6 Strange Units of Measurement We Still Use

Рет қаралды 1,230,661

Күн бұрын

From a Jiffy to a Furlong, what are these strange units of measurement that we still use everyday? Join Olivia Gordon and learn about the weird units you use every time you put on your shoes or read about dark matter! Let's go!
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Sources:
Sources:
Introduction:
• The bridge which is me...
web.mit.edu/smo...
Furlong:
smile.amazon.co...
books.google.c...
books.google.c...
northernwoodla...
Barleycorn:
www.helsinki.fi...
www.sizes.shoes...
oureverydaylif...
Micromort:
www.cambridge....
www.uspa.org/fa...
theconversatio...
taronga.org.au...
Jiffy:
catb.org/~esr/j...
www.coe.neu.ed...
lwn.net/Articl...
www.unc.edu/~r...
Banana Equivalent Dose:
knowyourmeme.co...
hps.org/public...
xkcd.com/radia...
www.cancer.gov...
Barn:
ed.fnal.gov/pai...
web.archive.or...
www.sciencedire...
journals.aps.o...
Image Sources:
upload.wikimed...
en.wikipedia.o...

Пікірлер: 3 700

@HandeToon 6 жыл бұрын

Not so common anymore but in Finnish Lapland people used to measure distance by the "Deer Piss" (poronkusema), which is the distance a reindeer could pull a sleigh before it needed to stop to take a piss. There's no standardised length for that, but a reindeer will run at most 7,5 kilometres before needing to urinate.

@MrHuggaga 6 жыл бұрын

HandeToon that is so funny yet actually interesting! ;D

@AxelÞór 6 жыл бұрын

There is an old unit in Iceland called "þingvallaleið" (parliament way, or route), which is the distance a man traveling to parliament would cover in a day. It is approx. 30 km.

@urielrosenzweig4315 6 жыл бұрын

I love the universe

@baileysutcliffe4617 6 жыл бұрын

@skbartistry2473 6 жыл бұрын

The Vikings had an ancient measuring unit called a *Fot* which is 0.314 meters long. And a Fot* is 0.280 meters long. This number is derived from dividing a Fot by 12.

@IstasPumaNevada 6 жыл бұрын

For anyone interested, they marked the Smoots out on the bridge, and repainted them yearly, to the point where local police offers started recording accident positions by what Smoot they happened at. And then later when the bridge needed to be reconstructed, it was done so with deck parts not of the standard length, but one Smoot long. Or so I read.

@aidanwhite5631 Жыл бұрын

this is awesome

@wirebrushproductions1001 Жыл бұрын

Sorry, but no. Standard panel construction. However, the fraternity which originally created the Smoot made an exact record of the lengths, and repainted the marks once construction was done. EDIT However, concrete sidewalks are laid as a continuous strip of concrete, with expansion joint cut into the concrete. When the bridge was reconstructed, the contractor adjusted the cut interval to be one Smoot (about 5 feet, seven inches).END EDIT And, at least in the 60s, the common story was that the Smoot system was not voluntary. Instead, young Smoot had too much to drink and was unaware of the use to which he was put.

@Z4RD4N34 Жыл бұрын

@@wirebrushproductions1001 Better than your buddies getting you a mystery tattoo.

@surlyogre1476 Жыл бұрын

Google Earth has _smoots_ as one of the units of measure available, along with inches, feet, miles, and their metric equivalents.

@peterzavon3012 Жыл бұрын

@@wirebrushproductions1001 Yes, the drinking story is the one I was given in the late 60s by MIT students of the day, and that his frat buddies turned him head over heels with each measurement. I also understood that, when the bridge deck was rebuilt, it was the police that required the Smoot measurements to be recorded and re-marked to preserve the integrity of their more recent records. Then the fraternity resumed annual repainting of them. By the 70s, the layers of pain had become so thick that you could almost trip over them. I would not be surprised if they were trending that way again.

@knutritter461 4 жыл бұрын

As a former natural scientist (chemistry) I like the concept of BEDs very much. Because most people freak out when they hear about radioactivity. Counting in BEDs makes them realize that everything around us and ourselves are actually radioactive, too! Additionally people can assess the invisible relative amount of radioactivity by something they know, they can touch and see. I will use this unit in future!

@DeactivatedCharcoal Жыл бұрын

Lately a controversy has arisen about whether we should use Natural Gas Stoves or Electric. Those against Gas Stoves say electric is safer, as combustion products are potentially harmful. I'm surprised they never mention the fact that Natural Gas contains Radon, a colorless, odorless, tasteless chemically inert gas is radioactive.

@goodun2974 Жыл бұрын

The amount of potassium contained in 100 million bananas would stop your heart long before the radiation killed you. 🤔

@knutritter461 Жыл бұрын

@@goodun2974 But you can stand next to them and look at them... 😉😂

@MrFixit-fb5bu 4 жыл бұрын

Actually, the barleycorn as a shoe size measurement goes back to Hammurabi. His army was followed around by a bunch of shoemakers who had to carve wooden lasts (the shoe form for making a shoe). Every new recruit got a set of lasts with his name on them that was used to make his shoes. When he was killed, the last ceremonial act was to throw his lasts into the camp fire. That's a lot of activity, so Hammurabi had a contest to find the guy in his army with the biggest feet. They measured 39 barleycorns in length, and since 36 barleycorns is a "foot" 39 barleycorns became "size 13" and each half size up or down adds or subtracts one barleycorn, or 1/3 of an inch from that initial measurement. So now the army only needed about 52 sets of lasts, (Narrow, Medium, and Wide widths) and no more were burned. Now, how many pints in a firkin?

@georgeb.wolffsohn30 Жыл бұрын

A bunch ?

@MrHaighahatta Жыл бұрын

Now, that depends on whether you're talking about wine or beer/ale, before or after the mid-1500's, imperial or british, and how big your kilderkin is (without embarrassing the womenfolk or unnecessary bragging).

