NON-STANDARD MEASUREMENT UNITS

[KeithDavies 100]

I've always been slightly puzzled by something - US military veterans by all means correct me if I have this wrong...

The US is fairly solidly non-metric. However, when I read accounts of the Vietnam war - so, 50-60 years ago, now - troops used "clicks" for distance. "The village is two clicks north." And I'm fairly sure a click was a kilometre, not a mile. As I said, US vets by all means put me right on that, but otherwise that's always puzzled me.

 

[notmyusualuserid]

Why are the Top Gear team totally obsessed with the notion of 'Horse Power' (and torque to a lesser extent).
I am to a certain extent with old aircraft: 1914 80 h.p. engines; 1918 400 h.p. engines.
Later ones went faster & higher.

What on earth is 'Horse Power'.

I could explain, but I'm lazy.

Have a Wiki instead

Horsepower - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[KeithDavies 100]

I could explain, but I'm lazy.

Have a Wiki instead

Horsepower - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Interesting.

When I was at school my French teacher explained that the French for horse is cheval, plural cheveaux, as in the Citreon 2CV, she said, where the 2CV means deux cheveaux because the car is 2 horepower.

My friend and I said - correctly, but probably with unfortunate arrogance - that that was incorrect because that car is more powerful than 2hp. That did, however, leave me wondering if, over time, 1hp had come to meant something other than power of an actual horse, but apparently not.

Sorry - pointless digression!

 

[Peegoo]

I believe there’s a Billy Joe Shaver song in which a woman’s posterior is estimated to be more than a few axe handles wide.

"About sixteen."

 

[Peegoo]

And what's with comparing tumors to food items? Seems too dang weird to be just some quirk of language coincidence.

"A tumor the size of a grape."

"A tumor the size of an egg."

"A tumor the size of a Big Mac. Wait...the tumor was a Big Mac."

 

[Ricky D.]

Getting directions from an old farmer. We’re in a valley up in the Blue Ridge mountains. He said, “Go two sees, then take the first left.” I didn’t understand, asked him what he meant by a “see”.

He said,” Son, Drive as far as you can see one time. Drive as far as you can see again. Then take your first left.

 

[notmyusualuserid]

Interesting.

When I was at school my French teacher explained that the French for horse is cheval, plural cheveaux, as in the Citreon 2CV, she said, where the 2CV means deux cheveaux because the car is 2 horepower.

My friend and I said - correctly, but probably with unfortunate arrogance - that that was incorrect because that car is more powerful than 2hp. That did, however, leave me wondering if, over time, 1hp had come to meant something other than power of an actual horse, but apparently not.

Sorry - pointless digression!

CV is chevaux-vapeur - steam horses. In the early days of motor transport vehicles were taxed according to their rate-able horsepower using complicated formulas (they varied from country to country). With the first engines, the resulting figure was close the actual horsepower of the engine.

This continued in many places until well after World War II, by which time the actual engine horsepower exceeded the tax horsepower. When the 2CV first appeared in the late 1940s, it's taxable horsepower was 2 (rounded), so deux chevaux. The first 2CV engines made ~9hp.

 

[dougbgt6]

When tuning a Classic car distributor, you turn it till you get maximum revs, then back a gnats c*ck.

Doug

 

[KeithDavies 100]

CV is chevaux-vapeur - steam horses. In the early days of motor transport vehicles were taxed according to their rate-able horsepower using complicated formulas (they varied from country to country). With the first engines, the resulting figure was close the actual horsepower of the engine.

This continued in many places until well after World War II, by which time the actual engine horsepower exceeded the tax horsepower. When the 2CV first appeared in the late 1940s, it's taxable horsepower was 2 (rounded), so deux chevaux. The first 2CV engines made ~9hp.

Thanks for that!

Part of me thinks I really shouldn't find this interesting, but I do!

 

[Kandinskyesque]

When tuning a Classic car distributor, you turn it till you get maximum revs, then back a gnats c*ck.

