Cheap but decent Mini Tape Measure

[ANDY CAWLEYParticipant @andycawley24921]

Gosh! This thread has brought back memories. When we measured and marked steel bridge ropes ( on a prestressing track 1/4 mile long) our unit of measurement was one hundredth of a foot. All our measuring tackle was specially produced. We had elaborate duplicated calculation sheets on which the customer's dimensions were calculated and temperature corrected and the duplicate calculation sheets were checked against each other. We didn't have fancy electric calculators in those days.

We claimed to be able to put a mark on a rope to within 6mm (yes millimetres) in rope lengths in excess of the aforementioned quarter of a mile . With out the sophisticated facilities we had it would have been difficult to check. However we also measured the boom suspension ropes on huge dragline excavators. They were supplied in pairs and any tiny difference in length showed a hundred fold in the catenary sag so we're weren't at all bad

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

Simple rhyme we learnt as kids – A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter. No probs.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Gordon W on 10/01/2017 09:22:22:

Simple rhyme we learnt as kids – A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter. No probs.

.

Me too, Gordon … but I can't remember the simple rhyme for how many pints there are in a cubic foot.

MichaelG.

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

Dunno, never drank a cubic foot. 6 1/4 galls in round numbers, unless you are not in the UK.

[Colin WhittakerParticipant @colinwhittaker20544]

The oilfield has some amazing units …

The volume of a reservoir uses acre feet.

Density comes in lbs per US gallon.

And gas rate is Mscf/d where the M stands for a thousand and the scf is a standard cubic foot.

The standard cubic foot of gas is measured at standard temperature and pressure. But which standard, there are more than half a dozen in use around the world.

API oil density is measured using an obscure inversion chosen to give a linear scale on a hydrometer.

(You'll never guess where I used to work.)

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

From the wiki

1 imperial pint	=	1⁄8	imperial gallon
	=	1⁄2	imperial quart
	=	4	imperial gills
	=	20	imperial fluid ounces
	=	568.26125	millilitres (exactly)[5][6] ≈568 ml
	≈	34.677429099	cubic inches

Cheat – for weight use a different unit.

Use of the work exactly there is interesting. Sometimes the only way to express things exactly is with fractions. It crops up in software now and again. Twice once at home and once actually on a job at work I've used languages where they have forgotten that there can be a need to work in integer to handle fractions and implement integer in floating point. Once they have done that there is no way to to be 100% sure that the results are correct. In fact it will be pure luck if they are correct. The same thing can happen when decimal gets converted to binary floating point but usually it's far less noticeable.

John

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[Rod RenshawParticipant @rodrenshaw28584]

I understand the word "exactly" is used in scientific and technical calculations to advise or remind readers that the unit being used is defined as that number in another set of units.

For example, the inch used to be defined by its relationship to the Imperial Standard Yard ( A metal bar kept in a bank vault somewhere.) and it was approximately equal to 2.54 cm But the exact conversion factor was a long decimal which changed a small amount from time to time for esoteric reasons.

Now the inch is defined as 25.4 mm (exactly) and the Standard Yard has been relegated to history. Which is a pity in some ways but at least it simplifies calculations and brings certainty. It's probably academic as far as we are concerned but some scientific calculations and measurments are done to levels of accuracy and numbers of significant figures which are far beyond anything needed in other fields.

[Jon GibbsParticipant @jongibbs59756]

Posted by Rod Renshaw on 10/01/2017 10:54:51:

It's probably academic as far as we are concerned but some scientific calculations and measurments are done to levels of accuracy and numbers of significant figures which are far beyond anything needed in other fields.

Yes but the most splendid irony IMHO is that the inch is now defined in terms of the metre

Jon

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

I have noticed on TV that the term "almost exactly" is used quite often, now that is a definition to conjure with!

Must get out more and away from the TV,

Edited By V8Eng on 10/01/2017 13:04:14

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Jon Gibbs on 10/01/2017 11:40:52:

Posted by Rod Renshaw on 10/01/2017 10:54:51:

 

…

Yes but the most splendid irony IMHO is that the inch is now defined in terms of the metre

Jon

Even more splendidly ironic is just how long ago defining Imperial measure in terms of metric began.

The US did it in 1893 and the UK followed in 1898. The Canadian proposal to make the inch 25.4mm, called the "Industrial Inch" to differentiate it from all the other inches, was adopted by the British in 1927, with the US moving to the same definition in 1933.

Most recently the yard was redefined in 1959 to be 0.9144 metres exactly. There are still 25.4mm to the inch.

Dave

.

 

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 10/01/2017 13:39:08

[Jon GibbsParticipant @jongibbs59756]

…and our sovereign pre-EU parliament defined the pound as 0.45359237 kg in 1963.

…and the gallon is defined as 4.54609 l.

Jon

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Posted by V8Eng on 10/01/2017 12:49:17:

I have noticed on TV that the term "almost exactly" is used quite often, now that is a definition to conjure with!

Must get out more and away from the TV,

Edited By V8Eng on 10/01/2017 13:04:14

Maybe they have been watching the physics programs they put out at times and some have covered Schrodinger. Bound to have just been on the cat though so they must have read or heard more.

John

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[DodParticipant @dod]

I think I will stick with my midgies whisker, ba hair, snoot o me bunnet and twa dreel spangs.

Must be merican terms as the English spel cheker doesn't recognize a lot of that.

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

Posted by Ajohnw on 10/01/2017 14:08:26:

Posted by V8Eng on 10/01/2017 12:49:17:

I have noticed on TV that the term "almost exactly" is used quite often, now that is a definition to conjure with!