@mobius-edge Жыл бұрын

I thought there had to be an error in the video as 24 barleycorns was far too few to be size 13 since 24/3=8. Your numbers make sense, and I appreciate the history lesson.

@nunobernardo625 11 ай бұрын

"how many pints in a firkin?" A firkin lot!

@TissueCat 6 жыл бұрын

My favorite unit of measurement is the millihelen, the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship.

@zammyscorp0 6 жыл бұрын

Nice copy paste, well done

@allanrichardson1468 4 жыл бұрын

Isaac Asimov claimed that one in one of his memoir books. It’s based on an Ancient Greek poem by Homer. Not Simpson!

@AlixL96 Жыл бұрын

that implies that helen of troy's beauty was enough to launch precisely one million ships. the implication here are fascinating.

@stratocruising Жыл бұрын

@@AlixL96 Check your prefixes. A full Helen would launch a thousand ships, a millihelen, one.

@sydhenderson6753 10 ай бұрын

@@stratocruising A microhelen is sufficient to launch a plank, and a nanohelen a sliver.

@nighthawk2k3rsx 6 жыл бұрын

The program mathcad has Smoots as a unit. I turned homework in once where I made all velocities measured in Smoots/Fortnight. TA wasn’t amused

@danielsmith5664 6 жыл бұрын

This made me laugh entirely too hard

@simeonbaumel7293 4 жыл бұрын

But if the answer was correct, he had to give you full credit...

@allyourpie4323 3 жыл бұрын

I would probably give you extra points.

@davidlium9338 2 жыл бұрын

Hilarious!!!

@haramanggapuja 2 жыл бұрын

Time to cue up Prof. Chris Staecker ;-) I'm sure he'd have given you credit. Providing you could show your work. ;-)

@KingfisherTalkingPictures 4 жыл бұрын

My favorite is the Teller, a unit of unfounded confidence. It was named for Physicist Edward Teller, around the time he was helping pitch the Star Wars anti-missile system for Reagan. 1 teller was so ridiculously large, that most daily units were in nano- or pico-tellers. “Hey, I can get my car into that parking space,” might be a nano-teller large.

@GregConquest Жыл бұрын

Or the Scaramouchi: the 11 days he was Communications Director under President WhatsHisName. Sean Spicer was WH Communications Director for 4.5 Scaramouchis, for example. Barack Obama was president for 266 Scaramouchis.

@farmergiles1065 Жыл бұрын

I guess that makes the kilo-teller the unit for measuring the confidence of the average Trump devotee.

@mumtrz Жыл бұрын

Then bank security guards must be working in the most hubristic place in the world, every single day they're exposed to dozens of Tellers!

@farmergiles1065 Жыл бұрын

@@mumtrz Banks could alleviate that problem by using their bountiful supply of Tellers to use AI in their next generation of automated Tellers. By the time that's ready, those machines should be obsolete! A fitting end.

@ColinMill1 Жыл бұрын

There is a similar gag about the unit of self-importance being the kan. However it is so large that the largest recorded measurement was one Millikan.

@therealjammit 4 жыл бұрын

Cop: "Do you know how fast you were going?" Me: "66,179 smoots per hour"

@HotelPapa100 4 жыл бұрын

Heisenberg: "No, but I can tell you precisely where I am!" Cop: "exactly 121.7" miles per hour, you loon!" Heisenberg: "Great! now I am lost!"

@leefisher6366 4 жыл бұрын

@@HotelPapa100 I'm really uncertain about that comment. (Someone had to say it).

@bodevp 4 жыл бұрын

@@leefisher6366 a particle's position and speed can't be measured precisely simultaneously

@leefisher6366 4 жыл бұрын

@@bodevp Oh, bless. Taking me literally. I said that because of the reference to Heisenberg in HotelPapa100's comment. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as you have defined it.

@loremipsumdolorsitamet9542 4 жыл бұрын

You should calculate with smoots per jiffy and call it a scishow. Do one scishow is the time in 1000 jiffy per smoot and 2 scishow is 2000 jiffy per smoot

@NothingVideot 6 жыл бұрын

The entirety of the imperial system?

@Minty_Mentos_ 6 жыл бұрын

DELTA about to say that

@TheV-Man 6 жыл бұрын

Yes!!!

@MrGustaphe 6 жыл бұрын

Yeah, but it's not like anyone uses them seriously?

@ClemensJason 6 жыл бұрын

YAAAS

@Dalen22_W 6 жыл бұрын

David Gustavsson the whole usa does for some reason

@thekaxmax 6 жыл бұрын

'furlongs per fortnight' allows you to measure snail speeds in whole numbers.

@umey3445 5 жыл бұрын

thekaxmax cm per hour?

@Messerschmidt_Me-262 5 жыл бұрын

Did u mean fortnite? (Yes this is sarcastic)

@W.H.V. 5 жыл бұрын

@@Messerschmidt_Me-262 Even though this is a joke, I still hate you for it.

@Powerkillera 5 жыл бұрын

Coincidentally, a furlong per fortnight is almost exactly a centimeter per minute.

@T4nkcommander 6 жыл бұрын

Other related units to the barn are the shed and outhouse. Actually had outhouse come up on one of my nuclear tests back in college

@lorijudd2151 Жыл бұрын

So now I feel like part of a riddle, but what is a measurement that uses a shed? Or an outhouse? Also, have you ever used a real, made by a farmer outhouse?

@T4nkcommander Жыл бұрын

@@lorijudd2151 thankfully never had to use one, though my grandparents did. Shed and outhouse are just different order of magnitude of the barn, which is used for nuclear cross section calcs (ie, how many interactions do you expect there to be per amount of material, roughly speaking)

@HotelPapa100 9 ай бұрын

@@T4nkcommander So a shed is 0.1 barn, the outhouse 0.01 barn?

