6 Strange Units of Measurement We Still Use

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From a Jiffy to a Furlong, what are these strange units of measurement that we still use everyday? Join Olivia Gordon and learn about the weird units you use every time you put on your shoes or read about dark matter! Let's go!
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Sources:
Sources:
Introduction:
• The bridge which is me...
web.mit.edu/smoot/history.htm
Furlong:
smile.amazon.com/Whatever-Happ...
books.google.com/books?id=Crm...
books.google.com/books?id=cjU...
northernwoodlands.org/article...
Barleycorn:
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Shoe-...
www.sizes.shoes/Officialish.ht...
oureverydaylife.com/shoe-size...
Micromort:
www.cambridge.org/core/journa...
www.uspa.org/facts-faqs/safety
theconversation.com/whats-mos...
taronga.org.au/conservation/c...
Jiffy:
catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/J/ji...
www.coe.neu.edu/cgi-bin/man-c...
lwn.net/Articles/549593/
www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/di...
Banana Equivalent Dose:
knowyourmeme.com/memes/banana-...
hps.org/publicinformation/ate...
xkcd.com/radiation/
www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/t...
Barn:
ed.fnal.gov/painless/pdfs/cros...
web.archive.org/web/200808212...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/...
journals.aps.org/prc/abstract...
Image Sources:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furlong...

Опубликовано:

27 янв 2018

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Комментарии : 3,7 тыс.

@HandeToon 6 лет назад

Not so common anymore but in Finnish Lapland people used to measure distance by the "Deer Piss" (poronkusema), which is the distance a reindeer could pull a sleigh before it needed to stop to take a piss. There's no standardised length for that, but a reindeer will run at most 7,5 kilometres before needing to urinate.

@MrHuggaga 6 лет назад

HandeToon that is so funny yet actually interesting! ;D

@AxelÞór 6 лет назад

There is an old unit in Iceland called "þingvallaleið" (parliament way, or route), which is the distance a man traveling to parliament would cover in a day. It is approx. 30 km.

@urielrosenzweig4315 6 лет назад

I love the universe

@baileysutcliffe4617 6 лет назад

@skbartistry2473 6 лет назад

The Vikings had an ancient measuring unit called a *Fot* which is 0.314 meters long. And a Fot* is 0.280 meters long. This number is derived from dividing a Fot by 12.

@IstasPumaNevada 6 лет назад

For anyone interested, they marked the Smoots out on the bridge, and repainted them yearly, to the point where local police offers started recording accident positions by what Smoot they happened at. And then later when the bridge needed to be reconstructed, it was done so with deck parts not of the standard length, but one Smoot long. Or so I read.

@aidanwhite5631 Год назад

this is awesome

@wirebrushproductions1001 Год назад

Sorry, but no. Standard panel construction. However, the fraternity which originally created the Smoot made an exact record of the lengths, and repainted the marks once construction was done. EDIT However, concrete sidewalks are laid as a continuous strip of concrete, with expansion joint cut into the concrete. When the bridge was reconstructed, the contractor adjusted the cut interval to be one Smoot (about 5 feet, seven inches).END EDIT And, at least in the 60s, the common story was that the Smoot system was not voluntary. Instead, young Smoot had too much to drink and was unaware of the use to which he was put.

@Z4RD4N34 Год назад

@@wirebrushproductions1001 Better than your buddies getting you a mystery tattoo.

@surlyogre1476 Год назад

Google Earth has _smoots_ as one of the units of measure available, along with inches, feet, miles, and their metric equivalents.

@peterzavon3012 Год назад

@@wirebrushproductions1001 Yes, the drinking story is the one I was given in the late 60s by MIT students of the day, and that his frat buddies turned him head over heels with each measurement. I also understood that, when the bridge deck was rebuilt, it was the police that required the Smoot measurements to be recorded and re-marked to preserve the integrity of their more recent records. Then the fraternity resumed annual repainting of them. By the 70s, the layers of pain had become so thick that you could almost trip over them. I would not be surprised if they were trending that way again.

@knutritter461 4 года назад

As a former natural scientist (chemistry) I like the concept of BEDs very much. Because most people freak out when they hear about radioactivity. Counting in BEDs makes them realize that everything around us and ourselves are actually radioactive, too! Additionally people can assess the invisible relative amount of radioactivity by something they know, they can touch and see. I will use this unit in future!

@DeactivatedCharcoal Год назад

Lately a controversy has arisen about whether we should use Natural Gas Stoves or Electric. Those against Gas Stoves say electric is safer, as combustion products are potentially harmful. I'm surprised they never mention the fact that Natural Gas contains Radon, a colorless, odorless, tasteless chemically inert gas is radioactive.

