Re: Dear Metoos


"Grumman-581" <grumman581-usenet-2008@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:pan.2008.03.30.21.31.55.235000@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:40:07 -0500, Chris Guynn wrote:

The same thing si true for just about every field. There are important
concepts that should be learned and remembered, but there are also
useless
pieces of information that can be easily found if they are needed. For
instance, is it really that important from a general standpoint to
remember that Pi can be represented by 22/7?

Which gives you a false sense of accuracy with the number of decimal
places that it provides you... You might as well remember just 3.14 since
it is the same number of digits and gives you as much accuracy compared to
the 22/7 fraction... Personally, I have no problem remembering enough
digits for my uses without having to look it up -- 3.14159... Probably
because that is the number of digits that you can correctly represent in a
single precision floating point number... If I need a higher precision, I
look it up...

How important is it from a general standpoint to
remember that the conversion from degrees F to
Degrees C is (f-32)*5/9?

One should know that 0C = 32F and 100C = 212F... From there, one should be
able to derive the formulas for the conversion if needed...

That's what I'm talking about in regards to "useless facts". I'd also
like to point out that there are a lot of people who will find many
facts to be very important that I tend to view as useless. I'm sure
that the facts are, in fact, usefull to those people, but they (the
facts) are still useless to me.

There are people who go through life without knowing how to convert from
one unit to another... They figure that they can look it up if they ever
need it or that they'll have a calculator that does then conversions... I
have to disagree with this philosophy... There are certain conversion
factors that one should know...

1 mile = 5280 ft
1 ft = 12 in
1 yd = 3 ft
1 pt = 2 cups
1 cup = 8 oz
1 qt = 2 pt
1 gal = 4 qts
1 shot = 1.5 oz
1 in = 2.54 cm
1 meter = approx 39.37 in
1 fathom = 6 ft
1 ton = 2000 lbs
1 cm3 of water at 4C weighs 1 gram
0K = -273.15C
1 lb = 7000 grains
1 sq-mile = 640 acres
acceleration due to gravity is approx 32 ft/sec
speed of light is approx 3E+08 meters/sec (yeah, technically it is defined
as exactly 299,792,458 meters/sec, but it's unreasonable to expect someone
to remember that many digits...

I'm sure there are a few more that I consider that someone should know,
but I can't think of them off the top of my head right now... From these
basic conversion factors, you can do most conversions that people
encounter in their day to day life...

I would happily agree with some of the basic conversions you've listed
there, but others I think are far beyond the scope of what most people would
need. For instance, while I knew that 1 fathom = 6 feet, I don't really
care. I can't recall the last time I measured something in fathoms and,
perhaps more importantly, I can't recall the last time something was
expressed to me in fathoms that I cared enough to try to convert it to feet.
If it were something that I encountered on a more regular basis, I'm sure
that I would find it considerably more important.

I don't expect the average person to be able to convert decimal to binary
even though I do it on a somewhat regular basis.Most people have no need to
understand the conversion process from binary to decimal or vice-versa, and,
if we can take people's driving habits as an idicator of their brain power,
I'm not certain that I would want many of the people cluttering up their
already overloaded brains with more information that they won't be using.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Dear Metoos
    ... I have no problem remembering enough ... able to derive the formulas for the conversion if needed... ... facts to be very important that I tend to view as useless. ...
    (rec.scuba)
  • Re: Dear Metoos
    ... I have no problem remembering enough ... able to derive the formulas for the conversion if needed... ... facts to be very important that I tend to view as useless. ... For instance, while I knew that 1 fathom = 6 feet, I don't really ...
    (rec.scuba)
  • Re: Dear Metoos
    ... I have no problem remembering enough ... able to derive the formulas for the conversion if needed... ... facts to be very important that I tend to view as useless. ...
    (rec.scuba)
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  • Re: Dear Metoos
    ... measurement and I would probably be more proficient at the conversion. ... Regarding fathom. ... IIRC it was part of my 7th grade math curriculum and I still remember ... It is very easy to do, but I don't expect your average Joe to ...
    (rec.scuba)