Arithmetic that makes you cringe

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Hehe!

Another lovely problem:

A man is in a rowing boat in the middle of a pond.  He takes a large rock from the bottom of the boat and drops it into the water, whereupon it sinks.  What happens to the level of the water in the pond?

The large rock penetrates the pond lining and completely empties it of water, leaving the man and boat on a muddy slimy bottom.

In the last day or so our pond's water level started to drop consistently. We'd fill it up; hours later the level dropped.

We supposed there was a sudden leak - I'd been doing heavy gardening one side of it but I couldn't imagine how that would have damaged the lining.

Then I remembered we'd once had a fountain and the pipe was still there.  Yup, the gardening had displaced the loose pipe and it had started to syphon out the water.  I could put away the bicycle tyre repair kit.  No arithmetic I'm afraid. 

[cygnet]

Failing to understand the difference between m² and meters square
https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/what-do-civil-engineers-do/post-office-tower

The project team sank a concrete raft about 8m into the ground to deal with this. The 27m² raft was 1m thick and reinforced with 6 layers of cables.

[tonyh]

Yes.

And, is m² better read as "square metres", "square metre", "metres squared", or "metre squared"?

[ElyDave]

As a professional sceptic, I always ask about units. I had a professional conversation with a bunch of Norwegians a few weeks ago in which they were so steeped in metric that they had no idea anything other than a 1000kg ton exists.

Oh how we laughed!

[T42]

Failing to understand the difference between m² and meters square
https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/what-do-civil-engineers-do/post-office-tower

The project team sank a concrete raft about 8m into the ground to deal with this. The 27m² raft was 1m thick and reinforced with 6 layers of cables.

A square with a side of 10 metres covers 100 square metres, or 100 m².  An square that 100 metres on a side is 100 metres square and covers 10,000 m².

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

As a professional sceptic, I always ask about units. I had a professional conversation with a bunch of Norwegians a few weeks ago in which they were so steeped in metric that they had no idea anything other than a 1000kg ton exists.

Oh how we laughed!

Does it?  We called 1000kg a tonne to avoid error.  But if you are talking about a ton do you mean a long ton a short ton?

[T42]

And how about three-square files?

[ElyDave]

As a professional sceptic, I always ask about units. I had a professional conversation with a bunch of Norwegians a few weeks ago in which they were so steeped in metric that they had no idea anything other than a 1000kg ton exists.

Oh how we laughed!

Does it?  We called 1000kg a tonne to avoid error.  But if you are talking about a ton do you mean a long ton a short ton?

that was kind of the point, and why I wrote it like that. The Norwegians were using ton when they meant tonne, but were unaware of the distinction,

I asked exactly the same question as you

[Cudzoziemiec]

English has the luxury of silent letters.

[ian]

Square metres, that's why you always find scowling paint-spattered scientists in the checkout queue at B&Q with four more tubs of paint.

[cygnet]

Failing to understand the difference between m² and meters square
https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/what-do-civil-engineers-do/post-office-tower

The project team sank a concrete raft about 8m into the ground to deal with this. The 27m² raft was 1m thick and reinforced with 6 layers of cables.

A square with a side of 10 metres covers 100 square metres, or 100 m².  An square that 100 metres on a side is 100 metres square and covers 10,000 m².

Yes. 27m² == 5 and a bit metres x 5 and a bit. Which is f.all when you are building a 177m high tower to withstand a nuclear bomb dropped on parliament. BBC etc reportage is woefully inadequate at checking this sort of stuff but you might expect the Institution of Civil Engineers to understand the difference...

[T42]

Failing to understand the difference between m² and meters square
https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/what-do-civil-engineers-do/post-office-tower

The project team sank a concrete raft about 8m into the ground to deal with this. The 27m² raft was 1m thick and reinforced with 6 layers of cables.

A square with a side of 10 metres covers 100 square metres, or 100 m².  An square that 100 metres on a side is 100 metres square and covers 10,000 m².

Yes. 27m² == 5 and a bit metres x 5 and a bit. Which is f.all when you are building a 177m high tower to withstand a nuclear bomb dropped on parliament. BBC etc reportage is woefully inadequate at checking this sort of stuff but you might expect the Institution of Civil Engineers to understand the difference...

Yebbut maybe not the low-grade labourers who update their web site.

[Giraffe]

For rough estimates there's no point in 3-place conversions between tonne and ton - 2204 v 2240 doesn't really matter for small values in guesstimations.

Now, difference between proper pint and Usanian pint - tantrum!

[hellymedic]

There is a >10% error between long tons (2240 pounds) and short tons (2000 pounds) thobut.

[Mr Larrington]

USAnians tend to cut through the dilemma by not using tons at all.  As a general rule the USAnian equivalent of a "44-tonner" weighs 80,000 lbs fully loaded which, given the size of the things, makes me suspect that USAnian road haulage companies get rich by hauling a lot of fresh air around the place.

[Moleman76]

many USAnians

suspect that USAnian road haulage companies get rich by hauling

more than the listed weight in their trucks, thereby accelerating the wear and tear on the highways.
Yes, their are weigh stations / scales /  from time to time along the highways, but they are not always staffed, and some truck drivers also take detours around them when they are overweight.
There are often fueling stations on either side of the scales, and some truckers wait until they've been weighed to fill up, if they know that they are close to the limit.

There are also some technological solutions to the weight distribution problem - axles which can be lowered to spread the load out on more contact points.  I would classify these in the "that's fair" category.

[Mr Larrington]

Yes, it all gets frightfully confusing with the maths governing axle loading on bridges too, though why rigid dump trucks in Michigan seem to have anything up to eight axles while everyone else seems happy with three is still a mystery to this Unit.  Unless Michigan is in the habit of building bridges out of cheese.

