General Questions Thread

[jedinat]

In math both systems are used. In science it's been pretty much all metric through high school and college. I still don't really grasp the kilometer. Some sort of wimpy mile.

[KholdStare]

Originally Posted by jedinat

In math both systems are used. In science it's been pretty much all metric through high school and college. I still don't really grasp the kilometer. Some sort of wimpy mile.

Meh I always estimate. I just remember 1.6 km in a mile, a bit less than half a pound is equal to a kilogram, a bit less than a quart is equal to a liter.

[Aoie_Emesai]

I was forced to learn these In my College Chem and Physics >.< I don't remember them all now, but 2.54cm = 1 Inch ^^

[WanderingKnight]

In math both systems are used. In science it's been pretty much all metric through high school and college. I still don't really grasp the kilometer. Some sort of wimpy mile.

Well, I've never quite grasped the mile.

And there's tons of Imperial stuff I've never really known. The thing that drives me the most insane is the foot/inches system. It just seems too... nonsensical, cumbersome and anti-intuitive. I mean, come on, 100 centimeters = 1 meter, that's all you need . In fact, for some reason most numeric systems born in the UK (I'm thinking the old pound/shillings/pence system) seem extremely weird.

And with the metric system, you don't have the issue Kyuusai was pointing out, since converting is a trivial matter (1 dm3 = 1 liter, things like that).

[felix]

Yes, 1 kilometre = 1000 metre

Of course 1km doesn't make sense compared to a mile, that wasn't the point; in metric everything derives from the base unit. So you only need to know what things are measured in: grams, leters, meters, what have you and then you know all others and what relationship they have with each other, with a easy mathematical conversion.

I have no damn idea which is which in imperial, lol.

[LiberLibri]

Thanks for the answers.

Today I came to know the unit of force Poundal. I had supposed that even in the US physical calculation were based on the SI system. Given the Imperial units prevail in science there, we always need constants to convert every value; 1[J] = 1[kg·m²/s²] = 23.73 [pound·feet²/s²], right?

I have seen US products using Volt [V] and Ampere [A] to show the specification. Possibly (and hopefully) electronics is an exception.

[yezhanquan]

Well, I'll say that the metric system is widely used in scientific circles. (Anyone remembers that fiasco by NASA over the Mars probe that failed because the distance was calculated in the wrong units?)

The metric system is also closely linked to the SI system of units. You know, unit of energy = joule, unit for force = newton, unit of pressure = pascal, that system. I prefer the SI system as it helps give credit to some chaps of science who were otherwise unknown. How many here read up on Joule?

[felix]

Yes. Same thing really. Both meter and joule are standards from the ISU.

[Ledgem]

Astronomy question: on any given night, will the phase of the moon be the same when viewed from anywhere on Earth?

[KiNA]

Theorically yes, as the viewing degree difference are too minicules compared to the distance between earth and moon >.<

That didnt make much sense in english.. Sounds more plausible in Malay, hopefully you can understand that

[xris]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Astronomy question: on any given night, will the phase of the moon be the same when viewed from anywhere on Earth?

Maths tells you that it is different but if it's actually noticable is another matter. Dia.of Earth 8,000 miles (12,756km), distance between Earth and Moon 240,000 miles (384,404 km), do the maths

Depends what you mean by phase of the moon, if you mean will a quarter moon still look a quarter moon (and not a waning crescent) then yes, it will look a quarter moon anywhere on the earth. There will be a minor difference but since the terminator line is a bit vague it's going to be very difficult to notice any difference in practice, certainly not with the naked eye.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

The thing that drives me the most insane is the foot/inches system. It just seems too... nonsensical, cumbersome and anti-intuitive. I mean, come one, 100 centimeters = 1 meter, that's all you need . In fact, for some reason most numeric systems born in the UK (I'm thinking the old pound/shillings/pence system) seem extremely weird.

Some cultures (including some ancient ones) used 12 as a base because it's divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. The old UK monetary system was one of these, along with the English foot. 10 is, of course, divisible only by 2 and 5. So, while it's easy to buy a "quarter-dozen" of some items, no such equivalent exists for 10.

