12 Quirky Measurements You’ve Never Heard Of

12 QUIRKY MEASUREMENTS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF Humans love to measure stuff. Over the years, we have come up with all sorts of strange and humorous ways to do It. Have you ever wondered how long a smoot Is? Or how many smoots Is the Emplre State? Here we look at the meanings behlnd some of the world's welrdest measurements. HAND 1 Throughout human history, our body parts have often been used to measure things. But why a "hand" to measure horses? 5000 years ago, stacking one man's fist upon another was the simplest system.' > EQUIVALENT TO FOUR INCHES BARN Researchers coined the Barn unit to measure the cross-section of a uranium nucleus, which is huge compared to the other elements whizzing around the particle accelerator.? EQUIVALENT TO 10^-24CM? O O O O HORSE The length of a horse is commonly used to measure the distance between them In a race. Races are usually closer than that though, and distances less than a length such as Short Neck, Neck and Half a length are also used. EQUIVALENT TO APPROXIMATE EIGHT FEET 4 MICKEY A Mickey is the smallest detectable movement of a mouse cursor on a screen. It was coined by computer sclentists who use It when programming mice and other input devices." EQUIVALENT TO APPROXIMATELY 0.1 MM JIFFY 5. The next time someone says: "I'll be back In a jiffy", you can Inform them that they might be exaggerating slightly. In electronics, a Jiffy is the time between cycles of alternating current, for example the humming of an electrical device.5 EQUIVALENT TO APPROXIMATELY 1/60TH OF A SECOND COW'S GRASS For 19th century farmers in Ireland, the literal size of a field was much less Important than how many cows It could sustaln, so they used "a cow's grass" to measure them. EQUIVALENT TO THE AMOUNT OF LAND THAT COULD PRODUCE ENOUGH GRASS TO SUPPORT A COW DOUBLE- DECKER BUS Busses are often used as an ad-hoc measuring system when a more grandlose and visual statistic is required. In the past, they have been used to describe holes created by sewer collapses and the size of whales." > EQUIVALENT TO 10.6 METRES/12.65 TONNES 8 PONY Named so in the 19th century because of thelr miniature size, a pony Is a half or "short" shot. EQUIVALENT TO 25ML SLUG The slug formed part of a specialised gravitational system of mechanical units developed in the late 19th and the 20th centuries. • EQUIVALENT TO 14.5939 KG 10 SHAKE In nuclear physics, a shake is an informal unit of time, which measures the timing of various events in a nuclear explosion. It is derived from top-secret projects during World War II.10 EQUIVALENT TO 10 NANOSECONDS SMOOT ULU 11 In 1958. Olver R. Smoot lay down repeatedly on the Harvard Bridge so that his MIT fraternity brothers could measure the length of the bridge with his height. In 2011, smoot was one of the 10,000 new words added to the American Heritage Dictionary." > EQUIVALENT TO 5 FEET 7 INCHES 12 BANANAS Bananas are a natural source of radioactive Isotopes. There's not much In one banana but enough that a few bananas will often trigger radlation sensors used at U.S. ports to detect smuggled nuclear material.2 > EQUIVALENT TO 0.1 MICROSIEVERTS SO, HOW MANY MICKEY'S DID YOU WALK TODAY? Next time you're measuring somethlng, why not try dolng It with some of these qulrky units. Just make sure to have a calculator at hand. SOURCES "Wright, Dr. Bob. (2001). The "Hand" Measurement for Horses. biologycorner.com 2 Britannica. (2017). Barn. britannica.com Daily Racing Form. (2017). Help: Glossary of Horse Racing Terms. drf.com * Rowlett, Russ. (2017). How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement. unc.edu SLearn Something New Every Day. (2017). FACT: a "jiffy" is an actual measurement of time. Isned.com Kelly, John. (2012). The Graves are Walking: The Great Famine and Saga of the Irish People. Henry Holt & Co. p. 15. 7Bellotti, Alex. (2017). The Other Common Use Of The Double Decker Bus. Ilondonist.com *Barnett, Laura. (2011). A schooner of lager? Or how about a jigger of whisky? theguardian.com *Hyper Physics. (2017). What is a Slug? hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu 1° Rowlett, Russ. (2017). How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement. unc.edu "Curran, Susan. (2005). Smoot makes his mark in standards and measurements. web.mit.edu 12 Blastland, Michael. (2011). Go Figure: What bananas tell us about radiation. www.bbc.co.uk Onward This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License - www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 FIND YOUR STRIDE