@rogerking7258 5 жыл бұрын

Giving dimensions a name is actually very important in that it enables you to visualise what you are doing. I realised this when an Italian supplier of mine (in a precision engineering environment) asked for dimensions in thou, even though we always made sure he was given metric dimensions. When I asked why, he said it was because it was much easier to visualise machining 3 thou off something than .0762mm

@hathorthecow7146 Жыл бұрын

What in the sam hill is an Italian using thousands of an inch for? I'm american and I didn't know "thou" was a thing until I asked google just now.

@jefferyindorf699 Жыл бұрын

@@hathorthecow7146 you're not a Machinist.

@Mattvieir Жыл бұрын

That is very, VERY odd. I thought everyone living in a metric country would have an easier time visualizing metric units. I mean, as a mechanical engineer, .0762mm is much easier for me to visualize than 3 thou (it is just shy of 1/10 mm, and 1 mm is simple to grasp). My first thought was that he prefer thou because he was either trained in the USA, or his machine is American made.

@randydewees7338 Жыл бұрын

@@Mattvieir Depends on his background. I'm a optician, I tend to think in "waves". If I'm using an ultraprecision machine tool, or any CNC, I always program in millimeters. For surface testing in the IR I think in microns, in the vis I think in waves (Angstroms or nanometers). For micro-roughness it's Angstroms or nanometers for optical surfaces, micro-inches for machined metal surfaces. If I'm turning wheels on a manual machine like a lathe or mill I prefer "thou". I find metric not as easy to visualize at that scale though I do get used to it. I think that to some degree my brain processes these different units in different ways - related to the activities. I'm completely comfortable with a unit in one activity, but not in another. If I'm doing something that requires equivalent units, I'm careful. I think if there was some great benefit to stating everything in say, meters, then it would have been done a long time ago. This lack of uniformity seems to offend people who don't actually make things. For one that works in a varied manufacturing environment it kind of makes sense, and sliding between units is the least of difficulty. If someday it all gets reduced to, say, meters, then something of the romance will be lost.

@joonarepo2067 6 жыл бұрын

There's this funny unit of distance in Finland called "poronkusema" which literally mean the distance a reindeer can go without peeing. It obviously isn't in use anymore but it's an interesting remain of the old measuring units. And how long is one "poronkusema"? Several kilometers but not more than 7,5 due to the fact that reindeer cannot pee while running. If they run for too long, they can get paralysis.

@justanoman6497 6 жыл бұрын

Australia is so dangerous, that sitting in a chair in Australia is more dangerous than sharks.

@aidran007 6 жыл бұрын

Just Anoman ...not to mention Drop Bears

@westcoastwarriorsarchive7929 6 жыл бұрын

That was my favorite part of the video

@fairyheli2 6 жыл бұрын

Especially when you remember you're upside down and fall into the sky

@maximkhan-magomedov431 6 жыл бұрын

What about sitting in a chair with kangaroo in the middle of shark-infested ocean? Insanity.

@thomasraahauge5231 6 жыл бұрын

It has been verified. Everything in Australia is trying to kill you . . .

@JesusFlores-ju3mh 5 жыл бұрын

Im glad I’ve discovered this channel and PBS Eons. They have become my favorite channels on all of KZfaq.

@downinthevalley9757 3 жыл бұрын

same!

@elizamccroskey1708 Жыл бұрын

I know that bridge well, and the Smoot story. I LOVE that Mr. Smoot went on to head a measurement agency! Thanks as always for giving out quite interesting information.

@TrueFork Жыл бұрын

For convenience I always express depth in stone throws. Example, the Pacific ocean is 1.0 stone throw deep, the swimming pool is 1.0 stone throw deep, etc. It really simplifies calculations!

@uss_04 6 жыл бұрын

No mention of Butt Load (126 Gallons]? Disappointed.

@Bird_Dog00 6 жыл бұрын

126 Gallons in one butt? That's one hell of an enema!

@typacsk 6 жыл бұрын

Just once, I'd like to read a subtle reference to this in a Patrick O'Brian novel.

@Kumquat_Lord 5 жыл бұрын

Or a 'momemt' being a minute and a half long

@AstronautaVerdadeiro 5 жыл бұрын

*vsaucey reference*

@EduardQualls 5 жыл бұрын

That's the Imperial (Britain) or Customary (US) buttload. There's also the metric buttload, as well as the metric shitload.

@hurricaneofcats 6 жыл бұрын

My dad is an electrical engineer and apparently when he was in technical school he liked to calculate distances in units of 'furlongs per fortnight' just for the heck of it.

@peterzavon3012 Жыл бұрын

furlong per fortnight is a measure of speed, not distance.

@HotelPapa100 9 ай бұрын

@@peterzavon3012 And it's the unit usually cited when poking fun at the 'customary' system of measurements. A furlong per fortnight is about 0.17 mm/s so a prctical unit when measuring a snail's pace. (I'd still prefer mm/s, though.)

@enderz1341 5 жыл бұрын

In college I did an entire lab experiment in decameters bc I was bored. My professor had no idea where I was getting my numbers from because he failed to read all my carefully labeled units.

@bertmeinders6758 4 жыл бұрын

From my toolmaking days, I still use the unit "a fartskin". Very small, maybe a spring cut on a lathe or mill. And my father defined "a few" as "more than two, and less than a lot".

@TornixGalensti 6 жыл бұрын

Solar mass is an interesting unit. It's based on the mass of our sun which loses millions of metric ton in weight every second.

@swabby429 6 жыл бұрын

I kept waiting for her to explain a stone, the unit of weight.

@BertGrink 6 жыл бұрын

And I, for the "shake of a lamb's tail", which is used to measure very short time intervals on the order of 10 nanoseconds, by nuclear scientists, to describe very fast nuclear reactions.

@Delgen1951 6 жыл бұрын

Twinkle of an Eye is how long?

