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Bald Eagles per Jelly Doughnut

I often get frustrated when having to do calcuations that involve imperial units, especially anything to do with specific heats. These are some of the most metric resistant values, in common usage. I never had a clue as to why the calorie, or the BTU, except that they were customary in certain parts of industry. Heck, there's even two calories, with a multiplier of 1,000! There's the calorie, and then there's the kilocalorie, which is mostly simply referred to a the kilocalorie.

I finally found out why these units are the size they are, and why they exist.

cwater = 1 calorie/gm °C = 4186 J/kg°C = 1 BTU/lb °F

So in SI units, the specific heat of water is 4.186 J/(g°C). This is not a nice number, because... well, water!

So, someone invented the calorie, to absorb that number leaving 1 calorie/(g°C). Well, not bad, as long as you are working with water...

But... there were people,

Reply to
Ricky
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Who accidently hit the wrong key and prematurely post...

There were people who were just very metric resistant. So they came up with

1 BTU/(lb°F) = 1 Bald eagle/jelly doughnut

I guess 60 years ago, if you were designing a steam boiler, in Newark, NJ, this is the unit you would be working with, and likely still are.

Reply to
Ricky

You mean like the KILOwatthour?

Actually the US dollar isn't really worth much until you add a kilo or mega. I guess the US is a third world country.

Reply to
Ricky

I can't believe you say some of the things you say. My car has a 100 kWh battery. My house uses hundreds of kWh each month. I don't know anyone who hasn't heard of kWh, from their electric bills and/or electric cars. It's the micro-power stuff that most people know nothing about.

Most people won't bend over to pick up a dime. Other than buying lunch, no one really cares about a few bucks. It has to get to the kilo buck level before anyone really cares. Do you worry with the interest rate on your checking account? No, because it's far below a kilo buck.

Get back to me when you understand what I'm talking about.

Reply to
Ricky

You were the guy who said that units measured commonly with kilo or mega are "ridiculous".

Yeah, but no one cares. It's only a dollar. I guess the dollar stores care.

I've wondered how strippers make a living, one dollar at a time. lol

This still stands.

Reply to
Ricky

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