@goodun2974 Год назад

The amount of potassium contained in 100 million bananas would stop your heart long before the radiation killed you. 🤔

@knutritter461 Год назад

@@goodun2974 But you can stand next to them and look at them... 😉😂

@MrFixit-fb5bu 4 года назад

Actually, the barleycorn as a shoe size measurement goes back to Hammurabi. His army was followed around by a bunch of shoemakers who had to carve wooden lasts (the shoe form for making a shoe). Every new recruit got a set of lasts with his name on them that was used to make his shoes. When he was killed, the last ceremonial act was to throw his lasts into the camp fire. That's a lot of activity, so Hammurabi had a contest to find the guy in his army with the biggest feet. They measured 39 barleycorns in length, and since 36 barleycorns is a "foot" 39 barleycorns became "size 13" and each half size up or down adds or subtracts one barleycorn, or 1/3 of an inch from that initial measurement. So now the army only needed about 52 sets of lasts, (Narrow, Medium, and Wide widths) and no more were burned. Now, how many pints in a firkin?

@georgeb.wolffsohn30 Год назад

A bunch ?

@MrHaighahatta Год назад

Now, that depends on whether you're talking about wine or beer/ale, before or after the mid-1500's, imperial or british, and how big your kilderkin is (without embarrassing the womenfolk or unnecessary bragging).

@mobius-edge Год назад

I thought there had to be an error in the video as 24 barleycorns was far too few to be size 13 since 24/3=8. Your numbers make sense, and I appreciate the history lesson.

@nunobernardo625 9 месяцев назад

"how many pints in a firkin?" A firkin lot!

@nighthawk2k3rsx 6 лет назад

The program mathcad has Smoots as a unit. I turned homework in once where I made all velocities measured in Smoots/Fortnight. TA wasn’t amused

@danielsmith5664 5 лет назад

This made me laugh entirely too hard

@simeonbaumel7293 4 года назад

But if the answer was correct, he had to give you full credit...

@allyourpie4323 3 года назад

I would probably give you extra points.

@davidlium9338 2 года назад

Hilarious!!!

@haramanggapuja 2 года назад

Time to cue up Prof. Chris Staecker ;-) I'm sure he'd have given you credit. Providing you could show your work. ;-)

@TissueCat 6 лет назад

My favorite unit of measurement is the millihelen, the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship.

@zammyscorp0 6 лет назад

Nice copy paste, well done

@allanrichardson1468 4 года назад

Isaac Asimov claimed that one in one of his memoir books. It’s based on an Ancient Greek poem by Homer. Not Simpson!

@AlixL96 Год назад

that implies that helen of troy's beauty was enough to launch precisely one million ships. the implication here are fascinating.

@stratocruising Год назад

@@AlixL96 Check your prefixes. A full Helen would launch a thousand ships, a millihelen, one.

@sydhenderson6753 9 месяцев назад

@@stratocruising A microhelen is sufficient to launch a plank, and a nanohelen a sliver.

@KingfisherTalkingPictures 4 года назад

My favorite is the Teller, a unit of unfounded confidence. It was named for Physicist Edward Teller, around the time he was helping pitch the Star Wars anti-missile system for Reagan. 1 teller was so ridiculously large, that most daily units were in nano- or pico-tellers. “Hey, I can get my car into that parking space,” might be a nano-teller large.

@GregConquest Год назад

Or the Scaramouchi: the 11 days he was Communications Director under President WhatsHisName. Sean Spicer was WH Communications Director for 4.5 Scaramouchis, for example. Barack Obama was president for 266 Scaramouchis.

@farmergiles1065 Год назад

I guess that makes the kilo-teller the unit for measuring the confidence of the average Trump devotee.

@mumtrz Год назад

Then bank security guards must be working in the most hubristic place in the world, every single day they're exposed to dozens of Tellers!

@farmergiles1065 Год назад

@@mumtrz Banks could alleviate that problem by using their bountiful supply of Tellers to use AI in their next generation of automated Tellers. By the time that's ready, those machines should be obsolete! A fitting end.

@ColinMill1 Год назад

There is a similar gag about the unit of self-importance being the kan. However it is so large that the largest recorded measurement was one Millikan.

@therealjammit 4 года назад

Cop: "Do you know how fast you were going?" Me: "66,179 smoots per hour"

@HotelPapa100 4 года назад

Heisenberg: "No, but I can tell you precisely where I am!" Cop: "exactly 121.7" miles per hour, you loon!" Heisenberg: "Great! now I am lost!"

@leefisher6366 4 года назад

@@HotelPapa100 I'm really uncertain about that comment. (Someone had to say it).

@bodevp 4 года назад

@@leefisher6366 a particle's position and speed can't be measured precisely simultaneously

@leefisher6366 4 года назад

@@bodevp Oh, bless. Taking me literally. I said that because of the reference to Heisenberg in HotelPapa100's comment. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as you have defined it.

@loremipsumdolorsitamet9542 4 года назад

You should calculate with smoots per jiffy and call it a scishow. Do one scishow is the time in 1000 jiffy per smoot and 2 scishow is 2000 jiffy per smoot

@thekaxmax 6 лет назад

'furlongs per fortnight' allows you to measure snail speeds in whole numbers.

@umey3445 5 лет назад

thekaxmax cm per hour?

@Messerschmidt_Me-262 5 лет назад

Did u mean fortnite? (Yes this is sarcastic)

@W.H.V. 5 лет назад

@@Messerschmidt_Me-262 Even though this is a joke, I still hate you for it.