@poisonpotato1 6 жыл бұрын

J Johnson or the slug

@Bacteriophagebs 6 жыл бұрын

"I guess equestrians find it...handy" INSTANTLY CUTS TO A NEW SENTENCE. Well done.

@dalelane1948 4 жыл бұрын

When I saw the title I was sure you’re only talking about Murica. With your gallons, miles, acres & whatever else you guys like

@cyrenecai 6 жыл бұрын

My pet peeve is with the overuse of "width of a human hair" (WOAHH), "length of a football field" (LOAFF) and "olympic size swimming pool" (OSSP) in journalism - especially science journalism - to describe things. I know they think these are common things everyone understands, but how many people really understand the actual sizes of them? To me they do more to obfuscate than clarify what's being written or talked about, particularly in science writing where the people it's targeting already understand proper measurements...

@3800S1 6 жыл бұрын

average thickness of a hair 0.05mm or the thinnest gauge on a feeler gauge set or in old terms approximately 2 thou. Also same of many clear sticky tapes in thickness. Pretty easy to envision on that one at least. The rest I have no idea as I don't care for sports stuff.

@purplefire2834 4 жыл бұрын

I agree. I know how big a human hair is by feeling it, but I have very little picture of how big a football field is and even less of how big an Olympic sized swimming pool is.

@MarielynetteJohnson 4 жыл бұрын

I think it's okay if an object *actually* is the size of a football field (American football). My peeve is repetitive "in no way shape or form," and "in terms of". A picture-pedia on storms converted meters (of snow) into anywhere from 1 to 4 feet, or feet into meters. Either way they could have used decimals. Sometimes books alternate between English and metric, converting and not converting units, and putting English first and metric first.

@ramshacklealex7772 4 жыл бұрын

And they're never clear whether their definition of "length of a football field" includes the end zones, or just means 100 yards.

@GodDanC 4 жыл бұрын

@@ramshacklealex7772 American football fields were not standardized until the 1920s or so. And, the sideline to sideline measurement is just plain weird.

@Aipe97 6 жыл бұрын

Measuring a bridge for a fraternity? that's like the nerdiest frat pledge I've ever heard. I love it!

@octavianova1300 5 жыл бұрын

I love that by sheer happenstance, a foot happens to be almost exactly (about 98.5%) equal to a light-nanosecond, so I motion that we preserve the foot, but redefine it as equal to exactly 1 light-nanosecond (and therefore 0.299792458 meters)

@RainaRamsay Жыл бұрын

I support it I would also like to repurpose "hand" to be exactly 10cm, because it's much easier to say and to estimate than "decimeter"

@dtownknives 3 жыл бұрын

Reminds me of a project I did for one of my undergrad classes. We had to design a piping system, and after pulling an all-nighter, I decided to report my pipe lengths in smoots and flow rate in acre*ft/fortnight in addition to the standard SI units. My professor did not get as much of kick out of it as I did.

@amberkat8147 Жыл бұрын

Which is a shame, because that is absolutely hilarious.

@Zzyzzyx Жыл бұрын

I'm disappointed in your professor. They should have been delighted.

@Vla3d 6 жыл бұрын

There's also a Russian unit of measurement - Dohuya (Дохуя) and the way "dohuya" works is that when you're counting whatever that you're counting and you reach that point when you simply cannot continue due to physical inability, lack of interest, exhaustion or simply going insane - you reached HALF of "dohuya" (pron. [doe-who-ya]).

@alexandergarfin422 6 жыл бұрын

bahahahahah

@stumpypetros2685 5 жыл бұрын

Happens a lot when countng empty Vodka bottles :P

@cathipalmer8217 Жыл бұрын

Awesome!

@NoNameAtAll2 Жыл бұрын

Dofiga (doh-fee-gah) is a smaller, more manageable cousin of dohuya

@mekafinchi 6 жыл бұрын

The entire imperial system

@sarlotevolosevic4559 6 жыл бұрын

I was about to comment this xD

@NotDirtMcgurt 6 жыл бұрын

+Alex P the likes is for approval of the imperial system

@hibye-ht1fr 6 жыл бұрын

Gas the Commies lol no

@mekafinchi 6 жыл бұрын

Gas the Commies a) the comment is that the imperial system is the title of the video b) wtf is your username

@TardisPilot2004 6 жыл бұрын

Alex P agreed, even though I use it daily.

@ShaunDreclin Жыл бұрын

I really like the micromort, I wish it was more popular. People are not good at assessing risk intuitively, putting a number to it would be great

@Biogrrrl 6 жыл бұрын

Interesting. I was hoping to get some more info on the Hectare and the Stone. Hectares are used all the time in forestry, far more often than acres. Also, I've noticed that English people still use Stones to measure weight, but people in the U.S. do not. Maybe there could be another video about this in the future?

@Tjalve70 Жыл бұрын

Well, a hectare is just 100 ares. And an are is 10x10 meters, or 100 sq.m. So a hectare is 10,000 sq.m. That's just a natural part of the SI system.

@cathipalmer8217 Жыл бұрын

I was hoping for ells.

@catatonicbug7522 Жыл бұрын

@@cathipalmer8217 Losers are measured in L's. One L for a normal loser, and 5 L's for someone without the capability of success in ANY forum.

@joeyhardin5903 Жыл бұрын

A stone is just 14lbs. Not sure what that is in kg, or why they aren't used in the US

@seb3090 Жыл бұрын

A hectare is an SI unit for area, it is 10,000 metres square, that is a square 100m per side. Hecto means 100. An acre is a chain by a furlong, so 22 x 220 yards (10 chains to the furlong, 8 furlongs to the mile) there are about 2.5 acres to the hectare. A stone is 14 lbs (# I think the US customary system uses), from this you get 8 stone to the hundredweight (cwt, c just being short for centi) or 112 lbs and 20 cwt to the ton. Which is why the ton is 2240lbs not the short ton which is US 2000# as the US uses 100# to the cwt. The Imperial system is more interconnected than US customary units, although outside of enthusiasts usage is more limited for many of the obscure sizings. Fortnights are definitely a thing though. Firkins are also used for beer, most ale comes in firkins, that is 9 gallons, although a pint of water is a pound and a quarter here, so you need to use the Imperial gallon here.

