What is exactly an AU ?

[Simonpro]

Shoulda seen that one coming, shouldn't I?
Tbh i wouldn't mind if they changed them though - it'd be a pain for a little while whilst you get used to the new ones
but after that it'd be easier.

[DocHoliday]

Hehe, about the meter. I remember back in primary also high school they told us (quite seriously) that the meter is
defined as 1/40076000 of Earth's circumference at the equator. That's even more ridiculous than defining it by light.

It's like saying *Doc spreads his arms appart* "this here I will call the meter, now I will measure the the
circumference of that tree over there with my brand new meter and whatever I get, I divide by the same number and
thus shall meter be defined"... bah..

Well personally, I don't give a flying duck how things are defined. What concerns me are the conversions, which
confuse me greatly with the imperial/traditional vs. metric, where things couldn't be more straight forward.. Of course
there are quite a few of the "standard measures" that would benefit from certain redefinitions. And if they made
conversions and life generally simpler I'd gladly accept them. Mostly what is ridiculoulsy ancient and axiomatically
accepted are time measurements and calendars.. Western that is..

Since we're on the topic of measures. Have you guys seen Supersize Me yet? Remember how NOONE knew what a
calorie was? And tbh what they were talking about weren't even calories they were kilocalories (as those are
generaly used to describe the energy content of food)....

Ah, ignorance knows no limits..

[freespace2dotcom]

well, if I do recall, it's accepted to call a kilocalorie, a Calorie, so long as you use an uppercase 'C' at the beginning.

[DocHoliday]

Lol, didn't know that. BS tho.. How do you start a sentence if you want to talk about calories, not Kcalories

"Hi. Today I will talk about calories and Calories. calorie is 1/1000th of a Calorie. Now I will shoot myself, because I
am talking and writing nonsense."

[freespace2dotcom]

Honestly I don't see such a big deal about it. sure it's odd, but it's likely started in a similar manner to the decibel,
which is actually a tenth of a bel, or a unit of sound, but the bel was too big to be used for most purposes, so they
made it smaller.

similarly, the small calorie is very small when comparing it to a kilocalorie, so it's only natural for people to use the
latter for measuring food intake.

I'm not sure if there are any applications that use specifically the small calorie, but if there aren't, then it's probably
why people just chose to use the unit name itself rather than add kilo to it.

This is in opposition to damn small units like the gram, which are probably used  far more often so contrast is needed.

in any case, we could settle the issue once and for all by just using BTU's



Post Edited ( 05-18-05 13:52 )

[insane_alien]

Ahh yes the calorie thing. My girlfriend dragged me to a weightwatchers meeting (not that i think that i need it) and
got shocked looks off everyone by picking up one of the "low calorie" meals and saying "Wow! Only 500000 calories!"
It was quite funny!

[StarLost]

Much "renaming" is done for purely marketing reasons and has no basis in science.  Ever ask anyone what the difference
between a vitamin and a "provitamin" is?

It is a similar case for food calories. Try to find definitive definitions for calorie, kilocalorie and carbocalorie as
applied to the food industry.

It's getting to be that you have to be a semanticist to make your way through the bafflegab and obfuscation.