• kbal@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    45
    ·
    8 days ago

    Some people are just more comfortable with good old familiar units like baby elephants per corgi. What do they even use for that in the metric system? Millihectares per decilitre or something? Whatever.

      • Lodespawn@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        17
        ·
        8 days ago

        you could also say 12L meteor weighing 400kg … which is pretty cool, imagine 12 cartons of milk weighing the same as 4 fairly large people

        • Klear@quokk.au
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          19
          ·
          8 days ago

          1.5 fairly large people. You’re talking to Americans, remember.

            • hope@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              7
              ·
              8 days ago

              Soda is generally sold in 2L bottles here, with single liter bottles growing in popularity. Alcohol is usually sold by the ml, though in units like “fifth” and “handle.”

              Milk though, milk is sold in half-pints (not sure why they don’t write cup), pints, quarts, half-gallon, or gallon. I like to pretend a quart is a shrinkflated liter though.

        • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          8 days ago

          For non-metric users, three gallons of milk is probably more accessible. 400 kg is 880lb, which is roughly 12x as dense as water, which is the wild part (or it feels like it, that could be a totally normal density for stone, I’ve already put too much effort in for napkin math on a shitpost)

          • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            7 days ago

            So palladium is has a density of 12.02, which it’s price per ounce a little under 2000 CAD, that “corgi” is worth ~$27,846,525.99 CAD at current prices.

        • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 days ago

          In your example of why the American system is bad resort to using the American system because nobody had any context?

          Check mate atheists.

    • Photonic@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      8 days ago

      I mean, it’s basic knowledge isn’t it? If you know e=mc2 you’d better also know (be)4=c

    • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      8 days ago

      Unironically though more people really need to understand the utility of using highly composite numbers as units of measurement. It’s not like the number 12 got picked randomly out of a hat.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        7 days ago

        idk how you know that but even so, the news is from Texas which means they’re probably just relaying a report from a US agency.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          7 days ago

          I know it because this was circulated around the internet like 5 years ago when it happened, but the actual article was linked instead of just an image captcha. This is old news and an old “Americans will use pretty much anything but the metric system” type response.

  • zxqwas@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    8 days ago

    Had to check that it’s actually plausible.

    Assuming a corgi is 0.4m long, 0.3m tall and 0.2m wide and that a baby elephant weighs 120kg that gives the meteor a density of 20000kg/m³.

    There are only a few elements denser than that, but it’s possible.

    • Hoimo@ani.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      8 days ago

      The meteor was, according to NASA, about 2 feet across and weighed 1000 pounds. So their baby elephants are on the lighter side and their corgis are fairly normal size.

      I’m going to assume a sphere, 60 centimeters in diameter, and a weight of 450 kg. Volume of the sphere is 113000cm3, which gives us a density of 3,9g/cm3. That’s heavier than most rocks (silicon at 2.3), but much lighter than iron (7.9).

      • zxqwas@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        8 days ago

        Possibly, astrophysics is usually about order of magnitude and while iron is only 8000kg/m³ it’s within error margins.

          • Agent641@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            8 days ago

            And how malnourished the baby elephants are. I mean, there are 4 of them, that’s a big litter for an elephant. Perhaps they aren’t all suckling as much as is normal because the mother elephant isn’t producing enough milk for 4. Maybe the mother elephant is sickly, after such a difficult birth. God, what if she even died?! The poor things will starve!

    • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      8 days ago

      Corgis (adult) are pretty much one size, but are we talking newborn or year-old baby elephants? At what age does “baby” graduate to “toddler” in a species that stands and walks within an hour of birth?

    • crank0271@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      7 days ago

      According to some searching a banana is 100 - 150 cubic centimeters, while this meteor was .012 cubic meters, meaning roughly the volume of 80 - 120 average bananas (mashed). The meteor weighed 400kg while an (again, perfectly average) banana weighs 100 - 130g. This means that the weight of the meteor is between 3076 - 4000 bananas. So let’s call it the weight of 3500 bananas in the space of 100, or roughly 35x the density of your average earth banana. (Lemmy bananaticians or bananologists, please correct me if I did bad math.)

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    7 days ago

    You know well that Americans have only a very loose grip on units and reality. That’s why they use imperial and “elephants per football field” like units.

    • doingthestuff@lemy.lol
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      7 days ago

      Someone’s clearly below average on bald eagles per gunshot fired and, frankly, I think a little jealous.

        • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          8 days ago

          A headline created by an Israeli media outlet, aimed culturally at Britons, and run on various European sites? Much American.

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            7 days ago

            No you see, everyone else in the world exclusively describes the world in accurate SI units, only Americans are dumbfuck enough to measure things in bullets per cheeseburger. Nobody else in the entire world will casually say “it’s the size of a medium dog” because America bad.

            • vinyl@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              7 days ago

              after immigrating here, I’ve lived in America for 12 years and I still cannot get used to the whole thing with ounces, pints, gallons, and all the other weird af measurement units we use, like for my manufacturing job, instead of using cm, mm, or um, we have to juggle between using decimal numbers or fractions of an inch