@Master_Therion 6 жыл бұрын

Different countries use different measurements. It has to do with their... Ruler.

@railitto 6 жыл бұрын

*slow clap*

@doncooperjr4817 6 жыл бұрын

Ugghhh, that was painful.

@RTI111 6 жыл бұрын

🤣🤣🤣🤣

@nachtkind46 6 жыл бұрын

still is. Lol. I mean Yards and feet are still used in the USA most commonly. Meters are still used in the UK and it's mostly because our "rulers" still don't want us to convert to the other system. (congress and the president still have to make an official decision on what we officially use, and I feel any change from the Metric system would have to be officially approved via parliament in the UK)

@lillyie 6 жыл бұрын

SAANS PLS!!!

@rdxdt 6 жыл бұрын

Waking up my mom at night is over 9000 micromorts.

@IoEstasCedonta 5 жыл бұрын

"About a tenth of a furlong wide" - exactly a tenth of a furlong. A chain.

@TheOfficialCzex 5 жыл бұрын

The 'moment' is another good one. In the Middle Ages, a moment equated to exactly 90 seconds or one and a half minutes. Kind of intuitive, honestly.

@1959Edsel 6 жыл бұрын

The barn can be divided into smaller and less-used units, namely the outhouse and the shed.

@113dmg9 4 жыл бұрын

A very brainful comment.

@ThePhoenixAscendant Жыл бұрын

And a true one as well!

@WhoElseButZane 6 жыл бұрын

You need to get radiation therapy? That's bananas.

@PhazonBlaxor 6 жыл бұрын

In Finland we have a furlong called "poronkusema" (means something a reindeer has peed on). This is a distance a reindeer can ride you without stopping for a pee break, as reindeers cannot run and pee at the same time. If a reindeer keeps moving for too long time without peeing, it can cause a paralysis state for the animal. Poronkusema can be up to 7.5 kilometres long.

@laurendoe168 Жыл бұрын

A real world definition of a jiffy - the amount of time it takes to go the local store, buy a few items, and get back home.

@mattjohnston2 6 жыл бұрын

I get _why_ they do it, but I've always thought it humourous when a technician puts someone in front of an x-ray, than goes hide in another room. "Don't worry ma'am, this is harmless...I'll just be over here behind this lead wall."

@NotAGoodUsername360 6 жыл бұрын

Matt Johnston Drinking water is also perfectly harmless until you drink more than your kidneys can handle and it suddenly becomes actual literal poison.

@calamityjean1525 5 жыл бұрын

@@NotAGoodUsername360 Two clear illustrations of the old saying, "The dose makes the poison".

@allanrichardson1468 5 жыл бұрын

The patient may get a few dozen X-rays in a lifetime. The technician is doing dozens every day.

@ohyeahyeah3164 5 жыл бұрын

Matt

@arthas640 5 жыл бұрын

I had cancer as a kid and always found it kind of disconcerting when the nurse came out in a special gown, two pairs of gloves, safety glasses, and face mask to give you a bag of chemo. It's like "yeah, this stuff is so caustic and dangerous that we need 2 pairs of gloves in case a tiny drop got on our hands, but we're just gonna pump a liter of the stuff directly into a central line ot your heart."

@andrewsuryali8540 6 жыл бұрын

I'm kinda disappointed horsepower didn't make the list but smoot did...

@AdamSmith-gs2dv 6 жыл бұрын

Horsepower is cool, it's better say my car makes 300HP than 300 Newton's

@paprikalp7989 4 жыл бұрын

Technically speaking smoot wasn't on the list either

@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself 4 жыл бұрын

@@AdamSmith-gs2dv HP measures power and newtons are for force. The standard unit of power is the watt. Can your Delorean handle 1.21 gigawatts of power?

@JamesDavy2009 4 жыл бұрын

@@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself Don't forget that it must travel at 141.62 km/h (88 mph) when it gets the power dose of 1.21 GJ/s for the flux capacitor to work.

@leefisher6366 4 жыл бұрын

@@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself Ach, No Jim! I'm already givin' her all she's got, Captain! (Aah, but Marty - where we're going, we don't need Star Trek.)

@Scolopente Жыл бұрын

A jiffy is about 3 minutes. Its defined by the length of time it takes you to do the thing. 'I'll be down in a jiffy' or 'I'll be there in a jiffy' means 'I'm coming in the time it takes me to do this one thing I have to do before I can come'.

@mateuszstawowski5931 4 жыл бұрын

I think you forgot just about anything from the imperial system.

@Charles-ig6fr 6 жыл бұрын

OK, now I'm holding out for the Marvel superhero who gets his powers after being locked in a banana warehouse for days. Exposed to over 9000 BED of K40 radiation, his cells mutate, transforming him into.... BANANA MAN! I see huge potential. First his own title, then Avenger and Deadpool crossovers, standalone movie, maybe a Netflix series. Then there's some major banana related scandal involving the star of the series which gets the whole deal canceled before it even comes out, even though it totally otherwise would have happened.

@Croz89 6 жыл бұрын

Sorry, Bananaman is already taken. D.C. Thomson (of Dennis the Menace fame) has had that one since 1980.

@sheck4714 6 жыл бұрын

sorry, im pretty sure you have to eat the bananas to get the radiation maybe though... if you had like a few million bananas...