@Powerkillera 5 лет назад

Coincidentally, a furlong per fortnight is almost exactly a centimeter per minute.

@justanoman6497 6 лет назад

Australia is so dangerous, that sitting in a chair in Australia is more dangerous than sharks.

@aidran007 6 лет назад

Just Anoman ...not to mention Drop Bears

@westcoastwarriorsarchive7929 6 лет назад

That was my favorite part of the video

@fairyheli2 6 лет назад

Especially when you remember you're upside down and fall into the sky

@maximkhan-magomedov431 6 лет назад

What about sitting in a chair with kangaroo in the middle of shark-infested ocean? Insanity.

@thomasraahauge5231 6 лет назад

It has been verified. Everything in Australia is trying to kill you . . .

@T4nkcommander 6 лет назад

Other related units to the barn are the shed and outhouse. Actually had outhouse come up on one of my nuclear tests back in college

@lorijudd2151 Год назад

So now I feel like part of a riddle, but what is a measurement that uses a shed? Or an outhouse? Also, have you ever used a real, made by a farmer outhouse?

@T4nkcommander Год назад

@@lorijudd2151 thankfully never had to use one, though my grandparents did. Shed and outhouse are just different order of magnitude of the barn, which is used for nuclear cross section calcs (ie, how many interactions do you expect there to be per amount of material, roughly speaking)

@HotelPapa100 7 месяцев назад

@@T4nkcommander So a shed is 0.1 barn, the outhouse 0.01 barn?

@elizamccroskey1708 Год назад

I know that bridge well, and the Smoot story. I LOVE that Mr. Smoot went on to head a measurement agency! Thanks as always for giving out quite interesting information.

@TrueFork Год назад

For convenience I always express depth in stone throws. Example, the Pacific ocean is 1.0 stone throw deep, the swimming pool is 1.0 stone throw deep, etc. It really simplifies calculations!

@joonarepo2067 6 лет назад

There's this funny unit of distance in Finland called "poronkusema" which literally mean the distance a reindeer can go without peeing. It obviously isn't in use anymore but it's an interesting remain of the old measuring units. And how long is one "poronkusema"? Several kilometers but not more than 7,5 due to the fact that reindeer cannot pee while running. If they run for too long, they can get paralysis.

@swabby429 6 лет назад

I kept waiting for her to explain a stone, the unit of weight.

@BertGrink 6 лет назад

And I, for the "shake of a lamb's tail", which is used to measure very short time intervals on the order of 10 nanoseconds, by nuclear scientists, to describe very fast nuclear reactions.

@Delgen1951 6 лет назад

Twinkle of an Eye is how long?

@poisonpotato1 6 лет назад

J Johnson or the slug

@rogerking7258 5 лет назад

Giving dimensions a name is actually very important in that it enables you to visualise what you are doing. I realised this when an Italian supplier of mine (in a precision engineering environment) asked for dimensions in thou, even though we always made sure he was given metric dimensions. When I asked why, he said it was because it was much easier to visualise machining 3 thou off something than .0762mm

@hathorthecow7146 Год назад

What in the sam hill is an Italian using thousands of an inch for? I'm american and I didn't know "thou" was a thing until I asked google just now.

@jefferyindorf699 Год назад

@@hathorthecow7146 you're not a Machinist.

@Mattvieir Год назад

That is very, VERY odd. I thought everyone living in a metric country would have an easier time visualizing metric units. I mean, as a mechanical engineer, .0762mm is much easier for me to visualize than 3 thou (it is just shy of 1/10 mm, and 1 mm is simple to grasp). My first thought was that he prefer thou because he was either trained in the USA, or his machine is American made.

@randydewees7338 Год назад

@@Mattvieir Depends on his background. I'm a optician, I tend to think in "waves". If I'm using an ultraprecision machine tool, or any CNC, I always program in millimeters. For surface testing in the IR I think in microns, in the vis I think in waves (Angstroms or nanometers). For micro-roughness it's Angstroms or nanometers for optical surfaces, micro-inches for machined metal surfaces. If I'm turning wheels on a manual machine like a lathe or mill I prefer "thou". I find metric not as easy to visualize at that scale though I do get used to it. I think that to some degree my brain processes these different units in different ways - related to the activities. I'm completely comfortable with a unit in one activity, but not in another. If I'm doing something that requires equivalent units, I'm careful. I think if there was some great benefit to stating everything in say, meters, then it would have been done a long time ago. This lack of uniformity seems to offend people who don't actually make things. For one that works in a varied manufacturing environment it kind of makes sense, and sliding between units is the least of difficulty. If someday it all gets reduced to, say, meters, then something of the romance will be lost.

@JesusFlores-ju3mh 5 лет назад

Im glad I’ve discovered this channel and PBS Eons. They have become my favorite channels on all of RU-vid.

@downinthevalley9757 3 года назад

same!

@Aipe97 6 лет назад

Measuring a bridge for a fraternity? that's like the nerdiest frat pledge I've ever heard. I love it!

@1959Edsel 6 лет назад

The barn can be divided into smaller and less-used units, namely the outhouse and the shed.

