Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
(OP)
For fun, what is the most unique engineering unit you've encountered in your years?
Some considerations:
Jeff
Pipe Stress Analysis
Finite Element Analysis
www.xceed-eng.com
Some considerations:
- Name
- Units that mixing and matching english and metric
- Usefulness & practicality
- KW/foot: A mix & match of english & metric, its used in the commercial nuclear power industry. The unit is a of measure of the amount of energy produced in metric, per linear foot of fuel rod. The calculation is important for evaluating the heat transfer capacity to the water in the reactor. Too much energy will result in fuel clad damage, compromising the integrity of the first fission barrier
- slinch: The slinch is an english unit of mass equal to 1 lbf*sec^2/in. (Think Weight divided by 386.6in/sec^2) In my opinion it has almost no practical application except for use in the mass input for english-unit based Finite Element Models.
Jeff
Pipe Stress Analysis
Finite Element Analysis
www.xceed-eng.com





RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
My AP physics teacher (1975-ish) was very fond of furlongs per fortnight. Much to my delight, Mathcad 15 has both furlong and fortnight as built-in units, so it's 166.3095 microns/second
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Smoot is good... approx 1.7018 m... cubit, anyone?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Jar, a Sagan is billions of billions of anything.
Has anyone used the term Kilo dollars, drives the book keepers nuts.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Newton-kilometers
Their reaction to this unit turned out to be an accurate way to predict their final grade in Statics and Mechanics of Materials classes.
STF
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
I had to read that two or three times before I realised you were addressing a person called Jar, rather than nominating the Jar (=1111 picofarads) as an incongruous unit.
A.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
An old colleague of mine tried to introduce the term SNAK. A SNAK was two bytes of data, as opposed to the Word, which is dependent on architecture.
It did not catch on, as you may have noticed.
--
JHG
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
A unit that combines length with time. When early computer authority Grace Hopper began a talk she would pass out pieces of wire about one foot long... the distance electricity will travel in one nanosecond (1 x 10-9 seconds).
Useful: "Acre-Foot"
A unit of volume. An area of one acre that is one foot deep. (43,560 cubic feet). Often used as a measurement of the volume of a body of water, such as a detention pond.
www.SlideRuleEra.net
www.VacuumTubeEra.net
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
from wiki,
"...secretive unit to describe the approximate cross sectional area presented by the typical nucleus (10−28 m2) and decided on "barn." This was particularly applicable because they considered this a large target for particle accelerators that needed to have direct strikes on nuclei and the American idiom "couldn't hit the broad side of a barn."
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
At one time I had a VHS video tape of Grace Hopper doing that lecture , handing out the pieces of wire and explaining their significance. She also had iddy bitty pieces of wire for higher frequencies.
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Mechanical
Metric
French and Italian Tax
Electrical
Hydraulic
Boiler
Drawbar
RAC
Nominal
Indicated
Brake
Shaft
Wheel
SAE
SAE gross
SAE net
SAE certified
DIN 70020
CUNA
EEC
ISO
JIS D 1001
And it doesn't stop here.
Sourse: Wikipedia
"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Hobo Power - a measure of stink from the radio show Loveline. Negative Hobo Power can cancel out positive Hobo Power.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
- e3m3 (103 cubic meters) was used by some
- (km)3 was reported by several
- SCM
- Nm3
- NCM
- GJ
I asked the class their definition of "standard" and "normal" and got into a muddle. The Australian approach of assuming that the gas is 948 BTU/SCF so 1 MSCF = 1 GJ was especially creative.The Oil & Gas approach to use the "M" prefix for 1000 (the Roman Numeral "M"), and then instead of the Roman approach of MM being 2,000 it becomes 1,000,000 has always fascinated me.
I used to be involved in downhole tubular goods and it was very common to specify "600 m of 2-3/8 inch tubing".
I also like the UK speed limit signs in km/h with distance signage in miles (or is it vice versa, it has been a while).
