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US finally giving boot to official foot measurement
Change is afoot for the official measuring stick used to size up big places in America.
The reason? There are actually two different definitions of the 12-inch measurement known as a foot.
Some land surveyors use what's known as the U.S. survey foot. Others use the definition that's more accepted by the broader world: the international foot.
The difference between them is so tiny that you can't see it with the naked eye on a 12-inch ruler. But over big distances, it matters. So, to reduce the chance for errors and confusion, the federal government has announced it's finally giving the boot to the survey foot.
The international foot is the smaller one—adding about an eighth of an inch of difference when measuring a mile. That means the United States is 28.3 feet wider when measured using the international foot instead of the survey foot.
The change started in 1959, when the federal government mandated that everyone use the international foot but allowed surveyors to keep to the old U.S. survey foot for a while. That temporary reprieve has lasted 60 years, but it will finally end in 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology announced in October.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 16 2019, @04:09PM (8 children)
Question: Aren't all lengths an exact integer multiple of the Planck length?
Are all time measurements an exact integer multiple of Planck time?
Velocity would be distance per time, thus one Planck unit divided by another, so even velocity would be an integer multiple of some base units.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday December 16 2019, @05:33PM (3 children)
Including averages?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 16 2019, @05:48PM (2 children)
That's interesting. But is an average an actual measurement or is it really a calculation? You never measure the average something or other.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday December 16 2019, @10:43PM (1 child)
True, although I do take the measure of a man. So therefore people are integers also.
No, DON'T go looking for the post hoc in that one.... By the way, I also weigh the same as a duck.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 17 2019, @02:46PM
Thinking more about this. Suppose you took measurements in Planck lengths. Then took the average. You could end up with a non-integer average. So not all stated lengths are integer multiples of the Planck length -- even if the Planck length is your unit of measure.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Monday December 16 2019, @06:20PM (3 children)
Actually one Planck length per Planck time is the speed of light. Therefore in Planck units, the only integer speeds are zero and light speed.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday December 16 2019, @09:25PM
Perfect! One foot is now defined as the distance light travels in vacuum in one nanosecond's worth of Planck times.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 17 2019, @02:48PM (1 child)
Very interesting. Suppose speeds were measured as ratios of distance per time. I am supposing that a speed could have a ratio that cannot be reduced to an integer.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:21PM
Actually at least in one dimension, one can get a speed one limit from a simple discrete model quite easily:
Imagine there's a row of places. At each time step, a particle can either stay at the same place, or go to the next place. A particle that always stays has speed 0, a particle that always moves in the same direction has speed 1.
Other speeds are achieved by the particle sometimes staying and sometimes moving. For example, if a particle moves every second time, its speed is 0.5.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.