh 18g and contain 6.02x 10-23 water molecules . This means its also true to say that 1 mole of water contains 2 moles of hydrogen atoms and 1 mole of oxygen atoms, a total of 1.81 x10-24 atoms.