Hehe. Reading this thread title, my first thought was that “nasty math” was a type of mathematics, like discrete or continuous.
:smack:
::slinks back to safe, happy world of English Literature::
By the way, my favorite odd unit from nuclear power is the Barn – it is used to measure cross sections at the atomic level. Its name always made me think “Couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn door”, and apparently the Wikipedia entry I linked to seems to support that silly association.
Petroleum geophysics in the U.S. is conducted using feet, pounds, miles, etc. On the occasions when I’ve had to work on international projects, switching to metric units has not been much of a problem.
But my repertoire of memorized calculations is in the old English units.
Didn’t the Brits use miles up until sometime in the mid-20th century?
They still do. Metric for everything else, but they drive in miles.
minor7flat5
Besides the barn, an equally humorous area unit is the shed.
That one cracks me up because it reminds me of the ridiculous Monty Python sketch “Arthur 2 Sheds Jackson”.
Still a lot of opposition to it, basically because it was forced on them by the EU: shopkeepers being prosecuted for still weighing in pounds and ounces, that kind of thing. Many people still see it as a French plot.
Me, I like the Imperial system over the metric system: if you count in 10’s, it’s only divisible by 2 and 5; if you count in 12’s, it’s divisible by 2’s, 3’s, 4’s and 6’s - I find it easier in my head.
Besides, the metric system has yet to come up with a measurement of length that I can relate to easily: I’m 5’11": Ok, that’s 5 and almost-another units I can picture - if I put on my boots, I’m 6 foot. I’m 179 cm: Ok, that’s, um, 179…little…things. Think I’ll put on my boots anyway.
What’s the big deal, really? If you can do the math in the first place and understand the engineering, then…what’s the big deal? - Jinx