# Coolest units of measurement **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 21, 2013, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542 "2013-06-21T06:35:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/141 "2013-07-04T16:22:39Z")
One that my wife and I have used for some time is the “Roti”. This was after my wife made the mistake of ordering a roti from a West Indian restaurant and asking for it to be “a _little_ hot”. One bite later, and I watched in amazement as her face turned colours faces are not intended to assume. :eek: One “Roti” = the hottest (as in most spicy) thing you can imagine eating and surviving. Foods in the real world are measured in _fractions_ of a Roti - as in “these hot pepers, grown by the inmates of a Guatamalan insane asylum from hot pepper stock stolen from Cthulhu cultists and watered with rattlesnake venom, are about three-quarters of a Roti”. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/142 "2013-07-05T00:22:29Z")
I like “Titanic” and “Hoover Dam”. They can be used for damn near every measurement. Height, weight, width, amount of concrete, elegance, tragedy, whatever. I swear one time I overheard some stupid show (probably on the Hitler channel) about how many “Titanics” of concrete it took to make the “Hoover Dam”! 😃 I nearly died laughing! ---
**Author:** ![Fozzie\_Dabear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a4c791/32.png) [@Fozzie\_Dabear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fozzie_Dabear)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/143 "2013-08-16T17:50:16Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > Penny: Oh, my God, _the_ George Smoot? > Leonard: You’ve heard of him? > Penny: Of course I haven’t. > Sheldon: George Smoot is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, one of the great minds of our time. His work in black body form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation cemented our understanding of the origin of the universe. > Penny: It’s kind of a funny name, though, Smoot. > > \ Well, no. George, the Nobel Prize winner, is a different Smoot. Evidently it was one of the most frequent questions he was asked upon his return from Stockholm. I know. I was one of the ones who asked . . . ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/144 "2013-12-30T07:37:40Z")
Just reading about Antarctica, I came upon an interesting unit of measurement. The southern ocean current that circles the globe and helps keep the southernmost continent really cold has a rate of about 125 sverdrups (one sverdrup is one million cubic meters per second, or about the total flow of all rivers into the seas). ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/145 "2013-12-30T14:06:00Z")
[QUOTE=stui magpie] I like Cans. As in, the number of cans of beer you drink in a certain length drive. (old days, before DUI laws) ie, it’s only a 3 can drive. [/QUOTE] My brother cooked chicken on the grill in cans. The number was slightly variable, depending on how much chicken, and how thirsty he was. IIRC, it tended to be three or four. I’ve never really understood the people who take a unit of height and rotate it 90 degrees to turn the Empire State Building into a unit of length. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/146 "2013-12-30T14:11:09Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > So we should rename the Light-Foot to Gordon! Or, seeing that it’s about light, a Flash Gordon, completely ruining the reference. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/147 "2013-12-30T14:40:56Z")
> [@Thuringwethil](#): > > No one has mentioned sizes of champagne bottles - ranging from the Piccolo to the Melchizedek with stops at Jennie, Jeroboam, Rehoboam, Methuselah, Mordechai, Salmanazar and Balthazar. In Spain the two-cup bottle is usually called a _Benjamín_; the same word is used to describe the smallest of any group of sizes, or the youngest of a group of living beings. Other bottle sizes include the missile and the magnum, the magnum being larger than the missile. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/148 "2013-12-30T14:45:55Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > In Spain the two-cup bottle is usually called a _Benjamín_; the same word is used to describe the smalles of any group of sizes, or the youngest of a group of living beings. Wow, I guess _It’s All About The Benjamins_ must have a totally different meaning in Spain, an uplifting hymn that even the smallest, most diminutive of us in both size and social standing ultimately matter… ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/149 "2013-12-30T14:51:55Z")
Heh. Every time I’ve seen “all about the Benjamins” used it was without giving context and talking about the Benjamins… Franklin. This is why I love the Dope! ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/150 "2013-12-30T19:04:36Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > From my sister the pharmacist comes the **scruple** , “A unit of apothecary weight equal to about 1.3 grams, or 20 grains.” And from me, the pharmacist, comes the femtoliter. It’s a cubic micron, used in determining blood cell volume (which can be important). If you ever get a lab printout and see “fl” on it, that’s what it is. We all found “femtoliter” much more amusing than “cubic micron”. My BFF joked about walking into a drugstore and asking for a scruple, a minim, or a dram of something. I replied that doing so would probably get him thrown out of the store. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/151 "2013-12-30T19:06:35Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > One that my wife and I have used for some time is the “Roti”. This was after my wife made the mistake of ordering a roti from a West Indian restaurant and asking for it to be “a _little_ hot”. One bite later, and I watched in amazement as her face turned colours faces are not intended to assume. :eek: > > One “Roti” = the hottest (as in most spicy) thing you can imagine eating and surviving. Foods in the real world are measured in _fractions_ of a Roti - as in “these hot pepers, grown by the inmates of a Guatamalan insane asylum from hot pepper stock stolen from Cthulhu cultists and watered with rattlesnake venom, are about three-quarters of a Roti”. Haven’t read the whole thread, but peppers are rated in Scoville units, also devised by a pharmacist. The hottest breed varies from year to year, and last I heard, there’s a commercially available pepper that has topped 1 million units. :eek: Pure capsaicin is 15 million units. