[GTALUG] Surveying

[Bob Jonkman]

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Giles recounted:
> There is also the "smoot," a length of 5 foot 7 inches based on
> the gentleman at MIT possessing the same last name ...

That's Oliver Smoot. When his cousin, George Smoot, won the Nobel
prize in physics in 2006 for cosmic microwave background radiation,
every single interview I heard with George about the Nobel prize
eventually descended to asking about his more famous brother and his
unit of measure (Quirks & Quarks, Science Friday, As It Happens, The
Guardian's Science Weekly, maybe more).

Obviously, units of measure are more important than the rest of the
universe.

- --Bob.



On 2016-04-20 10:55 AM, Giles Orr wrote:
> 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
> 
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