Doug

We use the standard gnat to measure frugality.
Very miserly folk are said to be "tighter than a gnat's chuff."
I've no idea what a gnat's chuff is, so I prefer the measurement "tighter than two coats of paint".

 

[billy logan]

Golf balls the size of hail

a bit off-topic, anyway: I think a business that electrified the very cute/pug ugly/charming little foreign cars of yesteryear would be a success. (Yes such businesses exist, but you take your vehicle to them. And the price is still very high; I bet somebody will come out with modular EV components enabling easier retrofits. Then the price will drop)

1950 Skoda

Daffodil

Citroen 2CV
The 2CV is easy to parallel park in a tight space: drive in at an angle, then get out and lift the back end, place it near the curb. You might say "it's light as a feather" <back on topic there

 

[ClashCityTele]

I've always been slightly puzzled by something - US military veterans by all means correct me if I have this wrong...

The US is fairly solidly non-metric. However, when I read accounts of the Vietnam war - so, 50-60 years ago, now - troops used "clicks" for distance. "The village is two clicks north." And I'm fairly sure a click was a kilometre, not a mile. As I said, US vets by all means put me right on that, but otherwise that's always puzzled me.

I'm not a Vietnam Veteran but 'klicks' were kilometres.
It worked in Vietnam as the country was ruled by the French as part of French Indo-China, and as the French use metric, I suppose all the road signs were in km's not miles.

 

[Eddiebaby1]

How NASA Lost a Spacecraft From a Metric Math Mistake | SimScale

How NASA lost a spacecraft due to a mistake with metric units and unit conversion. Learn about the Mars Climate Orbiter incident.

www.simscale.com

 

[metalicaster]

CV is chevaux-vapeur - steam horses. In the early days of motor transport vehicles were taxed according to their rate-able horsepower using complicated formulas (they varied from country to country). With the first engines, the resulting figure was close the actual horsepower of the engine.

This continued in many places until well after World War II, by which time the actual engine horsepower exceeded the tax horsepower. When the 2CV first appeared in the late 1940s, it's taxable horsepower was 2 (rounded), so deux chevaux. The first 2CV engines made ~9hp.

The formula in many countries measured bore but not stroke or displacement. It meant there were a lot of long-stroke, small-bore engine designs into the 1950’s. That’s why there were so many inefficient low-revving POSes

 

[KeithDavies 100]

I'm not a Vietnam Veteran but 'klicks' were kilometres.
It worked in Vietnam as the country was ruled by the French as part of French Indo-China, and as the French use metric, I suppose all the road signs were in km's not miles.

Aha - good point!

 

[billy logan]

Horses used to be harnessed to a mill and walk in a circle all day providing the power. IIRC. So "1 HP" isn't based on the power of a galloping horse. Slow and steady.

This camel is pressing sesame seed for oil:

a 1 camel-power press

 

[tomkatf]

In the South, “all’a y’all” can be used to refer to a crowd of almost any size… “y’all” usually refers to smaller groups…

 

[Clive Hugh]

New Zealand and Australia both went ISO Metric in the 70’s, it was good for me as our union negotiated a deal where any new tools we had to buy for our job that was metric the company would pay half. Most of us got things like 300mm adjustable wrenches, 450mm pipe wrenches. With things like micrometers we just did as we always did, we converted them in our head, 5/8”=.625, 16mm=.629, so all these years later I only have one metric micrometer and it hardly gets touched in spite of machining metric dimension all the time.

 

[Chester P Squier]

That's funny because on bike rides we used to amuse ourselves with furlongs per millifortnight. These were very long rides!

According to my calculations, a millifortnight is 19 minutes and 34 seconds.

 

[trev333]

I was watching golf today and thought of the measurement of a golf ball... I've got one sitting on my table.. something I'd never thought about or heard mentioned before.

a diameter of 1.68"/ 42.7mm.....sound familiar?.... the width of a fender nut.... near enough...

an interesting coincidence....