They have the 12 inch ruler with mm on the other side, flip side sould be scaled with nano seconds speed of light, and speed of sound http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound is 340 m/s so .34m oer 340mm is 0.001 Mach-second (13.38 inches)
But speed of sound depends on medium. And second depends on human based time keeping. Just like in the movie Contact, what would someone from another planet recognize as a base unit of measurement? How about a ruler based on Hydrogen? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen A scale based upon a 10^9 multiple of a hydrogen wavelength (unfortunately there are several). It also lists a Covalent radius 31±5 pm (31 picometers = 3.1 × 10-11 meters) (3.1 cm = 1 million Hydrogen covalent bonds) On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 9:06 AM, John Gilmore <[email protected]> wrote: > I like zMan's idea for a two-sided--nanosecond and millimeter--ruler; > his notion that the availability of the second, millimeter side would > make justifying its cost easy is a really inspired piece of nonsense. > > I wish I'd thought of it. > > John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA -- Mike A Schwab, Springfield IL USA Where do Forest Rangers go to get away from it all? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