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_units_of_me...
Quite common to see tape measures with the "sun" as the primary division and also meters.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
So the programmer and I agreed to add our own units conversion - kBLqf, which is the abbreviation for kilo-buttloads per fortnight. Useful little unit, turns out to be about 6-1/4 gallons per minute.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
I used to volunteer at a local festival. When building the dance floors we lay 2x6's flat and deck 'em with plywood. I'd explain to the crews we would space the 2x6's on 16 inch centers. I'd show them the 16 inch marks on a tape measure and say, "Now these tapes are marked so that even carpenters can find 16 inch centers."
So, I dunno, 16 inch equals one Stud? or two Studs?
The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
That being said, the word "blivet" actually does have a definition out on the web:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/blivet
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
That's odd - I'd like to think that if it was like that, I'd have noticed by now.
Speed limits are posted in (statute) miles per hour and distances to destinations and junctions are in (statute) miles. The only place I see km in regular use is on the small Driver Location Signs and associated Distance Marker Posts on the side of major roads (that nobody ever looks at unless they've broken down and need to explain to somebody where they are).
A.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Also.....a pony keg, in reference to a partial (1/2 or 1/4??) keg of beer
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
I have heard the term "dumb as a sack of hammers". I have not heard the term "dumb as 21.7 sacks of hammers".
--
JHG
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
As to wood, especially firewood, it is "cord", not "chord".
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
and either a Face Cord or a Bush Cord, or a Logger's Cord?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
jar from Leyden Jar perhaps?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
I remember approaching the Mayor of the Town of Lindsay (now, City of Kawartha Lakes) about 20 years ago and asking him if I could get a sack and have Home Hardware there donate a bunch of hammers and if we could have a 'Sack of Hammers' award for the most deserving Councilman... he was not pleased...
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Another interesting area unit is the perch. 40 perches = 1/4 acre, a common size housing block in a lot of countries.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Jeff
Pipe Stress Analysis
Finite Element Analysis
www.xceed-eng.com
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
B.E.
http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~engwahs/area.htm
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
I think so. So far as I know, they used to tune the early shipborne wireless sets by wiring additional leyden jars into circuit (increasing the capacitance by a jar or two at a time).
A.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
I found a reference to that in my dad's Hand book of wireless telegraphy.
It basically said," The Jar is now obsolete as the service unit, having been replaced by the Farad and its sub multiples."
It never said whether or not that was a direct substitution.
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
A jar was an early unit of capacitance once used by the British Royal Navy. The term originated as the capacitance of a Leyden jar. Its value is such that one farad is9×108 jars and one jar is 1111 picofarads.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
I didn't know that Leyden Jars were used outside of school physics labs... if they are around, they could be historic collectables. I've got an old Roentgen tube from decades back and a couple of chunks of cable samples, the latter from a project. My only electrical part collection.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Is that old under sea cable?
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
It's new material.. outer poly sheath, spiral wound copper grounding 'cage', a semi-conductor, insulation, a semi-conductor and the copper conductor.
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
And that is why my front property stakes are actually 66' from the center of the street.
I have had to explain that to a number of people over the years.
In the mid-west most roads have 122' RoW, it was just easier that way.
In metallurgy we don't have many invented units, just use whatever is handy.
Until recently when paper editors got mean about it you would see a paper with strength in ksi, grain size in microns, atomic spacing in angstroms, and density in g/cc. Since you weren't doing math between units it didn't really matter.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
The Dictionary of Units of Measurement has plenty of information for other strange uom.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
In Saxon England, fields were measured in hides. I believe this was the field an ox could plough in one day.
--
JHG
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
The common unit for liquid flow resistance, Cv, is often stated as if it were dimensionless.
It is not.
Its units are:
gpm/square root(psid)
The square root function is often omitted in textbook definitions, and is misleading as commonly stated because 1 is its own square root, so it takes a while to figure out how to compute a Cv from a given pressure drop other than 1 psi and a corresponding flow.
