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Old_Gringo t1_j0h0wtf wrote

For people who don't calculate weight in freedom units: about 907 metric tons.

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Thatingles t1_j0hkdhe wrote

How many punnets is that? Could we express it in slugs? Pounds is fine for food but cutting edge science should be metric imho.

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midnight_mechanic t1_j0i50tw wrote

Replying to Thatingles (#946,501)

Jesus, when my engineering professors were trying to teach us "slugs" as units, I was like WTF is this ancient horse shit? Let's just use the approximate foot size of king Henry as a unit of length.

Fucking slugs. Good lord.

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Trax852 t1_j0i5v5p wrote

Not pounds of rocks, but 2 Million pounds of space junk, all with new trajectories.

−9

Juliuseizure t1_j0i7bbq wrote

Replying to FelDreamer (#947,421)

Because we all know a u/spankywinklebottom in real life and laughing is the only coping mechanism we have left since Winklebottom graduated from college (Sports Management) and is now a manager at his father's dealership making three times our yearly salary. He sells Chevy, but drives Telsa.

I have no idea where I'm going with this imaginary character...

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doomer_irl t1_j0ibwkw wrote

Replying to Thatingles (#946,501)

People always give Americans shit for being entitled and self-centered but here you are throwing a fit because they didn’t use your country’s favorite unit of measurement.

1

MostBoringStan t1_j0igko4 wrote

Replying to midnight_mechanic (#947,664)

This made me remember a job I had for a short time a few years back. I was in the shipping department of a machine shop. The one guy wanted to train me how to cut some pieces of metal on one piece of equipment.

Before we got started, he pulled out a tape measure and started asking me where on the tape measure 1 3/4" was, or 2 3/8" was. I was really confused because I'm a grown ass man and have known how to use a tape measure since I was a child.

Then he laughed and said he just wanted to make sure because a not insignificant amount of people he has worked with had no idea wtf they were doing when it came to tape measures and fractions.

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Roscoe_P_Coaltrain t1_j0igp1y wrote

Replying to midnight_mechanic (#947,642)

Have a pity for those of us in Canada who had to learn in the easy way (metric) and also the American way. Eventually I just converted everything to metric at the start, did the calculations, then converted back at the end. So much easier.

But I always liked the unit slug. Though from the name, sounds like it should be a unit of force, not mass, lol.

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ThrowawaysROKYea t1_j0ilhzh wrote

I wonder what the effect of a plantary defence weapon of a 100m tungsten arrow shot out a super massive rail gun sending out of the atmosphere at Mach 50

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proper_ikea_boy t1_j0iqrkr wrote

Replying to doomer_irl (#948,048)

space.com is read by an international audience and US as well as NASA is on metric internally anyways. The people involved in the imperial standardization process say it's stupid as well, it's just being held up cuz educating all the US hillbillies on how to use metric would be too expensive for the government.

−3

Uden10 t1_j0it8kh wrote

Replying to midnight_mechanic (#948,379)

This... this is concerning. Not that I can talk much since I had to learn imperial units for volume and weight in college. I never memorized them in primary school despite being American.

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MegaManSE t1_j0j2zd5 wrote

kg and lbs are two different things. 1 million kg of mass weighs 2.2 million lbs on earth but would not weigh that on dimorphus.

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doomer_irl t1_j0j35o1 wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#949,440)

Cool story, maybe you should read an article written by someone from the rest of the world, then. The hostility over this dude using the weight measurement he’s familiar with is ridiculous.

0

doomer_irl t1_j0j4b72 wrote

Replying to proper_ikea_boy (#949,048)

I’m not against metric, I’m against the hostility. “Millions of pounds” is hardly cold science. A pound and a kilo are separated by a factor of about 2. “Millions of pounds” is very probably the same sort of statement here as “millions of kilos”. And even if it weren’t, it’s perfectly valid for someone to use a unit of measurement that they’re familiar with when writing. He probably didn’t even think about it.

The original comment is the equivalent of an American going to a foreign country and demanding people speak English.

−1

smithsp86 t1_j0jfj0m wrote

Replying to proper_ikea_boy (#949,048)

It's not our fault that the rest of the world didn't develop interchangeable parts until after their adoption of metric. The U.S. will not switch because there's close to 200 years of industrial development riding on our customary units.

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gender_nihilism t1_j0jj9ue wrote

Replying to midnight_mechanic (#947,664)

I still don't understand what's so hard about fractions. I'm absolutely terrible at math, but even I can multiply, divide, add, and subtract fractions far faster than I can decimals. I even find myself converting decimal units into fractions to do the math in my head, then write out the result and convert it back to decimal. I guess there are benefits to your math tutor being a retired carpenter.