["That's Wisconsin" – Ed.]

[nicknack]

Yes, their are weigh stations / scales /  from time to time along the highways, but they are not always staffed, and some truck drivers also take detours around them when they are overweight.

As detailed by Little Feat

Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
Driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed

[Giraffe]

Road Research Laboratory (and bearing manufactures for another use): the damage to the highway is proportional to the 4th. power of the loading. A10te axle loaded to 12te will do approx. twice the damage. Puts into perspective the VED on a 2te car and a 60te lorry - and a 0.1te cyclist (inc. bike!).
Very localised damage, e.g. stiletto heels are a different matter, so don't wear them for randonnées!

[pcolbeck]

Very localised damage, e.g. stiletto heels are a different matter, so don't wear them for randonnées!

The watch my Grandad bought me for my 18th was a victim of stiletto heels. A 5ft 4inch girl weighing about 7 stone dripping wet can produce a remarkable amount of force in the tiny area at the bottom of a stiletto heeled boot. It was an accident btw the strap clasp failed and and she trod on it as it fell off but still crunch and a very dead watch.

[SoreTween]

many USAnians

suspect that USAnian road haulage companies get rich by hauling

more than the listed weight in their trucks, thereby accelerating the wear and tear on the highways.

In early 2018 I was working in Avenza, Italy, above which are mountains.  Mountains with giant bites out of them for they are made marble.  Name a famous Roman statue, it was almost certainly was once a lump of mountain within 10km of Avenza.  There were marble yards everywhere, more common around the industrial estates than charity shops on a UK high street.  Lumps of mountain are precariously perched upon knackered old trucks ^^^up there^^^ and brought down to the sea level yards powered by prayer and very well maintained brakes (accounting for 99.9999% of the maintenance effort expended upon said trucks in the decades since their birth).  One I saw was amazing, it was so bent of frame the offside wheels were skipping & spinning as it accelerated away unloaded.  At the yards techniques that would make a QA man weep/explode/aneurysm all at the same time were employed to remove the lumps of mountain from the trucks. 

You would think after so many hundreds of years of practice they'd have learned to put the baulks of timber across the flatbed so that the unloading telehandler could get it's forks underneath.  No.  Longitudinal timbers are the accepted way and another MUPE/telehandler/rusty tractor/building/rope/whatever preventing the telehandler pushing the lump off the far side was the technique.  Far from every time that worked.  Or, pick it up from the rear and pray.  Fervently.  Many, many times the building I was in shook as another lump got dropped in the yard next door.  They had a pile of bent and broken telehandler forks the size of a transit van.

Anyway...  One Sunday a colleague and I took the tourist tour up to the quarries.  We were shown the small family operations dating back generations and the big commercial outfits responsible for 100's of feet of reduction in one or two peaks.  One point of note in the commentary was the maximum weight of the blocks moved which hasn't changed much since they used oxen, gravity, rope and a plentiful supply of replacement oxen.  28,000 kg? I forget.  Glancing around the yard I asked the guide what happened to the oversize blocks? Each block is clearly marked with it's weight and right in front of us was a 7'x7'x9' or so lump even an amateur could see was waiting for export due to being excellent quality and over weight.  Do they lop a foot off the end or wait until dark to bring it down?  With a smile "I think you understand Italians very well" was the reply.

Happy days.  Cycling in those mountains is something I shall never forget, it wasn't hard to identify and hence avoid the certain death roads.  Simply beautiful part of the world.

[Davef]

Coronavirus: Data shows cases in England falling https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53349888

“The Office for National Statistics's estimates one in 3,900 people have Covid-19 - 0.3% of the population.”

[mrcharly-YHT]

Failing to understand the difference between m² and meters square
https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/what-do-civil-engineers-do/post-office-tower

The project team sank a concrete raft about 8m into the ground to deal with this. The 27m² raft was 1m thick and reinforced with 6 layers of cables.

A square with a side of 10 metres covers 100 square metres, or 100 m².  An square that 100 metres on a side is 100 metres square and covers a hectare [/sup].

FTFY

[Cudzoziemiec]

The Wikipedia article on the hectare gives some illustrations of old units being redefined with new meanings, along the lines of the Norwegian mile mentioned earlier.

In many countries, metrication redefined or clarified existing measures in terms of metric units. The following legacy units of area have been redefined as being equal to one hectare:[11]

Jerib in Iran
Djerib in Turkey[12]
Gong Qing (公頃/公顷 – gōngqǐng) in Hong Kong / mainland China
Manzana in Argentina
Bunder in The Netherlands (until 1937)[13][14]

The decare or dekare (/ˈdɛkɑːr, -ɛər/) is derived from deca and are, and is equal to 10 ares or 1000 square metres. It is used in Norway[26] and in the former Ottoman areas of the Middle East and the Balkans (Bulgaria)[27] as a measure of land area. Instead of the name "decare", the names of traditional land measures are usually used, redefined as one decare:

Stremma in Greece[28]
Dunam, dunum, donum, or dönüm in Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey[29]
Mål is used for decare in Norway, from the old measure of about the same area.

So our "metric or imperial ton" joke/meme/saw is presumably replicated in other parts of the world with the "metric or <traditional> jerib" etc.

[T42]

Failing to understand the difference between m² and meters square
https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/what-do-civil-engineers-do/post-office-tower

The project team sank a concrete raft about 8m into the ground to deal with this. The 27m² raft was 1m thick and reinforced with 6 layers of cables.

A square with a side of 10 metres covers 100 square metres, or 100 m².  An square that 100 metres on a side is 100 metres square and covers a hectare [/sup].

FTFY

IFF reader knows what a hectare is.