@113dmg9 4 года назад

A very brainful comment.

@ThePhoenixAscendant Год назад

And a true one as well!

@bertmeinders6758 4 года назад

From my toolmaking days, I still use the unit "a fartskin". Very small, maybe a spring cut on a lathe or mill. And my father defined "a few" as "more than two, and less than a lot".

@enderz1341 5 лет назад

In college I did an entire lab experiment in decameters bc I was bored. My professor had no idea where I was getting my numbers from because he failed to read all my carefully labeled units.

@hurricaneofcats 6 лет назад

My dad is an electrical engineer and apparently when he was in technical school he liked to calculate distances in units of 'furlongs per fortnight' just for the heck of it.

@peterzavon3012 Год назад

furlong per fortnight is a measure of speed, not distance.

@HotelPapa100 7 месяцев назад

@@peterzavon3012 And it's the unit usually cited when poking fun at the 'customary' system of measurements. A furlong per fortnight is about 0.17 mm/s so a prctical unit when measuring a snail's pace. (I'd still prefer mm/s, though.)

@uss_04 6 лет назад

No mention of Butt Load (126 Gallons]? Disappointed.

@Bird_Dog00 6 лет назад

126 Gallons in one butt? That's one hell of an enema!

@typacsk 6 лет назад

Just once, I'd like to read a subtle reference to this in a Patrick O'Brian novel.

@Kumquat_Lord 5 лет назад

Or a 'momemt' being a minute and a half long

@AstronautaVerdadeiro 5 лет назад

*vsaucey reference*

@EduardQualls 4 года назад

That's the Imperial (Britain) or Customary (US) buttload. There's also the metric buttload, as well as the metric shitload.

@dalelane1948 3 года назад

When I saw the title I was sure you’re only talking about Murica. With your gallons, miles, acres & whatever else you guys like

@Bacteriophagebs 6 лет назад

"I guess equestrians find it...handy" INSTANTLY CUTS TO A NEW SENTENCE. Well done.

@TornixGalensti 6 лет назад

Solar mass is an interesting unit. It's based on the mass of our sun which loses millions of metric ton in weight every second.

@NothingVideot 6 лет назад

The entirety of the imperial system?

@Minty_Mentos_ 6 лет назад

DELTA about to say that

@Alkaloid-Odin 6 лет назад

Yes!!!

@MrGustaphe 6 лет назад

Yeah, but it's not like anyone uses them seriously?

@ClemensJason 6 лет назад

YAAAS

@Dalen22_W 6 лет назад

David Gustavsson the whole usa does for some reason

@ShaunDreclin Год назад

I really like the micromort, I wish it was more popular. People are not good at assessing risk intuitively, putting a number to it would be great

@dtownknives 3 года назад

Reminds me of a project I did for one of my undergrad classes. We had to design a piping system, and after pulling an all-nighter, I decided to report my pipe lengths in smoots and flow rate in acre*ft/fortnight in addition to the standard SI units. My professor did not get as much of kick out of it as I did.

@amberkat8147 Год назад

Which is a shame, because that is absolutely hilarious.

@Zzyzzyx Год назад

I'm disappointed in your professor. They should have been delighted.

@cyrenecai 6 лет назад

My pet peeve is with the overuse of "width of a human hair" (WOAHH), "length of a football field" (LOAFF) and "olympic size swimming pool" (OSSP) in journalism - especially science journalism - to describe things. I know they think these are common things everyone understands, but how many people really understand the actual sizes of them? To me they do more to obfuscate than clarify what's being written or talked about, particularly in science writing where the people it's targeting already understand proper measurements...

@3800S1 6 лет назад

average thickness of a hair 0.05mm or the thinnest gauge on a feeler gauge set or in old terms approximately 2 thou. Also same of many clear sticky tapes in thickness. Pretty easy to envision on that one at least. The rest I have no idea as I don't care for sports stuff.

@purplefire2834 4 года назад

I agree. I know how big a human hair is by feeling it, but I have very little picture of how big a football field is and even less of how big an Olympic sized swimming pool is.

@MarielynetteJohnson 4 года назад

I think it's okay if an object *actually* is the size of a football field (American football). My peeve is repetitive "in no way shape or form," and "in terms of". A picture-pedia on storms converted meters (of snow) into anywhere from 1 to 4 feet, or feet into meters. Either way they could have used decimals. Sometimes books alternate between English and metric, converting and not converting units, and putting English first and metric first.

@ramshacklealex7772 4 года назад

And they're never clear whether their definition of "length of a football field" includes the end zones, or just means 100 yards.

@GodDanC 4 года назад

@@ramshacklealex7772 American football fields were not standardized until the 1920s or so. And, the sideline to sideline measurement is just plain weird.

@Vla3d 6 лет назад

There's also a Russian unit of measurement - Dohuya (Дохуя) and the way "dohuya" works is that when you're counting whatever that you're counting and you reach that point when you simply cannot continue due to physical inability, lack of interest, exhaustion or simply going insane - you reached HALF of "dohuya" (pron. [doe-who-ya]).

