Re: JPMorgan Chase to strengthen offshoring to India

Howard Brazee said:

> On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:44:34 +0000 (UTC), Richard Heathfield
> <invalid_at_invalid.invalid> wrote:
>

>> For day to day use, I
>>still revel in inches, feet, yards, chains, furlongs, miles, ounces,
>>pounds, stones, tons - and degrees Fahrenheit.

Joking aside, I use them as a distance measure. They are particularly useful for giving directions to lost motorists: "up the road for three furlongs, then you'll see the Kings Head; go two more chains, then hang a left, and it's about ten rods past the big tree." Fortunately for my victims, it is possible to follow such directions without understanding them. :-)

> I once had a high school physics class
> calculate the speed of light in furlongs per fortnight.

ISTR that it's 1.8e12f/fn. Incidentally, one light second is just over 980000000 feet - so a foot is just over a light-nanosecond.

> But that was to learn the process of conversion.

I had to measure the speed of light once as a physics practical. Metric units, of course. I was using state-of-the-art-for-a-UK-state-school equipment, which was actually remarkably good. In fact, I suspect the equipment was a lot better than my arithmetic (you'll see what I mean in a moment).

When I'd crossed the last 'i' and dotted the final 't', my result (which, yes, I handed in) was: 2.997 metres per second. This means that, if I break into a slowish run, then according to the Lorentz-Fitzgerald equations I acquire imaginary mass, and can only decelerate by running harder.

-- 
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at above domain (but drop the www, obviously)