@Zizumia 6 жыл бұрын

The Navy has it's own measurements too like Shot and Fathom. A Fathom is 6 feet and is used to measure depth. It was originally the span of an average sailor's (man's) outstretched arms which was around 5 1/2 feet to 6 feet, but since Naval vessels still use this measurement today, they've set it at 6 feet. It is derived from an Anglo-Saxon word which means "to embrace", since a man must outstretch his arms to embrace his sweetheart. A Shot is 15 Fathoms (or 90 feet) which is used to measure Anchor Chains. A sailor must know how many shot's an anchor chain is if he doesn't want to lose his chain, thus a chain will be painted in lengths of a "shot".

@purplesam2609 6 жыл бұрын

That frat pledge is the most mild and entertaining I ever heard

@morenofranco9235 Жыл бұрын

When I was in the Army, and we were out on patrol in a "hot" zone, we would joke: "we'll be back in a jiffy". Jiffy manufactured all sorts of stuff. Like sandwich bags. And BODY BAGS!

@mattjohnston2 6 жыл бұрын

This video took me just a bit less than a Scaramucci to watch.

@silentwisdom7025 3 жыл бұрын

🤣🤣😀

@phishENchimps 3 жыл бұрын

Imagine if a president took an Obama to get rid of someone bad. There would be war crimes. Like drone bombing a wedding.

@sk8rdman 6 жыл бұрын

Someone's exposed to 100 BEDS a day? Man, that guy really gets around.

@TheShizzlemop 6 жыл бұрын

this comment is highly underrated.

@ImDemonAlchemist 6 жыл бұрын

Dan Exposed to 100 BEDS because of rocks and bricks no less.

@tommyjohson3193 5 жыл бұрын

It's a *PUN*

@be7th Жыл бұрын

I like the "wham" units to describe the fragility of things, with the decimal showing uncertainty. Crystal flute glass? 1 wham. iPhone? 8.8 whams. Small toe? 12.3 whams. My ego? 1.1 wham. Nokia phone? Infinity whams. The Rupert drop glass? Undefined wham. The fun truly begins when you compare two items.

@joshuagreen3185 6 жыл бұрын

There's a derived unit called the Hubble-barn, which is the volume of a cylinder with base area = 1 barn and length = the Hubble length (the radius of the visible universe). It's equal to about 13 liters / 3.5 gallons. Kind of weird - multiply an atomic-scale unit by a universe-scale unit and you get a human-scale unit!

@elviswjr 6 жыл бұрын

I know some people try to avoid BED but I think it's good for you. In fact, I try to expose myself to as much BED as possible. I even sleep in it, sometimes as much as 8 hours a day.

@goktrenks 6 жыл бұрын

Lmao

@jarnMod 6 жыл бұрын

Heck, I work in computer engineering for ages and never once in my life use a jiff. We call it a tick 😅

@bjornolson6527 4 жыл бұрын

jarnMod Especially considering the .gif controversy. 🤢

@SugarBeetMC 4 жыл бұрын

I study electrical engineering and the jiffy has never come up anywhere.

@GH-oi2jf 4 жыл бұрын

jarnMod - I studied computer science and worked with computers for 40 years. I never heard of a “jiffy” in that context. You would say “clocks” if you were counting clock cycles.

@allanrichardson1468 4 жыл бұрын

And a change of one in the binary number representing the X or Y coordinate of the mouse cursor, in other words the minimum mouse movement that can be detected by its host computer, is a Mickey. I wonder where that came from?

@markhorton3994 4 жыл бұрын

@@GH-oi2jf No I wouldn't say "clocks", I would either say clock cycles or ticks.

@ianlewis3023 Жыл бұрын

I like the unit the 'microcentury', a millionth of a century which works out as 52 minutes and 36 seconds and is defined as the maximum permissible time for a lecture.

@somebodys7404 5 жыл бұрын

Pianists measure hand span by the widest interval (distance between two pitches) we can reach. Very practical.

@PhauxTheFox 6 жыл бұрын

And now the play button is a unit of measurement

@nikoerforderlich7108 6 жыл бұрын

The maximum banana equivalent dose for a radiation worker in one year is half a megabanana.

@themanhimself1229 6 жыл бұрын

Niko erforderlich i want this to be true

@HappyBeezerStudios 6 жыл бұрын

I'd like to eat a megabanana at some point.

@nikoerforderlich7108 6 жыл бұрын

+Mr. Tophat I didn't actually look it up, but according to a cute song about the BED in www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07krkh0 (Matt Parker is in it) that's the case.

@josephgroves3176 6 жыл бұрын

So 0.05 sieverts?

@nikoerforderlich7108 6 жыл бұрын

+Joseph Groves Get outta here with your SI units! :D

@ShadowFoxSF Жыл бұрын

8:20 Friend says "I'll be back in a jif" They don't answer my time span question, but instead return dressed in a peanut butter jar costume.

@GratiaCountryman 6 жыл бұрын

I learned in Medieval History that a moment used to be a precise unit of time. It was 1 1/2 minutes, or 90 seconds.

@YourBrownEye 6 жыл бұрын

So what you're saying is that if I surround myself with 100 million bananas I'll die from radiation poisoning? Assuming I'm not crushed to death, bitten by a banana Spider, or die from toxic gasses released from the bananas decaying. There should be a video about this since, kids are eating tide pods. The banana radiation challenge.

@foxboy64 6 жыл бұрын

why would being around that many bananas get you bitten by a banana spider? banana spiders get the name from their color, they have nothing to do with bananas...

@NessaOfDorthonion 6 жыл бұрын

Sci show is usually my entertainment of choice on KZfaq. My little girl at 18 months old started to like watching this with me (for about as long as she could sit still). For a while she would only smile and watch when Hank was hosting, but it turns out she likes Olivia too ❤ I guess that makes two of us, I think Olivia is doing a great job 😀

@senorstrawhat7089 6 жыл бұрын

That's so cool!!

@georgeb.wolffsohn30 Жыл бұрын

How many "Hanks" of attention could she manage ?

