The imperial system of units is way way more insane than I ever knew https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units
@codinghorror expanding a mile from furlongs to barleycorns is wild
@rozanski @codinghorror You may also like the barn.megaparsec measuring spoon. A barn is an area roughly covering a Uranium nucleus. A megaparsec is three and a bit million light years. Multiply them and you get a volume, about a third of a teaspoon. My spoon is within ~1%
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@_thegeoff @rozanski @codinghorror I’ve learnt something new, reading more…. I love when Wikipedia has these kinds of quotes:
“…The most common SI prefixed unit for the barn is the femtobarn, which is equal to a tenth of a square zeptometer.”
@ijk64 @rozanski @codinghorror And the name "barn" is derived from particle accelerator sarcasm, "you couldn't hit a barn".