Must get out more and away from the TV,

Edited By V8Eng on 10/01/2017 13:04:14

Maybe they have been watching the physics programs they put out at times and some have covered Schrodinger. Bound to have just been on the cat though so they must have read or heard more.

John

–

Cat in a sealed box: it died of suffocation first anyway! Similar results without the experiment.

Edited By V8Eng on 11/01/2017 22:02:23

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Jon Gibbs on 10/01/2017 11:40:52:

Yes but the most splendid irony IMHO is that the inch is now defined in terms of the metre

.

Now contemplate that the metre is ultimately defined in terms of time. **LINK**

http://www.bipm.org/en/publications/si-brochure/metre.html

So where does that put that most sacred of all units [the speed of light]

… Think about it …

MichaelG.

.

P.S. … I tried raising that one a while back, to no avail.

[Maurice Cox 1Participant @mauricecox1]

V8Eng's reference to the term" almost exactly" being used on TV, brings to mind the number of times that TV presenters find things that are "nearly unique"!

Maurice

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Maurice on 12/01/2017 00:01:22:

… things that are "nearly unique"

.

or [even worse] "very unique"

MichaelG.

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

So where does that put that most sacred of all units [the speed of light]

I think the thoughts that the potential of a varying fine structure constant maybe has put paid to the thought of a speed of light constant. Then again, maybe not. I'm not sure in my own mind about what a non-constant constant that quantum mechanics/ quantum physics is built upon really means.

Sigh. JohnS.

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

When I trained as a journalist in the 1960s I was told to treat the word "unique" the same as "dead" or "pregnant". Something or somebody either is or is not.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 12/01/2017 00:21:14:

Posted by Maurice on 12/01/2017 00:01:22:

… things that are "nearly unique"

.

or [even worse] "very unique"

MichaelG.

What is and isn't proper usage in English makes my head hurt.

Unique isn't unique. For example, the rather limited Compact Oxford English Dictionary for Students gives the word 3 meanings:

1. being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.
2. belonging or connected to one particular person, group or place
3. very special or unusual

Better Dictionaries give more meanings, including the possibility of using unique as a noun as in 'The unique is also the improbable.'

Each individual snowflake is unique but there are billions of them, more or less without value. In that context it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to describe the Sergio Diamond as being 'very unique'.

Likewise, despite being a chap not full of baby, I can finish this post off with a pregnant pause…

Dave

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

When ever comments on things like almost crop up what always springs to my mind is these and others

In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated adj) is a describing word, the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified. Adjectives are one of the English parts of speech, although historically they were classed together with the nouns.

adverb

ˈadvəːb/

noun

GRAMMAR

1. a word or phrase that modifies the meaning of an adjective, verb, or other adverb, expressing manner, place, time, or degree (e.g. gently, here, now, very&nbsp. Some adverbs, for example sentence adverbs, can also be used to modify whole sentences.

That just leaves the matter of degree. Generally it signifies very little of it. What ever it is. So in real terms what's wrong with that.

Worse still in some quarters terms like begs the question just shouldn't be used. Really there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the phrase. That one causes problems due to this sort of thing

**LINK**

but clearly it generally isn't used in that fashion so can be contextually correct.

John

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[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 12/01/2017 09:59:45:

Unique isn't unique. For example, the rather limited Compact Oxford English Dictionary for Students gives the word 3 meanings:

1. being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.
2. belonging or connected to one particular person, group or place
3. very special or unusual

Better Dictionaries give more meanings, including the possibility of using unique as a noun as in 'The unique is also the improbable.'

.

Thereby demonstrating [what some would consider] the evolution of the language.

… or its degeneration ?

MichaelG.

.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=unique

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 12/01/2017 10:31:00

[richardandtracyParticipant @richardandtracy]

Posted by V8Eng on 11/01/2017 22:00:04:

Posted by Ajohnw on 10/01/2017 14:08:26:

Maybe they have been watching the physics programs they put out at times and some have covered Schrodinger. Bound to have just been on the cat though so they must have read or heard more.

John

–

Cat in a sealed box: it died of suffocation first anyway! Similar results without the experiment.

Edited By V8Eng on 11/01/2017 22:02:23

This experiment always ignores the third state of cat: It could be 1) alive, 2) dead or 3) simply so furious the other two states are completely irrelevant. Yeah, we do have 4, and they demonstrate state 3 on a daily basis.

Regards,

Richard

[Jon GibbsParticipant @jongibbs59756]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 11/01/2017 23:47:18:

Posted by Jon Gibbs on 10/01/2017 11:40:52:

Yes but the most splendid irony IMHO is that the inch is now defined in terms of the metre

Now contemplate that the metre is ultimately defined in terms of time. **LINK**

http://www.bipm.org/en/publications/si-brochure/metre.html

So where does that put that most sacred of all units [the speed of light]

… Think about it …

MichaelG.

I think I'm missing your insight here. I have tried to think about it – honest

Is it that all measures of length are somehow shaky? – I know that the most recent definitions of the metre say that it's only valid to consider measurements in metres over distances where relativistic effects are negligible.

…or perhaps that the second is essentially a non-decimalized archane division of a year/day/hour which could be claimed as "imperial"? 

Jon

Edited By Jon Gibbs on 12/01/2017 11:59:56

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

I hate that Schrodinger's cat idea, it's just stupid,

Michael W

 

Edited By Michael-w on 12/01/2017 12:12:09

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