@skylark.kraken Жыл бұрын

My town used to be a huge producer of shoes, the coat of arms has barley on it as a signifier for the measurement

@FloozieOne 4 жыл бұрын

The Smoot originated in my hometown of Cambridge, MA. The bridge involved was the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge which runs from Cambridge across the Charles River to Boston It also happens to start right by MIT on the Cambridge side. Some of us are old enough remember Smoots and the crowd, (of mostly geeks and potheads), that showed up to witness the "experiment". It is still a "make you smile" kind of joke. However, for once SciShow got something wrong. Yeah, really. Smoot did not lie down and get up again over and over. A group of eight other students would pick him up and flip him over so the measurement went: head to feet, feet to head and repeat. o-|-< >-}-o and so on. Legend has it that he then had to be carried back to his dorm because he was so disoriented from the experience that he would fall to the ground and flip-flop around in unpredictable directions. One of his student friends wrote a (satirical) paper that got passed around town titled "On the physical manifestations of gravity changes in the brain following rapid and repeated instances of 180 degree rotations in the subject's vertical positioning." I think I remember that right...

@tomsadler2548 6 жыл бұрын

Just ate 99,999,999 bananas and almost died of radiation poisoning.

@MyUsernameIsAlsoBort 6 жыл бұрын

"I'll be back in a jiffy!" And speaking of other relevant Grampa Simpson quotes, "the metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!"

@ShadowsOfTheSky 3 жыл бұрын

I don’t watch much simpsons, but I do know both of these quirky measurements. Yikes grandpa, I think you need a new car. (If you don’t know, 40 rods/hogshead is equal to 1/8th mile per 63 gallons)

@allyourpie4323 3 жыл бұрын

@@ShadowsOfTheSky But that gpm is so high!

@jameswilliamson4856 5 жыл бұрын

More more more!! Stone, dram, fathom, knot... The world is full of these weird measurements!

@rachelkuan Жыл бұрын

Sci show out of context: Each day, you’re naturally exposed to 100 BEDs just from rocks & bricks and being out in the world.

@passthebutterrobot2600 6 жыл бұрын

Surprised you didn't mention Knots.

@stevenvanhulle7242 6 жыл бұрын

Especially because it's a unit of speed, not length as one might expect.

@charlesspringer4709 4 жыл бұрын

Knot is based on circular measure of degrees, minutes, and seconds. If you are going 5 knots you are traveling 5/60 degree (1 minute of arc per knot) or 1/12 degree per hour along the Earths surface. It made calculations for navigation on water very simple.

@BradHann 6 жыл бұрын

My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it! - Granpa Simpson

@phrygianphreak4428 5 жыл бұрын

Surprised she didn't mention Nibbles (computer science/engineering). Bit: a 1 or 0. Byte: 8 bits. Nibble: 4 bits.

@JamesDavy2009 4 жыл бұрын

A hexadecimal digit can encode one nybble.

@extrams0 4 жыл бұрын

Software engineers always have fun making up names. In windows, a mouse doesn't move a number of pixels - it moves a number of Mickeys. (which might differ from pixels depending on your settings)

@iamTheSnark Жыл бұрын

I love unusual measurements of speeds, such as furlongs per fortnight, or ångström per week.

@nnamdi8775 6 жыл бұрын

I know it would be really expensive and nearly impossible, but I think the US should switch to the metric system. In America, it is very frustrating having to constantly switch between the two.

@pridecat 6 жыл бұрын

As an American, I agree.

@gamemeister27 6 жыл бұрын

Mayonnaise Musician We do technically use it. Our official measurements are defined by their metric counterparts

@qb4428 6 жыл бұрын

You can't just force a switch like that. It has to occur organically. Just look at medicines, for instance. We use grams for those. We also use liters for soda bottles. So just leave it alone. If it's worth doing, it will be done organically.

@ganaraminukshuk0 6 жыл бұрын

I'd rather there be a measurement system based on base-8, base-12, or base-16; Metric is useful, but computers have a hard time with decimal as it stands.

@pauldrice1996 2 жыл бұрын

America is actually on the metric system. All US customary units are derived from and defined by a physical set of metric standards.

@steve25782 6 жыл бұрын

The standard unit of beauty is the miliHelen --the amount of beauty needed to launch one ship.

@forrestib 6 жыл бұрын

That seems very high for a standard. Only a pretty small percentage of people would ever achieve even 1 milliHelen of beauty.

@lancemaxwell8464 6 жыл бұрын

I once wrote a school essay about banana equivalent dose and the origin of its name. Got bonus points for it.

@azureasylphina Жыл бұрын

Fun fact: "barns" are not only used in expressing how likely an atomic particle hits another atomic paticle, but also to measure how likely light interacts with (or "hits") matters, since light is a particle too. For example, an x-ray beam with an energy of 530 eV has a chance (or, more precisely, a cross section) of interacting with oxygen atoms in matters of about 30 Megabarns.

@doomsdayman107 6 жыл бұрын

Fun fact: One Smoot (1.70 m) also happens to be the same height as John Turner, who plays Smoot of the Canadian clown duo Mump and Smoot. Things I learned at clown school...

@alexanderx33 6 жыл бұрын

"Banana for scale", I love it. We should make barleycorns the standard unit of measure for phalli.

@woodfur00 6 жыл бұрын

It does sound classier when you say 'phalli,' doesn't it?

@IceMetalPunk 6 жыл бұрын

But where will I find a million barleycorns? :P

@thomasstambaugh5181 Жыл бұрын

"Gallons per Fortnight" was a unit of flow was coined by a researcher in the early days of chaos theory. This funny name was the answer to a surprisingly difficult challenge. The researcher was measuring the period between drops of water at extremely slow flow rates -- it turns out that this is chaotic (in a formal sense). The study apparatus was a store-bought gallon of water connected by a rubber hose to the apparatus where an amplifier measured the sound made by a droplet hitting the table. The resulting signal was recorded on a strip-chart. The "Gallons per Fortnight" was literally the count of how often the researcher had to replace the gallon jug in a two-week period.