I find powers of ten a lot more congenial myself, though. Of course, if we'd all been born with six fingers and six toes, we'd probably be on base-12.

[Zaku Hyuga]

My friends having trouble with their myspace, this is part of what they wrote. The rest of the message doesn't have anything to do with the problem.
"My sSTUPID muspac isnt accepting comments on my main page or on my blogs anymore. WHAT HAPPENED!"
My initial thought was that she may have accidentally clicked not to show comments, but I'm not sure as I don't have a space myself, that and shes pretty computer savvy.

[KiNA]

And the one million dollar question was

what is the silly question again?

[LiberLibri]

Just a quite silly question on English grammar.

Verbs of _ake type have several distinct patterns of conjugation.

bake - baked - baked
make - made - made
take - took - taken
wake - woke - woken

Suppose there comes another new verb, for instance "zake". What would be the most appropriate conjugation that sounds natural to the native speakers?

[SeedFreedom]

I think it should be zake - zaked - zaked
Make, take and wake seem to be exceptions because when you look at other words with -ake they follow the bake pattern, like rake and fake.

[Kyuusai]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

Just a quite silly question on English grammar.

Verbs of _ake type have several distinct patterns of conjugation.

bake - baked - baked
make - made - made
take - took - taken
wake - woke - woken

Suppose there comes another new verb, for instance "zake". What would be the most appropriate conjugation that sounds natural to the native speakers?

Unique intransitive forms like "taken" and "woken" are archaic, and new verbs generally follow patterns in a much more predictable way.... THANK GOD. I would imagine that any new verb, like "zake" would take "zaked" in both the transitive and intransitive form.

I would much rather live with the slight ambiguity of transitive versus intransitive than have a completely non-standardized form for each word.

Here's my own question on this subject: Is there any language that has unique forms for both transitive and intransitive verbs as part of the regular form of all verbs? Even my beloved Esperanto, while it has a way to make intransitive verbs transitive (by a suffix) and to make transitive verbs intransitive (by an auxiliary verb)... each verb is still inherently transitive or intransitive and the verb's form gives no clue as to which. This is an ambiguity I've seen in every language I've examined... are there any that aren't this way?

[WanderingKnight]

Is there any language that has unique forms for both transitive and intransitive verbs as part of the regular form of all verbs?

Well, you have the passive voice marker in Japanese which can somewhat qualify for that--but I don't think it's technically what you want to find, more like a sort of "workaround" which can yield the same effect.

(Besides, there's the point that there are actions that, unless the society's paradigms change a lot, can't ever be made transitive, no matter how much you want it to be. The verb "to be", to give a basic example).

[Kyuusai]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

(Besides, there's the point that there are actions that, unless the society's paradigms change a lot, can't ever be made transitive, no matter how much you want it to be. The verb "to be", to give a basic example).

Indeed, the determination of transitive or intransitive is made by the word's meaning. I suppose a better way of putting it is "Is there any language in which the form of the verb consistently reflects whether or not it is transitive or intransitive?"

As an example, the Esperanto word "boli", means "to boil"--intransitive. The transitive form has a suffix: "boligi", "to make boil". If all transitive verbs had such a suffix, it would always be clear by the verb's form whether it is transitive or intransitive, but that is not the case. Instead, that must be discovered directly from the definition.

[Slice of Life]

Originally Posted by Kyuusai

Indeed, the determination of transitive or intransitive is made by the word's meaning. I suppose a better way of putting it is "Is there any language in which the form of the verb consistently reflects whether or not it is transitive or intransitive?"

As an example, the Esperanto word "boli", means "to boil"--intransitive. The transitive form has a suffix: "boligi", "to make boil". If all transitive verbs had such a suffix, it would always be clear by the verb's form whether it is transitive or intransitive, but that is not the case. Instead, that must be discovered directly from the definition.

I've asked my personal linguistic advisor ( ) who answered Tok Pisin, an English creole spoken in Papua New Guinea. In fact, this is typical for creole languages he said. It seems that there are exceptions though:

Originally Posted by wikipedia

The verb has one suffix, -im (from "him") to indicate transitivity (luk, look; lukim, see). But some verbs, such as kaikai "eat", can be transitive without it.