Finally a replacement for SI units

[mgb_phys]

Finally after man(and woman)fully resisting the urge to go fully metric for 30years the UK's boffins have produced an alternative system of units, even more brilliant then the venerable Firkin/Fortnight/Furlong system.

The velocity of a sheep in a vacuum is 26.22 kilobrontosauruses per nanofortnigh

http://www.theregister.com/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/
I don't want to steal their copyright and post the text here.

 

[Loren Booda]

From my website: "Upon measuring directly a displacement of Planck length L*, the measurer would receive a momentum reaction equal to h/L*, or 4,000,000 gm-cm/sec, beyond the kick of a mule." Translate that into sheep terms.

 

[Gokul43201]

The velocity of a sheep in a vacuum is 26.22 kilobrontosauruses per nanofortnigh

http://www.theregister.com/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/
I don't want to steal their copyright and post the text here.

That was funny! Until I got to this:

And, indeed, just how big is Wales in cubic furlongs?

...that killed all the funny in me...for a few seconds.

 

[Chi Meson]

Only from the folks who brought us "How many farthings in a florin?"

 

[Moonbear]

I'm just dying here! The whole section on velocity of sheep is hilarious! Especially the differences in velocity measured in sheepsecs depending on how many Welshmen were "worrying" the sheep.

 

[Evo]

That was great!

 

[G01]

Hahaha!

 

[edward]

How about using a digital stop watch with a dead battery? It works for me.

 

[Danger]

Too funny!
Thanks, Mgb.

 

[Evo]

This is worthy of another look.

Some favorites -

Length
The standard unit of length shall be the EU standard (Florentine) linguine (unboiled at sea level), defined as 1lg, representing 14cm, 0.02784 perches, 0.462 Japanese shyaku or 0.0007568 Ancient Greek stadium ptolemys

For greater than 1lg, the following should be used:

Double-decker bus = 65.85lg
Brontosaurus = 15 double-decker buses laid bumper-to-bumper
Length across known universe at shortest point = 136 trillion brontosauruses laid nose-to-tail

Velocity of sheep in a vacuum

The theoretical maximum velocity of a sheep in a vacuum is expressed in sheepsecs (Ssx), calculated as follows:

Speed of light (c) divided by wooldrag (Wd) + Welshmen (Wm), where wooldrag is a species-defined drag coefficient determined by the length and pliability of the fleece and Welshmen is the number of locals who have turned up in their wellies, and are hanging on for dear life.

Wooldrags have recently been calculated by researchers at CERN, and the latest experiments shed some light on the phenomenon, but it is still mysterious. The effect is similar to friction here on Earth, but is due to the interaction of the wool and fluctuations in the quantum vacuum. Researchers have applied to the EU for further funding, but it has been put on hold as a result of the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

For example, an unshorn Welsh Mountain Badger Face, with a wooldrag of 67, chased by three Welshmen will ultimately attain a Ssx of c/(67+3), or 4,282.74 km/sec.

Alternatively, a newly-clipped Finnish Landrace, with a wooldrag of 23, worried by just one Welshman has a theoretical Ssx of c/(23+1), or 12,491 km/sec.

Clearly, the difference in these two results means that a compromise standard is required. The El Reg Ssx uses the classic Cheviot as its sheep of choice, with a wooldrag of 50. Wm is in this case 0, since everyone knows that Welshmen do not in fact have intimate relations with sheep and any reference to the same is just a cheap attempt to drum up laughs.

The Vulture Central standard velocity for a sheep in a vacuum is, therefore, c/(50+0), or 5,995 km/sec.

 

[matthyaouw]

Haha, brilliant!

For anyone having trouble with these new measurements, go to http://sensibleunits.com/
It will translate most common units of mass, area, volume, length and data into sensible units, like elephants, Island of Gurnseys, phone boxes, Mont Blancs, and amounts of data transferred over the internet in the average second in 2006.
It's a life saver

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That was funny! Until I got to this: ...that killed all the funny in me...for a few seconds.

They specify the depth of Wales.