@Liggliluff 3 жыл бұрын

Huge thanks to you guys for using metric units. The only way to make the whole world convert is to actually study l start using it.

@BiPaganMan 6 жыл бұрын

The Metric System is a tool of the devil, my car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it. - Abe Simpson

@JimBob4233 6 жыл бұрын

Unless he's secretly driving a supertanker, that's hilariously bad mileage.

@stevenvanhulle7242 6 жыл бұрын

JimBob4233 - It's an old car.

@JimBob4233 6 жыл бұрын

It's 0.002 miles per gallon, that's what it is.

@Delgen1951 6 жыл бұрын

or a Motorhome, or M1 tank then its about right.

@Skeeter51244 4 жыл бұрын

Why complicate things by adding in rods as a unit of measurement? 40 rods = 1 furlong. I'm a retired land surveyor, by the way.

@starblomma 6 жыл бұрын

You can find hundreds and hundreds of physics papers including the unit barn... well mainly the inverse version of it ^^ inverse femtobarn is what we use at the LHC to measure the integrated luminosity. So more or less every particle physics paper with LHC data will have that unit in it :-)

@meganofsherwood3665 Жыл бұрын

That's fantastic

@tomsmith5584 4 жыл бұрын

In Japan, they use "Jo" for area. One jo is the area a traditional tatami mat covers, which is 81 cm by 162 cm. It ia used to describe the area of rooms in real estate listings to advertise how big they are.

@Piper_____ Жыл бұрын

I work as a sort of technician, and sometimes I tell people to make sure that a margin is no smaller than an inch, parallel to a sloped surface. However, the context in which they’d need to check is not one where they’ll usually have rulers on hand, so occasionally I add, “about the size of a quarter” because - somehow - a quarter is easier to visualize than just saying “an inch”

@MakeMeThinkAgain 6 жыл бұрын

This was one of my favorite episodes ever. I had never realized the weak force came into play when I ate a banana.

@jcspider7259 6 жыл бұрын

Favorite episode for me, too!

@ihateboys44 6 жыл бұрын

You guys forgot the newton meter. It's measured by the distance of 1 pack of fig newtons lined up vertically.

@simeonbaumel7293 4 жыл бұрын

Actually, a fig newton is the force required to accelerate a fig 1 meter/second squared

@georgeb.wolffsohn30 Жыл бұрын

So all newton meters are zero ? I can't get past that because I eat the measuring newton .

@rays7805 Жыл бұрын

The hands thing is why I reject it when people say "It's not a pony. It's a miniature horse." No. It's shorter than 14.2 hands: it's a pony. And I will always remember the teacher in the movie version of The Wall saying "An acre is a rectangle whose length is one furlong and whose width is one chain."

@ThePhoenixAscendant Жыл бұрын

Another reason for the "Barn" is that in the 40s when the Manhattan Project was in its height they needed a way to discuss measurements without people twigging on is that they described the size of a U-238 atom as one Barn with the irony being they're using a traditionally large word to describe something so tiny.

@JoePatterson 6 жыл бұрын

When I was young, my dad and I would reasonably frequently use cubits as a unit of measure. The nice thing about it is that, at least for us, it implied a (very low) level of precision. If he asked me to cut him a 3 foot board, I'd get out a tape measure, mark, and cut. If he asked for a two cubit board, I'd eyeball it and go, because I knew that a few inches either way would be fine. Now, without getting too deep into the merits of uniform systems of measurement, the one great opportunity that I feel is largely squandered in the US is that, as a country of measurement-unit polyglots, we *should* be using conversion between systems of measurement to teach important lessons about precision. If you ask a mathematician (or most US students) how long a 5 inch bolt is in cm, they'll say it's 12.7. An engineer will answer 10, and wonder where you pulled those extra two significant digits out of? But as a country uniquely positioned to teach these sort of lessons, we still fail to do so.

@emilysmith2965 Жыл бұрын

No ethical education under late-stage capitalism. Critical thinking skills aren’t needed by menial workers… I hate that we’re like this

@OceanBagel 6 жыл бұрын

10:43 That's the most delicious looking atom I've ever seen.

@MultiverseAsheville Жыл бұрын

I love the part where she confidently states that understanding how to convert radiation measurements into bananas is a skill that has all kinds of practical benefits.

@paulkurilecz4209 Жыл бұрын

Another interesting unit is "Shake of a Lamb's Tail" or "shakes". One shake is ten nanoseconds. It is used to describe the time for various reactions involving neutrons. Also the BED is a good unit of measurement as it allows a person not familiar with levels of radiation exposure to have an understanding of them. As in, the X-Ray you are about to receive has the same amount of radiation as if you were to eat 400 bananas. After units of measurement are nothing more than a scale that we can relate to. Just as there are many units to describe the speed of an object, my favorite is furlongs per fortnight.

@acorgiwithacrown467 6 жыл бұрын

Lol, that Mit student could have just said "this bridge is one bridge unit in length".

@xxXthekevXxx 6 жыл бұрын

You forgot to include the Imperial system!

@ronyan1 6 жыл бұрын

Congrats, only 1000 others have commented this. Just learn the damn system, it's not hard.

@666Tomato666 6 жыл бұрын

+ronyan1 oh, a learned individual, perfect! Answer me this, on a lake 1 square mile in area falls 1000 fluid ounces of water. How taller will it be? Assume no change in area.

@TasX 6 жыл бұрын

Isn’t the degree imperial? (Instead of radians). I would say that it’s pretty standard

@torinjones3221 6 жыл бұрын

imperial measurements are practical measurements anyone can measure using their body. on the other hands nothing on a human is exactly on centimetre or a metre in length.

@CivilGuy 6 жыл бұрын

Kevin Benoit a foot...