My friend who's a PhD student didn't know how many oz were in a cup...

not sure if surprised wrote:

It's like not knowing green lights mean go and red lights mean stop.

Not knowing that will get you killed. Anyone with a PhD could tell you that...

Recalcitrant Scot wrote:An ounce is a unit of mass, a cup is a unit of volume.

Didn't The Hubble need corrective lenses because engineering PhDs mixed inches and centimeters in their specifications?

Anyway the buckets of liquid sold at fast food places come in named sizes so who cares how many ounces, cubic centimeters, milliliters, drams or gills just order by name.

http://geardiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/wpid-Photo-Aug-26-2012-641-AM.jpg

Anthony Johnson wrote:

By the time he gets his PhD in ecology, he'll be so specialized that he probably won't be able to define an ecosystem off the top of his head.

If he's doing anything right, he'll know a ton of statistics and data analytic skills, realize that academia isn't for him, and get a very good paying job as a data scientist. Analyzing ecological data isn't that much different than analyzing customer data.

The "specialized" trope is thrown around by management types who have no skills other than coming up with buzz words and kissing ass. It's like saying anyone who works for a company is so specialized in whatever widget or service that company provides they couldn't possibly go to another company that makes a different widget or provides a different service. PhDs in hard sciences (and many social sciences) have the most prized skill these days: how to analyze quantitative data. If you ain't doing that, you're obsolete because we're automating you away.

I have no idea what most of these non-metric conversions are. We never learned anything other than metric in school, thankfully.

My mother, on the other hand, comes from a generation where all of the conversions were branded into their skulls during grade school and she knows most of them by heart but is pretty much useless at simple math. In my opinion, imperial units are for fools. A monkey could memorize them, but why would anyone (outside of backwards countries like the U.S.) want to? Metric is the way to go! On the rare occasion that I need to know a conversion, I'll Google it.

a canadian science major wrote:

I have no idea what most of these non-metric conversions are. We never learned anything other than metric in school, thankfully.

My mother, on the other hand, comes from a generation where all of the conversions were branded into their skulls during grade school and she knows most of them by heart but is pretty much useless at simple math. In my opinion, imperial units are for fools. A monkey could memorize them, but why would anyone (outside of backwards countries like the U.S.) want to? Metric is the way to go! On the rare occasion that I need to know a conversion, I'll Google it.

I agree, which is why I stated in my very first post that he is a born and raised American. This implies he should be familiar with the units given they are frequently used in America. I would not expect someone from any other country in the world to be familiar with ounces, cups, pints, pounds, etc.

I am not sure I know either. Science deals in the metric system. The Imperial system really make no sense to me.

ok4u wrote:

That's nothing, I knew an American scientist who didn't know how many pecks were in a bushel or how many fathoms were in a furlong or how many rods were in a league.

What about how many smoots in a mile?!

Jesus dude ur buddy is under a shit ton of pressure trying to be an expert in some obscure field and ur riding him for some useless bull. Give him a break

fat chick with 600ml bladder wrote:

Didn't The Hubble need corrective lenses because engineering PhDs mixed inches and centimeters in their specifications?

Congress forced NASA to cut costs and one elimination was an optics quality test before Hubble was launched. Such test were standard procedure, but NASA changed the requirements to satisfy the Congressional funding cuts. The problem would have been caught if Congress did not grandstand so much about "saving" money at the time. Money was not saved. The repair cost was very high.

Glxcccc wrote:

Jesus dude ur buddy is under a shit ton of pressure trying to be an expert in some obscure field and ur riding him for some useless bull. Give him a break

+1

I bet he can't name all of the Pokemon either.

Optical Test wrote:

fat chick with 600ml bladder wrote:

Didn't The Hubble need corrective lenses because engineering PhDs mixed inches and centimeters in their specifications?

Congress forced NASA to cut costs and one elimination was an optics quality test before Hubble was launched. Such test were standard procedure, but NASA changed the requirements to satisfy the Congressional funding cuts. The problem would have been caught if Congress did not grandstand so much about "saving" money at the time. Money was not saved. The repair cost was very high.

Thanks for the answer.

The young lady mixed her NASA non-metric mishap memories.

It was a Mars obiter that failed to complete it's mission.

By Robin Lloyd

CNN Interactive Senior Writer

(CNN) -- NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because a Lockheed Martin engineering team used English units of measurement while the agency's team used the more conventional metric system for a key spacecraft operation, according to a review finding released Thursday.

The units mismatch prevented navigation information from transferring between the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team in at Lockheed Martin in Denver and the flight team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Lockheed Martin helped build, develop and operate the spacecraft for NASA. Its engineers provided navigation commands for Climate Orbiter's thrusters in English units although NASA has been using the metric system predominantly since at least 1990.

I thought 8, but wasn't quite certain. Who bakes, these days? Packages list serving sizes, but it doesn't say, "1 cup of chocolate milk" "1 cup of gatorade," it says 8 or however many ounces.

not sure if surprised wrote:

I'm not sure if this is super significant, but he's a PhD student in ecology and didn't know how many ounces were in a cup, nor how many cups were in a pint. He's a born and raised American. Is this odd? I learned this in 3rd grade I believe, but maybe his university isn't very good?

A "Cup " is metric dumb dumb.

Glxcccc wrote:

Jesus dude ur buddy is under a shit ton of pressure trying to be an expert in some obscure field and ur riding him for some useless bull. Give him a break

It's evident there are a lot of idiots on this board.

Recalcitrant Scot wrote:

not sure if surprised wrote:

I'm not sure if this is super significant, but he's a PhD student in ecology and didn't know how many ounces were in a cup, nor how many cups were in a pint. He's a born and raised American. Is this odd? I learned this in 3rd grade I believe, but maybe his university isn't very good?

An ounce is a unit of mass, a cup is a unit of volume.

An ounce can be either a unit of weight or a unit of volume, but not a unit of mass. These are the things that engineers learn, but not the hoi polloi.

Maybe he has used milliliters and liters for most volume calculations throughout life.

Or not, I don't know. I don't know jack-doodly-woodly.

This pisses me off. Every friggin person thinks because someone is a phd, that they should be proficient in every thing on this earth. Did it ever occur to you that this person is not all-world knowing?

So he/she doesn't know how many ounces are in a can of soda!

I taught history, and kids expected me to know the in and outs of un employment and were upset and disappointed when I didn't know the answer to everything.

This friend spent 7+ years getting their phd, in one specific topic or subject. I'm sure it wasn't soda can ins and outs.

OP,

Without looking it up, do you know the names of every general participating on both sides of the American Civil War?

Why not?

Good points.

People defer to my opinion on all kinds of things I know nothing about...