</peeve>
Engine manufacturers who work in metric units will often supply Cv's metric inverse equivalent (less scaling constants):
mbar/(m^3/h)^2
for use in pressure drop calculations.
I don't know of a convenient name, but it is occasionally useful, if uncommon here in The Colonies.
I think I have seen it labeled as K or maybe F.
In my spreadsheets, I use
K=68.9476/0.05159/Cv^2
to convert from one to another.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
--
JHG
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
And I once had a young engineer give me a quantity in "Gallons of Bridge Rail."
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
The fact that we think a thread about engineering units is funny pretty much confirms that
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
I just remembered that when I still worked in 'hard engineering' (before I changed careers and moved to software in 1980) we manufactured large pieces of machinery for commercial bakeries. These machines were shipped in pieces and erected (assembled) on-site. Since most of the framework was fabricated from welded structural shapes and set-up on existing concrete floors, we provided what we called a 'U-shim', a square piece of stainless steel in various thicknesses with an open-ended slot/notch on one side of the shim so that they could be installed between mated parts without having to completely remove the bolts by simply loosening the fasteners and sliding in as many shims as needed to square-up a frame or assure proper alignment with the next piece of equipment. These were made in various thicknesses from scrap pieces in the sheet-metal shop (we had a small press set-up all the time to make these, when guys had nothing else to do and there was scrape laying around) and they were packaged in sturdy plastic buckets, each holding approximately 25 lbs of shims and that's how they went into inventory. So for each machine shipped there would be an item on the Bill of Material for a 'Bucket of Shims'. It had a part number and even a 'drawing', a size 'A' sheet with the words "ONE BUCKET OF SHIMS" written on the face of the drawing and a parts list to account for the plastic bucket and 25 lbs of stainless steel.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Sold in eaches.
"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
When the draftsman was preparing the drawings, he asked what this thing was that a cable looped around to distribute the load and keep from crushing the cable... I didn't know at the time, so, replied that it was some sort of thingamajig... and he put it on the documents. I thought it was really funny, but, the Architect went ballistic, for no real reason. I later found out it was called a thimble.
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
It was a thimble eh, and you did not sew with it ?
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Now Google can tell me that 1.00 furlong per fortnight equals 5.38974 x 10^-33 parsecs per picosecond. And, of course, the inverse is 1.00 parsecs per picosecond equals 1.855 x 10^32 furlongs per fortnight.
==========
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Unfortunately, the name of that unit is probably not family friendly although I'm sure other people with shop backgrounds know exactly what unit I'm talking about ... Can we say it here? Ain't gonna be me ...
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
A.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
In Canada, the potholes are 1.6 times bigger than in the USA, so the distance unit comes out in the wash(board).
STF
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
To use the coin analogy, the three states were Heads, tails and "In your pocket".
The course was a hands-on approach to designing and then wiring solid state logic devices.
When the circuit was unpowered, the memories and registers were "In your pocket".
When the circuit was powered up, the state of these devices was indeterminate.
The point was that when you powered up your circuit, you needed an initial reset signal to set the memories and registers to a known state.
It's always fun to explain the three states of binary to one of the 10 kinds of people who understand binary.
I could have taught Zero, One and Indeterminate but "In your pocket" was more likely to be remembered.
If, in the future, some students remembered the silly instructor who taught the three states of binary, great, they still remember the lesson.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
@ originally meant 'at each' , as in 12 @ $2.34, the each matters.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Perhaps you could be the hero and clear up the "issues" with this Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-valued_logic
STF
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
The truth-tables you get from 3VL are really unbalanced. (a)OR(b) gives only 1 false result, 3 uncertain results, and 5 True results!
They lost me when they created the new expression (a)IMPLIES(b)...
STF
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
The reset would ensure that the system was now a two state system.
It is quite easy to design a dependable circuit to disable all outputs until the initial system reset, without involving the third state.
