Why doesn't the USA adopt officially the metric unit?

[Rick Murchison]

What a quaint view of your electoral process!

Oh, yeah, that's me all over... quaint
Rick

 

[D_B]

:lol:

 

[Rick Murchison]

Just for giggles, what if the compass you dive with was calibrated in radians or grads, the two "other" ways of measuring an arc? Now wouldn't that be fun?

Would it actually MATTER?
As long as you know how many units a full circle is, it could be 1000, 500, 360 or 4 with the only actual difference in use being precision..
now 4 would be rather coarse of course..

So, what is the reciprocal heading of 1 radian (in radians, of course)?
Please be precise
Heh, heh, heh....
(hint - it's about 4,141.59 mils; 237.3°)
Rick

 

[Charlie99]

So, what is the reciprocal heading of 1 radian (in radians, of course)?
Please be precise

I'd just use the same non-numerical method I use for recipriocals today --- the reciprocal of 2 ticks to the left of N is 2 ticks to the left of S. 1 radian to the left of E will have a reciprocal of 1 radian to the left of W. The reciprocal is pi + 1. Of course, any compass marked in radians would have the markings starting at East and going counterclockwise.

Most of my tape measures are imperial + metric. On a lot of measurements, the tape measure is just used to transfer a length, and it doesn't matter which units I use. Most of the time, I just use cm if it comes out close to even, or inches if it falls on a convenient sub-unit.

 

[Rick Murchison]

I'd just use the same non-numerical method I use for recipriocals today --- the reciprocal of 2 ticks to the left of N is 2 ticks to the left of S. 1 radian to the left of E will have a reciprocal of 1 radian to the left of W. The reciprocal is pi + 1. Of course, any compass marked in radians would have the markings starting at East and going counterclockwise.

Ahhhh... you've fallen into the right angle trap! As the only direction a compass needle can reliably point is Magnetic North (or, if you choose, South), when dealing with radians the cardinal headings must fall to the whole radian. And you certainly wouldn't have a whole radian mark originating at "West." Since we already measure headings in a clockwise direction from North, there's no reason to change that. East? No need for that... after all, sunrise and sunset are only there two days a year, eh?
---
Have you seen Apocalypto? For a shiny new dime, what's the great astronomical error in that movie?

It fairly leapt from the screen!
Rick

 

[Teamcasa]

Solar Eclipse, time line.

 

[wardric]

beside, they knew about eclipse so why were they al scared of it?

 

[Rick Murchison]

Solar Eclipse, time line.

The eclipse is ok, all by itself... but...
Rick

 

[Charlie99]

Ahhhh... you've fallen into the right angle trap! As the only direction a compass needle can reliably point is Magnetic North (or, if you choose, South), when dealing with radians the cardinal headings must fall to the whole radian. And you certainly wouldn't have a whole radian mark originating at "West."

Just checked my radian compass. Nice markings of pi at West. pi/2 at North, pi/4 is NE, pi/8 is ENE, pi/16 is E by N.

Wow. We just reinvented the old mariners compass with 32 points of 11-1/2 degrees or pi/16 radians each.

 

[wardric]

The eclipse is ok, all by itself... but...
Rick

but it shouldn't happen during a full moon and it was a full moon according to a preceding scene. It should have been 2 weeks earlier during the new moon, right?