[GTALUG] Surveying

[Giles Orr]

On 20 April 2016 at 09:37, Stewart C. Russell <scruss at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah, spent a bit too much time around plans and surveys.
>
> The basis of most land measurement is Gunter's Chain
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunter's_chain>, a 17th century invention
> that made it easy to measure out distances and acreages. One chain is 66
> feet, and there are 4 rods (or poles, or pikes) to the chain. There are
> 100 links to the chain, so it's vaguely base-10 too.
>
> The original reason for the 16th and 17th century English mania for
> survey was the valuation of lands seized from the Catholic church by
> Henry VIII. It also helped with land valuation for Enclosure, and the
> end of the Commons.
>
> Many land surveys are done in metes and bounds, which are a series of
> vector measurements from a point (usually a defined survey point; if you
> ever stumble over a low square metal peg half-buried, it's likely a
> survey marker) to define a land area. Annoyingly, in the US, most of
> these measurements use US Survey Feet, which very slightly different to
> the 12 × 25.4 mm feet that we might know.
>
> Tiny aside: My wife's great-great-grandfather surveyed the Santa Fe
> trail for the carters, who felt that the US government was underpaying
> them for the distance. Somewhere in the family vaults is the chain that
> Martin O. Jones and his team dragged from Independence, MO to Santa Fe,
> and proved the carters right.
>
> units(1) has many interesting asides on measurements.

While I'm about to go wildly Off-Topic, I think most people on the
list will enjoy the diversion - and I apologize to the rest.  Or
perhaps I should apologize to everybody.  If this isn't enough
indication, I've found the discussion of concession roads and survey
measurements fascinating.

One of my favourite units of measure is the "Warhol."  A moment's
thought will probably bring you to what that is: 15 minutes of fame.
A megawarhol is about 28.5 years (I think of Brad Pitt).

And this brings me to one of my favourite things: Wikipedia's lists of
obscure and ludicrous units of measure.

"Beauty: Helen"

"Helen of Troy (from the Iliad) is widely known as 'the face that
launched a thousand ships.' Thus, 1 millihelen is the amount of beauty
needed to launch a single ship."

"According to 'The Rebel Angels,' a novel by Robertson Davies, this
system was invented by Cambridge mathematician W.A.H. Rushton.
However, the term was possibly first suggested by Isaac Asimov. The
obvious reference is Marlowe's line from the play The Tragical History
of Doctor Faustus, 'Was this the face that launched a thousand
ships...?'"

"Negative values have also been observed—these, of course, are
measured by the number of ships sunk or the number of clocks stopped.
An alternative interpretation of 1 negative Helen is the amount of
negative beauty (i.e. ugliness) that can launch one thousand ships the
other way."

There are also some highly bizarre but legitimate units of measure, my
favourite being the microfortnight (about 1.2 seconds), the gillette
(a measure of laser power), and the Big Mac Index (purchasing power).

"The Wheaton is a measurement of Twitter followers relative to
celebrity Wil Wheaton.  The measurement was standardized when Wil
Wheaton achieved half a million Twitter followers, with the effect
that Wil Wheaton now has 3.4 Wheatons himself. As few Twitter users
have millions of followers, the milliwheaton (500 followers) is more
commonly used."

There is also the "smoot," a length of 5 foot 7 inches based on the
gentleman at MIT possessing the same last name ... who later went on
to be the head of the International Organization for Standardization.
I would highly recommend reading the Wikipedia article below on the
"smoot": proof positive that truth is stranger than fiction.  It's
also damn funny and shows the incredible durability of pranks
(especially in the city of Boston).

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com