Thank you for your reply. Your error is found at the beginning of your calculation: the exact marathon distance is not 26 miles + 385 yards. It is actually ever so slightly longer. To be precise, it is exactly 42.195 km.
Thank you for your reply. Your error is found at the beginning of your calculation: the exact marathon distance is not 26 miles + 385 yards. It is actually ever so slightly longer. To be precise, it is exactly 42.195 km.
Wait, can you remind me how far exactly a marathon is again? It hasn't been well established in this thread yet.
Nice try, but you're quoting more significant figures than you can be sure of. Yeah the maths still works but the physics has fallen apart. By the time you reach 37 decimal places you're talking about precision down to the exact number of atoms between 2 points.
If you want the real argument for metric, try converting between metres and kilometres compared with feet to miles in your head. Better still, lets see who's faster in multiplying 100m by 50 and expressing the answer in either kilometres or miles. We could do the same thing with weights if you want, and aside from familiarity with the scale, there is absolutely no argument for farenheit over celcius.
When you look at the numbers 42.19488 and 42.195 -- these are accurate to an infinite number of significant figures. When you look at a conversion factor from km to miles, this factor is accurate to an infinite number of significant figures.When converting meters to miles, it is pure math. With two inputs of infinite precision, why should I be limited to some discussion of physics looking at distances at the atomic scale?
o11y217 wrote:
Nice try, but you're quoting more significant figures than you can be sure of. Yeah the maths still works but the physics has fallen apart. By the time you reach 37 decimal places you're talking about precision down to the exact number of atoms between 2 points.
If you want the real argument for metric, try converting between metres and kilometres compared with feet to miles in your head. Better still, lets see who's faster in multiplying 100m by 50 and expressing the answer in either kilometres or miles. We could do the same thing with weights if you want, and aside from familiarity with the scale, there is absolutely no argument for farenheit over celcius.