[SpamCop-List] Re: spam is NOT 10 days old to me - got it this a.m.

[Jeff G.]

"Steven Maesslein" <nobody at nowhere.invalid> wrote in message
news:slrndqie32.43h.nobody at 127.0.0.1...
> On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 08:45:01 -0800, Mike Easter coughed into spamcop
and
> left this in <do9cec$ja4$1 at news.spamcop.net>:
>
> > The US isn't even properly metricated, for chrissakes.
>
> Not only that but a US gallon is not the same thing as a gallon
> elsewhere.
>
> As a child I was always taught that "a pint of pure water weighs a
pound
> and a quarter", ie: 20oz, and that a gallon was 8 pints.

Here in the US (from growing up here), for liquid measure we commonly
have the Gallon, or gal. (properly US Gallon).  It is comprised of
exactly 4 Quarts or qt. (properly US qt.), 8 Pints or pt. (properly US
pt.), 32 Gills or gi. (properly US gi., not so common) and 128 Ounces or
oz. (properly Fluid Ounces or fl. oz. or fl oz, by volume).  Converting
to metric, one fl. oz. is 29.57353 cc (cubic centimeters), so exactly
128 fl. oz. (exactly 1 US gal.) is 3785.412 cc, or 3.785412 l (liters).

As far as weight/mass, exactly 1 cc or ml of pure water is exactly 1 g
(gram) at STP, so 3785.412 of those (exactly 1 US gal.) should weigh
3785.412 g or 3.785412 kg.  At 28.34952 g per oz. av. (Ounces
Aviordupois or oz. avdp., by weight), that should be 133.5265 oz. av.,
or at exactly 16 oz. av. per lb (pound), that should be 8.345405 lbs.

Using the m-w table below and its exact British imperial terminology, 20
fl. oz. is exactly 4 gi. and exactly 1 pt., so from Steven's
perspective, his instructors would have been more correct to say "a pint
of pure water is a pound and 4.045 ounces", because a British imperial
pint is really 568.26 ml or cc weighing 568.26 g or 20.045 oz. av. or 1
pound 4.045 oz. av at STP.  However, they were only low by 0.22%, or
they may have been working at non-standard lower temperature (than
exactly 72 Farenheit or 22 2/9 Celcius/Centigrade) or pressure (than
exactly 1 atm or 14.69595 psi or 1.0332 kg per square cm), as their
calculations would put the Specific Gravity of pure water in their lab
at only 0.9978.

I have come to the conclusion that the Specific Gravity at which 1 oz.
av. = 1 fl. oz. is 0.95861, and that sour cream appears to have very
close to that Specific Gravity.

> Converting that over to metric, one gallon is approx. 4.5 litres.
> However, a US gallon is nearer 3.5 litres. So what went wrong?

A British imperial gallon is 4.546 liters, whereas a US gallon is
3.785412 liters.  From your perspective, what went wrong is that you
were confusing British imperial measure with US measure.  From the
British perspective, what went wrong is that the American Colonies got
too big for their britches (or too uppity).  From the American
perspective, what went wrong is that the British were too heavy-handed
with the Americans, applying taxation without allocating representation
in Parliament.  In any case, it appears that no British imperial units
of mass or volume/capacity have exact equivalents to US units of mass or
volume/capacity, except the cubic inch and its multiples, which are
derived from their shared inch, which is now legally exactly 2.54 cm.

References: http://www.m-w.com/mw/table/weight.htm and
http://www.metrication.com/conversions/tables.htm (but many of the terms
there are Imperial, not US) and
http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/chemistry/general/units_en.html .

-- 
Best Regards,  Jeff G.
http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?act=findpost&pid=37585