@alexandergarfin422 6 лет назад

bahahahahah

@stumpypetros2685 4 года назад

Happens a lot when countng empty Vodka bottles :P

@cathipalmer8217 Год назад

Awesome!

@NoNameAtAll2 Год назад

Dofiga (doh-fee-gah) is a smaller, more manageable cousin of dohuya

@octavianova1300 4 года назад

I love that by sheer happenstance, a foot happens to be almost exactly (about 98.5%) equal to a light-nanosecond, so I motion that we preserve the foot, but redefine it as equal to exactly 1 light-nanosecond (and therefore 0.299792458 meters)

@RainaRamsay Год назад

I support it I would also like to repurpose "hand" to be exactly 10cm, because it's much easier to say and to estimate than "decimeter"

@Biogrrrl 6 лет назад

Interesting. I was hoping to get some more info on the Hectare and the Stone. Hectares are used all the time in forestry, far more often than acres. Also, I've noticed that English people still use Stones to measure weight, but people in the U.S. do not. Maybe there could be another video about this in the future?

@Tjalve70 Год назад

Well, a hectare is just 100 ares. And an are is 10x10 meters, or 100 sq.m. So a hectare is 10,000 sq.m. That's just a natural part of the SI system.

@cathipalmer8217 Год назад

I was hoping for ells.

@catatonicbug7522 Год назад

@@cathipalmer8217 Losers are measured in L's. One L for a normal loser, and 5 L's for someone without the capability of success in ANY forum.

@joeyhardin5903 Год назад

A stone is just 14lbs. Not sure what that is in kg, or why they aren't used in the US

@seb3090 Год назад

A hectare is an SI unit for area, it is 10,000 metres square, that is a square 100m per side. Hecto means 100. An acre is a chain by a furlong, so 22 x 220 yards (10 chains to the furlong, 8 furlongs to the mile) there are about 2.5 acres to the hectare. A stone is 14 lbs (# I think the US customary system uses), from this you get 8 stone to the hundredweight (cwt, c just being short for centi) or 112 lbs and 20 cwt to the ton. Which is why the ton is 2240lbs not the short ton which is US 2000# as the US uses 100# to the cwt. The Imperial system is more interconnected than US customary units, although outside of enthusiasts usage is more limited for many of the obscure sizings. Fortnights are definitely a thing though. Firkins are also used for beer, most ale comes in firkins, that is 9 gallons, although a pint of water is a pound and a quarter here, so you need to use the Imperial gallon here.

@rpeetz 6 лет назад

Waking up my mom at night is over 9000 micromorts.

@Zizumia 6 лет назад

The Navy has it's own measurements too like Shot and Fathom. A Fathom is 6 feet and is used to measure depth. It was originally the span of an average sailor's (man's) outstretched arms which was around 5 1/2 feet to 6 feet, but since Naval vessels still use this measurement today, they've set it at 6 feet. It is derived from an Anglo-Saxon word which means "to embrace", since a man must outstretch his arms to embrace his sweetheart. A Shot is 15 Fathoms (or 90 feet) which is used to measure Anchor Chains. A sailor must know how many shot's an anchor chain is if he doesn't want to lose his chain, thus a chain will be painted in lengths of a "shot".

@mateuszstawowski5931 4 года назад

I think you forgot just about anything from the imperial system.

@jenn011754 6 лет назад

I truly enjoyed this and yes, I chuckled quite often. Thank you Olivia for making me smile and sharing all of this history. Truly enjoyable.

@mattjohnston2 6 лет назад

This video took me just a bit less than a Scaramucci to watch.

@silentwisdom7025 3 года назад

🤣🤣😀

@phishENchimps 3 года назад

Imagine if a president took an Obama to get rid of someone bad. There would be war crimes. Like drone bombing a wedding.

@jarnMod 6 лет назад

Heck, I work in computer engineering for ages and never once in my life use a jiff. We call it a tick 😅

@bjornolson6527 4 года назад

jarnMod Especially considering the .gif controversy. 🤢

@SugarBeetMC 4 года назад

I study electrical engineering and the jiffy has never come up anywhere.

@GH-oi2jf 4 года назад

jarnMod - I studied computer science and worked with computers for 40 years. I never heard of a “jiffy” in that context. You would say “clocks” if you were counting clock cycles.

@allanrichardson1468 4 года назад

And a change of one in the binary number representing the X or Y coordinate of the mouse cursor, in other words the minimum mouse movement that can be detected by its host computer, is a Mickey. I wonder where that came from?

@markhorton3994 4 года назад

@@GH-oi2jf No I wouldn't say "clocks", I would either say clock cycles or ticks.

@IoEstasCedonta 5 лет назад

"About a tenth of a furlong wide" - exactly a tenth of a furlong. A chain.

@purplesam2609 6 лет назад

That frat pledge is the most mild and entertaining I ever heard

@WhoElseButZane 6 лет назад

You need to get radiation therapy? That's bananas.

@NessaOfDorthonion 6 лет назад

Sci show is usually my entertainment of choice on RU-vid. My little girl at 18 months old started to like watching this with me (for about as long as she could sit still). For a while she would only smile and watch when Hank was hosting, but it turns out she likes Olivia too ❤ I guess that makes two of us, I think Olivia is doing a great job 😀

@senorstrawhat7089 6 лет назад

That's so cool!!