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/152 "2013-12-30T20:19:18Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Haven’t read the whole thread, but peppers are rated in Scoville units, also devised by a pharmacist. The hottest breed varies from year to year, and last I heard, there’s a commercially available pepper that has topped 1 million units. :eek: > > Pure capsaicin is 15 million units. At least 6 peppers are \>1m Scovilles by my count, probably even more than that. But many peppers at that level are just slight variations on the last hottest one, so they might be differentiated by Scoville range rather than any specific differences… Not terribly cool, but units of temperature. You’ve heard of: [ul] [li]Fahrenheit[/li][li]Celsius[/li] And if you paid attention in school: [li]Kelvin[/li] There is also: [li]Réaumur - about 80% of Celsius[/li][li]Rankine - essentially Fahrenheit’s Kelvin[/li][li]Rømer - Herr Fahrenheit’s inspiration[/li][li]Newton - °C / 3.03[/li][li]Delisle - inverted: 0°D = boiling, 150°D = freezing[/li][li]Centigrade - what people call Celsius when trying to seem smart.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/153 "2013-12-30T21:57:39Z")
quote isn’t working again. > [@](#): > > ``` > [Half Man Half Wit](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php?u=67227) > > ``` > > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/images/statusicon/user\_offline.gif](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/images/statusicon/user_offline.gif) > > Guest > Join Date: Jun 2007 > > ``` > I've always been partial to *Grad deutscher Härte*, an old unit of measurement for water hardness. It translates to 'degrees of German hardness', and don't forget to roll your 'r's while saying its name. (Shaking fist in the air is optional, but encouraged.) > > ``` So, channel your inner Til Lindemann?? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/154 "2013-12-30T22:31:28Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > [li]Centigrade - what people call Celsius when trying to seem smart.[/li][/LIST] Huh. I always thought that Celsius was the “fancy” way of referring to Centigrade (actually, the truth is that Centigrade is the old-fashioned term for Celsius - so of course it seems natural to people who are old enough to have had textbooks that used the older term (or teachers who persisted in using the older term) long after official usage had changed). ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/155 "2013-12-31T00:21:41Z")
Nowadays, I mean, like people who want to use the more unusual word. Some older people may use it because it’s what they learned, but I see that it went out of official use in 1948. It of course means a scale of 100 degrees, but could pedantically refer to a made up thermometer if you set the scales right, or in other fields for a small change in angle. Centigrade also might be more British, in my observations. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/156 "2013-12-31T03:48:34Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Huh. I always thought that Celsius was the “fancy” way of referring to Centigrade (actually, the truth is that Centigrade is the old-fashioned term for Celsius - so of course it seems natural to people who are old enough to have had textbooks that used the older term (or teachers who persisted in using the older term) long after official usage had changed). When I was a kid, our local newspaper had a columnist who would answer various questions about history or science that were sent to him by children, and one day, the question was, “Who invented the Fahrenheit scale?” I was a teenager at the time, and a friend of mine who had once been featured in this column said, “Duh, Mr. Celsius.” :smack: 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/157 "2013-12-31T05:09:50Z")
One never hears much about “slugs” other than that one week in Physics 101. And maybe on the midterm. After that, it’s all “grams”. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/158 "2013-12-31T05:35:02Z")
A slug is the natural unit of mass in the foot-pound-second system. One pound force will accelerate a one slug mass at 1ft/sec^2. One lbm (pound mass) is about 1/32.2 slugs. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/159 "2013-12-31T09:52:09Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Not terribly cool, but units of temperature. > > You’ve heard of: > [ul] > [li]Fahrenheit[/li][li]Celsius[/li] > And if you paid attention in school: > [li]Kelvin[/li] > There is also: > [li]Réaumur - about 80% of Celsius[/li][/ul] The interesting thing about that one is that a diary I had about the place when younger felt it necessary to include information about Réaumur, and conversion formulae for it, Celsius and Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit’s the oddball; Réaumur and Celsius are both zero at freezing point of water and Réaumur is 80 at boiling point. So for forty-plus years of my life I have known how to convert between all three temperature scales… and I have never seen a temperature quoted in Réaumur nor an instrument calibrated in it. ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542/160 "2013-12-31T10:38:42Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > I guess this would be thicker than ‘the skin of your teeth,’ although in theory I suppose it could go either way. :eek: What about a fly’s dick? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-units-of-measurement/661542.md?page=9)