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Blocks & Files (04/12/2020)
The terrible Tib, GiB and PiB game
... The SI mega prefix is (106), the giga prefix is (109) and so on with TB, PB, EB and beyond. However, in 1998, the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) came up with the KiB (210), MiB etc. nomenclature to differentiate the two numbering systems.
μkg
because fuck you, that's why
Units are used to measure the quantity of anything to understand in such a way everyone can imagine it. There are two major unit systems. Metric system ...
Taking measurements
(carpentry, machining etc)
The entire rest of the world: fourteen point six eight four millimeters
The USA: thirty-seven sixty-fourths of an inch
(food energy)
The USA: five hundred Calories
The EU: five hundred thousand calories (???)
can i invent a new prefix for metric measurments? if so it will be weedo and it means it is 10^420 (one followed by 420 zeros)
Picture worth 1000 words?
You’ve got 30 seconds... write down everything that you observe or think as you look at this picture. Go.
This was the challenge I gave my students back in September. It was the day that we started the Metric System in our Nature of Science unit and I decided to try something new. Students at first just looked at it almost stunned. I think their reaction was so due to the fact that they actually had to use their imagination and it was like a motor having difficulty turning over. Once 10 seconds or so went by they began writing.
I received some interesting results. Most observed that whatever it was it was being cleaned or built and must be an important machine. The students all thought that the object was some type of scientific equipment and described the people as scientists or engineers.
After the 30 seconds were over I simply went around the room and had the students tell me one thing they thought about the image. Then I allowed students to briefly discuss within their groups what they know thought about the image and to try and come to a consensus of what was going on in the photo.
I asked for a member of each group to provide me with their consensus on what was happening and then once each of the 4 groups answered I supplied them with some of the facts. This is a picture of the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1998 prior to its launch by NASA. It was difficult to not give the students more information, but I was determined to make them do the heavy lifting. Once I gave them the information about the name of the craft, the year, and NASA I cut them loose and asked that they tell me why I used the image to introduce the concept of the metric system.
It wasn’t too much into their search that they began to find answers. The Mars Climate Orbiter failed due to the 2 labs monitoring the craft referencing separate measurement units. The lab within Lockheed Martin used U.S. Customary Units for a device on the craft that corresponded to a device made by NASA that was anticipating International Metric Units. This had huge consequences for the craft that could not be overcome and before anyone knew what had happened the craft missed its entry into the Mars Atmosphere and was destroyed.
This simple error of miscommunication cost NASA an orbiter and $327.6 million without anything to show for it and probably remains one of the reasons that funding for NASA has decreased so dramatically over the decades.
These findings lead into great discussion about NASA, space travel, and of course the importance of measurement. I really try to drive home that in science we use the International System of Measurement (SI Units) and this has been standard practice for many years. I also explain that most of the rest of the world uses SI units as their standard.
This activity is a great way to introduce a new topic and is a way to introduce a visual and get students to really open up their imagination with what is going on in the image.
Yay. Math. Who wants to distract me?
today in physics class I learned that the United States actually signed a treaty back in the 1800s that said we would promise to switch over to the SI system of measurement but low and behold 200 years later and we still won't do it.