@georgeb.wolffsohn30 Год назад

How many "Hanks" of attention could she manage ?

@precumming Год назад

My town used to be a huge producer of shoes, the coat of arms has barley on it as a signifier for the measurement

@PhazonBlaxor 6 лет назад

In Finland we have a furlong called "poronkusema" (means something a reindeer has peed on). This is a distance a reindeer can ride you without stopping for a pee break, as reindeers cannot run and pee at the same time. If a reindeer keeps moving for too long time without peeing, it can cause a paralysis state for the animal. Poronkusema can be up to 7.5 kilometres long.

@Master_Therion 6 лет назад

Different countries use different measurements. It has to do with their... Ruler.

@railitto 6 лет назад

*slow clap*

@doncooperjr4817 6 лет назад

Ugghhh, that was painful.

@RTI111 6 лет назад

🤣🤣🤣🤣

@nachtkind46 6 лет назад

still is. Lol. I mean Yards and feet are still used in the USA most commonly. Meters are still used in the UK and it's mostly because our "rulers" still don't want us to convert to the other system. (congress and the president still have to make an official decision on what we officially use, and I feel any change from the Metric system would have to be officially approved via parliament in the UK)

@lillyie 6 лет назад

SAANS PLS!!!

@mattjohnston2 6 лет назад

I get _why_ they do it, but I've always thought it humourous when a technician puts someone in front of an x-ray, than goes hide in another room. "Don't worry ma'am, this is harmless...I'll just be over here behind this lead wall."

@NotAGoodUsername360 5 лет назад

Matt Johnston Drinking water is also perfectly harmless until you drink more than your kidneys can handle and it suddenly becomes actual literal poison.

@calamityjean1525 5 лет назад

@@NotAGoodUsername360 Two clear illustrations of the old saying, "The dose makes the poison".

@allanrichardson1468 5 лет назад

The patient may get a few dozen X-rays in a lifetime. The technician is doing dozens every day.

@ohyeahyeah3164 5 лет назад

Matt

@arthas640 4 года назад

I had cancer as a kid and always found it kind of disconcerting when the nurse came out in a special gown, two pairs of gloves, safety glasses, and face mask to give you a bag of chemo. It's like "yeah, this stuff is so caustic and dangerous that we need 2 pairs of gloves in case a tiny drop got on our hands, but we're just gonna pump a liter of the stuff directly into a central line ot your heart."

@tomsmith5584 4 года назад

In Japan, they use "Jo" for area. One jo is the area a traditional tatami mat covers, which is 81 cm by 162 cm. It ia used to describe the area of rooms in real estate listings to advertise how big they are.

@slateslater136 2 года назад

I love learning thing. Love when you all use your hands and body expressions while you talk about your topics

@sk8rdman 6 лет назад

Someone's exposed to 100 BEDS a day? Man, that guy really gets around.

@TheShizzlemop 6 лет назад

this comment is highly underrated.

@ImDemonAlchemist 6 лет назад

Dan Exposed to 100 BEDS because of rocks and bricks no less.

@tommyjohson3193 5 лет назад

It's a *PUN*

@andrewsuryali8540 6 лет назад

I'm kinda disappointed horsepower didn't make the list but smoot did...

@AdamSmith-gs2dv 5 лет назад

Horsepower is cool, it's better say my car makes 300HP than 300 Newton's

@paprikalp7989 4 года назад

Technically speaking smoot wasn't on the list either

@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself 4 года назад

@@AdamSmith-gs2dv HP measures power and newtons are for force. The standard unit of power is the watt. Can your Delorean handle 1.21 gigawatts of power?

@JamesDavy2009 4 года назад

@@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself Don't forget that it must travel at 141.62 km/h (88 mph) when it gets the power dose of 1.21 GJ/s for the flux capacitor to work.

@leefisher6366 4 года назад

@@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself Ach, No Jim! I'm already givin' her all she's got, Captain! (Aah, but Marty - where we're going, we don't need Star Trek.)

@sareinhart 6 лет назад

Congratulations on making through this video with a straight face. LOVE IT!!

@somebodys7404 5 лет назад

Pianists measure hand span by the widest interval (distance between two pitches) we can reach. Very practical.

@elviswjr 6 лет назад

I know some people try to avoid BED but I think it's good for you. In fact, I try to expose myself to as much BED as possible. I even sleep in it, sometimes as much as 8 hours a day.

@goktrenks 6 лет назад

Lmao

@PhauxTheFox 6 лет назад

And now the play button is a unit of measurement

@TheOfficialCzex 5 лет назад

The 'moment' is another good one. In the Middle Ages, a moment equated to exactly 90 seconds or one and a half minutes. Kind of intuitive, honestly.

@Petriefied0246 2 года назад

This video was quite fun to watch!

@passthebutterrobot2600 6 лет назад

Surprised you didn't mention Knots.

@stevenvanhulle7242 6 лет назад

Especially because it's a unit of speed, not length as one might expect.