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midnight_mechanic t1_j0jl2p3 wrote

Replying to gender_nihilism (#950,631)

It's not hard. While some of the folks I taught this basic math to were just plain dumb, most turned out to be capable, hard workers.

I think it's more a reflection of growing up in extreme poverty, in a broken home, young gang activity or childhood immigrants that had to learn English and everything else in school.

One dude I taught fractions to was this beast of a man who just got released from several years for selling crack. This dude could pick up and carry 2 full size oxygen bottles across the yard like nothing.

He learned quickly and was super willing to work his way up. He grew up selling drugs, skipping school was in a gang as a kid and only had his mom who could barely put food on the table when he was a kid. He told me he was bullied in school for showing up in old clothes and ragged shoes and wasn't till he started selling drugs as a kid that he first could afford a nice pair of sneakers.

He eventually got picked up for selling coke one weekend, but he was a hell of a shop hand while we had him.

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darkmauveshore t1_j0jr46p wrote

And which direction is that 2 million pounds of rock going? Away from Earth, I’m assuming.

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Candelent t1_j0k2e4x wrote

Replying to proper_ikea_boy (#949,048)

Why are Europeans so whiny about U.S. customary units? Seriously, whining about what a U.S. writer writes for a U.S. website shared on a U.S. social media platform regarding a U.S. funded space agency has got to take the cake for utter arrogance.

And why do they completely ignore the fact that Canadians and Brits use both customary units and metric? Does that make them hillbillies, too?

Europeans on Reddit can be so insufferable.

1

ThrowawaysROKYea t1_j0k799n wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#951,093)

I was mostly curious if it would detonate like a bomb or if it'd just pass thought like Armour Piercing, it's funny to think of literally a dart just leaving a 1m diameter hole behind a massive asteroid and it doing nothing else. Thanks for the interesting comment :)

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corneliusduff t1_j0kxn52 wrote

Imagine this somehow hitting some alien aircraft or planet and sparking intergalactic war

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whatsCamelCase t1_j0ky2c6 wrote

Replying to Thatingles (#946,501)

I know I’m late, but I wonder if they did it (in a science mag) so they can use the “million” word. “2 million pounds” may sound more impressive than “almost 1 million kilos” if your goal is to get engagement.

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Am-I-Erin t1_j0l9ky6 wrote

Pounds is a unit of force. What does “pounds of rock” even mean outside of a stable gravitational field?

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Roscoe_P_Coaltrain t1_j0l9p96 wrote

Replying to magnoliasmanor (#952,177)

It's a unit of mass. Pound is technically a unit of force, though for everyday use we treat it as if it was a unit of mass. Sometimes we used lbf and lbm to distinguish the two, but IIRC slug is the fundamental unit of mass in the Imperial system. Honestly, haven't had to deal with it in 30 years so it's all a bit fuzzy.

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ThrowawaysROKYea t1_j0laokn wrote

Replying to Senacharim (#953,060)

Well I said tungsten because it's the 'strongest' metal we have but if going for hollowpoints probably the best idea would be APFSDS segmented with Aluminium spacers so it can shatter inside the asteroid dispersing more energy.

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LateDaikon6254 t1_j0lbi43 wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#951,093)

All it has to do is slightly change the trajectory of the object. Even changing it by 1% would be enough for it to completely miss earth as 1% of a trajectory change that far from earth is good enough.

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TheOnesWhoWander t1_j0m2o7x wrote

Replying to darkmauveshore (#952,118)

The Chelyabinsk impact was over ten times the ejected mass, 906 tonnes vs 12,000 tonnes. Even if all 906 tonnes hit at once in a single impact it would be nothing more than a bright fireball and maybe a boom loud enough to set off some car alarms

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PumpkimJam4812 t1_j0meu2r wrote

Replying to corneliusduff (#952,854)

These "what if" scenarios are really funny to me for some reason

We launch this thing into space, and observe it through telescope. At some point, still very close to earth, while following it we see a huge alien spaceship. Humanity is shocked. Than the arrow hits it and it explodes.

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darkmauveshore t1_j0omxe4 wrote

Replying to zeeblecroid (#956,609)

First off...really? Lol. I was being sarcastic and joking around. At the same time, I was implying that I knew something about chaos theory which yes, would include such a possibility. Second...a piece of information being from a documentary doesn't mean it's factual.

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