Thanks for the references. I enjoyed reading them.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
When she decided to go to a greener pasture, we had a great going away party, but somehow neglected to tell her about it; oops...
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Binary counting in ternary logic (There is not a great volume of base 3 legacy counting devices.) may reduce the wasted resource to only 1/3 or 33%.
But all things considered, I'd rather discuss the Smoot. Does anyone know how many "ears" there are in a smoot?
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
http://www.endurasim.com.au/wp-content/uploads/201...
They introduce the "snail".
It comes as a result of the definition of a pound being partly based on the foot, but engineering measurements usually expressed in inches. Hence, they include a 12 pound unit that they call the snail.
Then they convert it to slugs.
STF
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Explanation:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/464202928/one-rule-to...
2nd image, Zoom, extreme right hand end of ruler.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
A slug is weight in pounds divided by gravitational acceleration in feet per second squared. The thing I like about doing calculations in English units is that I can avoid derived units like Newtons and slugs. As far as I am concerned, g=386in/sec2. I replace m with w/g. Using the metric system, I consider it absolutely critical to stick with the SI MKS units. Otherwise, weird things can happen.
--
JHG
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Yup... g=32.2... ft/sec2
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Not exactly what you'd call politically correct, eh?
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
I attended a school(Univ of MN) with a 5 year civil engineering curriculum. It was 250 credit course that included a 3 credit summer surveying class plus a 4 week field class at a school 180 miles away. It involved lake sounding and the usual land, highway and railroad surveying with different instruments - transits, levels, theodolites and electronic distance measuring. It got tiring setting up the equipment, so we decided to come up with a way to measure what we went through and used the set-ups concept of a measure of work of effort that day.
The second choice was the "drops per day" for the dropping and retrieving the depth sounding weights, while the other students got to measure the angles with transits to the boat from location to create a map via triangulation using flags as a signal when the depth weights were dropped. (pretty archaic)
After graduation, I did get to use surveying a couple of times in the aerospace industry.
Dick
Engineer and international traveler interested in construction techniques, problems and proper design.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
So here's some other obscure units that can vary locally:
pony - small unit of liquor, in the US generally 1 US fluid ounce
rick - a stack of split firewood 4'high x 8' long by a "standardized length" usually 16". 1/3 cord or 1.2 steres. However, because the size of a rick has been manipulated by vendors, it is illegal to sell firewood by the rick in several US states.
rood - in some cases another word for a rod (16.5 feet) but in old England or Scotland sometimes it was 20 feet, 21 feet or even 24 feet.
And of course the ubiquitous barrel which depends on what you put in it. In the US a beer barrel is 31.5 gallons but in the UK it is 36 imperial gallons. An older British barrel equal to 1/2 hogshead is 26.25 imperial gallons. There are other official barrels defined in certain states that range from 30-40 gallons. Meanwhile, a barrel of petroleum is 42 US gallons around the world but a US dry barrel is 105 dry quarts unless it is a measure of weight in which case it again varies by contents. A barrel of flour holds 196 lbs, beef, fish and pork 200 pounds and cement 376 pounds.
----------------------------------------
The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Back in the days when sawdust was burned to heat houses, a unit of sawdust was a common measure. 1 unit = 200 cubic feet.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
How long was your bike ride?
A green mile.
How long is a green mile?
About 3 Hours not including credits.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
True story.
I was waiting for a train and the station agent came out to the waiting room and announced;
"I'm sorry, the train will be late. It was held up by a henway on the tracks."
"What's a henway?"
"Four or five pounds."
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Change your oil biyearly.
"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Anathema! Kill it with fire
Given that kilograms are a unit of mass, not force, I am having a hard time visualizing mass per unit area. The time comes when you must stare blankly and stupidly at people, and ask them what it is they mean.
--
JHG
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
I checked with wiki to see if 9 gallons was Imperial and found that a firkin for butter or cheese is 25 kg...
Dik
RE: Whats the most unique engineering unit you've encountered?
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com