@charlesspringer4709 4 года назад

Knot is based on circular measure of degrees, minutes, and seconds. If you are going 5 knots you are traveling 5/60 degree (1 minute of arc per knot) or 1/12 degree per hour along the Earths surface. It made calculations for navigation on water very simple.

@nikoerforderlich7108 6 лет назад

The maximum banana equivalent dose for a radiation worker in one year is half a megabanana.

@themanhimself1229 6 лет назад

Niko erforderlich i want this to be true

@HappyBeezerStudios 6 лет назад

I'd like to eat a megabanana at some point.

@nikoerforderlich7108 6 лет назад

+Mr. Tophat I didn't actually look it up, but according to a cute song about the BED in www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07krkh0 (Matt Parker is in it) that's the case.

@josephgroves3176 6 лет назад

So 0.05 sieverts?

@nikoerforderlich7108 6 лет назад

+Joseph Groves Get outta here with your SI units! :D

@Scolopente Год назад

A jiffy is about 3 minutes. Its defined by the length of time it takes you to do the thing. 'I'll be down in a jiffy' or 'I'll be there in a jiffy' means 'I'm coming in the time it takes me to do this one thing I have to do before I can come'.

@joshuagreen3185 6 лет назад

There's a derived unit called the Hubble-barn, which is the volume of a cylinder with base area = 1 barn and length = the Hubble length (the radius of the visible universe). It's equal to about 13 liters / 3.5 gallons. Kind of weird - multiply an atomic-scale unit by a universe-scale unit and you get a human-scale unit!

@Charles-ig6fr 6 лет назад

OK, now I'm holding out for the Marvel superhero who gets his powers after being locked in a banana warehouse for days. Exposed to over 9000 BED of K40 radiation, his cells mutate, transforming him into.... BANANA MAN! I see huge potential. First his own title, then Avenger and Deadpool crossovers, standalone movie, maybe a Netflix series. Then there's some major banana related scandal involving the star of the series which gets the whole deal canceled before it even comes out, even though it totally otherwise would have happened.

@Croz89 6 лет назад

Sorry, Bananaman is already taken. D.C. Thomson (of Dennis the Menace fame) has had that one since 1980.

@sheck4714 6 лет назад

sorry, im pretty sure you have to eat the bananas to get the radiation maybe though... if you had like a few million bananas...

@ihateboys44 6 лет назад

You guys forgot the newton meter. It's measured by the distance of 1 pack of fig newtons lined up vertically.

@simeonbaumel7293 4 года назад

Actually, a fig newton is the force required to accelerate a fig 1 meter/second squared

@georgeb.wolffsohn30 Год назад

So all newton meters are zero ? I can't get past that because I eat the measuring newton .

@morenofranco9235 Год назад

When I was in the Army, and we were out on patrol in a "hot" zone, we would joke: "we'll be back in a jiffy". Jiffy manufactured all sorts of stuff. Like sandwich bags. And BODY BAGS!

@Liggliluff 3 года назад

Huge thanks to you guys for using metric units. The only way to make the whole world convert is to actually study l start using it.

@tomsadler2548 6 лет назад

Just ate 99,999,999 bananas and almost died of radiation poisoning.

@JoePatterson 6 лет назад

When I was young, my dad and I would reasonably frequently use cubits as a unit of measure. The nice thing about it is that, at least for us, it implied a (very low) level of precision. If he asked me to cut him a 3 foot board, I'd get out a tape measure, mark, and cut. If he asked for a two cubit board, I'd eyeball it and go, because I knew that a few inches either way would be fine. Now, without getting too deep into the merits of uniform systems of measurement, the one great opportunity that I feel is largely squandered in the US is that, as a country of measurement-unit polyglots, we *should* be using conversion between systems of measurement to teach important lessons about precision. If you ask a mathematician (or most US students) how long a 5 inch bolt is in cm, they'll say it's 12.7. An engineer will answer 10, and wonder where you pulled those extra two significant digits out of? But as a country uniquely positioned to teach these sort of lessons, we still fail to do so.

@emilysmith2965 Год назад

No ethical education under late-stage capitalism. Critical thinking skills aren’t needed by menial workers… I hate that we’re like this

@GeorgeWMays 4 года назад

Super cool. This is why the Internet was invented. Thanks a bunch (another unit of measure) for sharing your video project. Love it.

@kensmith5694 4 года назад

They did miss the "Mickey" which is the smallest reported motion of a mouse.

@laurendoe168 Год назад

A real world definition of a jiffy - the amount of time it takes to go the local store, buy a few items, and get back home.

@47997137x 6 лет назад

This is probably the best video Olivia's done so far. Epic win on all the puns!

@alexanderx33 6 лет назад

"Banana for scale", I love it. We should make barleycorns the standard unit of measure for phalli.

@woodfur00 6 лет назад

It does sound classier when you say 'phalli,' doesn't it?

@IceMetalPunk 6 лет назад

But where will I find a million barleycorns? :P

@theursulus 5 лет назад

That was brilliant! Thankingyou!

@killersugar6816 Год назад

This was amazing. An acre is related to how much oxen can plow, an inch is the length of three barley corns… wow.

@starblomma 6 лет назад

You can find hundreds and hundreds of physics papers including the unit barn... well mainly the inverse version of it ^^ inverse femtobarn is what we use at the LHC to measure the integrated luminosity. So more or less every particle physics paper with LHC data will have that unit in it :-)

@meganofsherwood3665 Год назад

That's fantastic

@simplyixia3683 6 лет назад

YAY! We started with the smoot! It’s my favourite measurement.

@larshansen7862 4 года назад

I didn’t hear anything about a “Stone” either

@zyaicob 4 года назад

As a rugby fan i was really hoping for stone

@mikechambers9129 4 года назад

One of the most interesting episodes yet!

@MakeMeThinkAgain 6 лет назад

This was one of my favorite episodes ever. I had never realized the weak force came into play when I ate a banana.

@jcspider7259 6 лет назад

Favorite episode for me, too!

@Felipemelazzi 6 лет назад

Wow! Micromorts seem pretty awesome!

@Cherryfish386 5 лет назад

Knots (a unit of speed often used for sailboats)

@ianlewis3023 Год назад

I like the unit the 'microcentury', a millionth of a century which works out as 52 minutes and 36 seconds and is defined as the maximum permissible time for a lecture.

@doomsdayman107 6 лет назад

Fun fact: One Smoot (1.70 m) also happens to be the same height as John Turner, who plays Smoot of the Canadian clown duo Mump and Smoot. Things I learned at clown school...

@mohamedisntgod838 6 лет назад

I like how no one need this information but we’re still interested in it :)

@retard_activated 2 года назад

Interestingly, this was one of my favorite episodes!!!

@headshot992 6 лет назад

Olivia is definitely one of my favorite hosts across SciShow

@BradHann 6 лет назад

My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it! - Granpa Simpson

@steve25782 6 лет назад

The standard unit of beauty is the miliHelen --the amount of beauty needed to launch one ship.

@forrestib 6 лет назад

That seems very high for a standard. Only a pretty small percentage of people would ever achieve even 1 milliHelen of beauty.

@jameswilliamson4856 5 лет назад

More more more!! Stone, dram, fathom, knot... The world is full of these weird measurements!

@ShadowFoxSF Год назад

8:20 Friend says "I'll be back in a jif" They don't answer my time span question, but instead return dressed in a peanut butter jar costume.

@MyUsernameIsAlsoBort 6 лет назад

"I'll be back in a jiffy!" And speaking of other relevant Grampa Simpson quotes, "the metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!"

@ShadowsOfTheSky 3 года назад

I don’t watch much simpsons, but I do know both of these quirky measurements. Yikes grandpa, I think you need a new car. (If you don’t know, 40 rods/hogshead is equal to 1/8th mile per 63 gallons)

@allyourpie4323 3 года назад

@@ShadowsOfTheSky But that gpm is so high!

@YourBrownEye 6 лет назад

So what you're saying is that if I surround myself with 100 million bananas I'll die from radiation poisoning? Assuming I'm not crushed to death, bitten by a banana Spider, or die from toxic gasses released from the bananas decaying. There should be a video about this since, kids are eating tide pods. The banana radiation challenge.

@foxboy64 6 лет назад

why would being around that many bananas get you bitten by a banana spider? banana spiders get the name from their color, they have nothing to do with bananas...

@dhaucoin 4 года назад

The MIT Bridge was marked off in Smoots, at every 5 Smoots, I believe, back in the day. So when accidents occured, the police were told the location was at X Smoots. I forget the year, after 1990, anyway, but when the bridge was resurfaced, the contrators laid the concrete slab marks in Smoots, rather than the standard six feet.

@iamTheSnark Год назад

I love unusual measurements of speeds, such as furlongs per fortnight, or ångström per week.

@passioncrash8809 6 лет назад

I walk across that smoots bridge a few times a month. Finally know why it has those lables on it

@OceanBagel 6 лет назад

10:43 That's the most delicious looking atom I've ever seen.

@tomnelson710 4 года назад

Loved this one, really made me laugh

@daveogarf Год назад

You are adorable, and your enthusiasm is contagious. Thanks!

@acorgiwithacrown467 6 лет назад

Lol, that Mit student could have just said "this bridge is one bridge unit in length".

@mekafinchi 6 лет назад

The entire imperial system

@sarlotevolosevic4559 6 лет назад

I was about to comment this xD

@scoalex5935 6 лет назад

+Alex P the likes is for approval of the imperial system

@hibye-ht1fr 6 лет назад

Gas the Commies lol no

@mekafinchi 6 лет назад

Gas the Commies a) the comment is that the imperial system is the title of the video b) wtf is your username

@TardisPilot2004 6 лет назад

Alex P agreed, even though I use it daily.

@be7th Год назад

I like the "wham" units to describe the fragility of things, with the decimal showing uncertainty. Crystal flute glass? 1 wham. iPhone? 8.8 whams. Small toe? 12.3 whams. My ego? 1.1 wham. Nokia phone? Infinity whams. The Rupert drop glass? Undefined wham. The fun truly begins when you compare two items.