Astronomy Cast Episode 336: Units of Measure

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1. I would love to know what you would use Kilonewtons per arc second for
2. Cubits
3. Guys, you are smart, please turn on your sense. Russia is not attacking Crimea, your media complete makes everything up. I'm really tired of hearing this from people I enjoy listening to and whom I respect.
4. I have a unit of measure joke:
   
   Einstein, Newton and Pascal are playing hide and go seek.  It's Einstein's turn to count so he covers his eyes and starts counting to ten.  Pascal runs off and hides.  Newton draws a one meter by one meter square on the ground in front of Einstein then stands in the middle of it.  Einstein reaches ten and uncovers his eyes.  He sees Newton immediately and exclaims "Newton! I found you!  You're it!"
   
   Newton smiles and says "You didn't find me, you found a Newton over a square meter.  You found Pascal!"
5. !!!!!! NICE!!!! 
6. Here's a stupidly simple way to convert between degrees C and degrees F:  double C and then add 30.  Invert both operations to go backward from F to C.  It's not exact, but it makes the conversions simple enough to rapidly do in your head...  and you'll nearly almost always be right.
7. Nice space calendar! <3
8. I'm an Aries too 
9. March 23 we discovered Ur Anus? 
10. Fraser you would be great guest in Scott Manley's Deep Space Hangout. 
11. Is there something that canonically defines parsec as a unit of time in the Star Wars universe, or is that just a popular assumption because of the way it's used in a sentence?
    
    I've seen it said that it might indeed have been used as a unit of distance, and that doing the Kessel run in only 12 parsecs was quite a feat because there was something along the path that it was safer to keep your distance from, therefore increasing the distance required for the trip. The Falcon's speed was implied as something that helped in getting past that hazard.
12. Great as always
13. Great episode! Lots of information! I think it fits into the gen topic perfectly!
14. Yes! Fraser plays Kerbal Space Program! Day made. And Space Engine is incredible as it not only simulates the known universe, but procedurally generates the rest of the universe that hasn't been discovered and let's you fly to billions of galaxies each with billions of stars, each with planets and moons with fully-explorable surfaces, some of which with life, comets, asteroids, black holes, nebulae... It's very easy to lose hours in Space Engine...
15. The Avogadro Project is working on redefining the Kilogram by counting Silicon 28 atoms so that it won't be defined on a physical object locked in a basement in Paris anymore. Check this out if you haven't seen it already- World's Roundest Object!
16. Didnt get an invite for this on google plus :/
17. Didnt get an invite for this on google plus :/
18. Source:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin
19. it used to be the convention to talk about "degrees Kelvin" or "degrees absolute" when referring to temperatures in Kelvins. In 1967, at the 13th General Conference on Weights and Measures, it was decided that referring to temperature intervals in "degrees Kelvin" and thermodynamic temperature in "Kelvin" units created unnecessary confusion, since the two measurements are functionally the same thing. The conference adopted a resolution that "degrees" should be dropped when referring to temperature in Kelvins, and that's been the convention ever since.
20. Talking of unit screw ups. Does Fraser remember the Gimli Glider with the  Air Canada jet that ran out of fuel? Caused by cock up in converting imperial to metric units for fuel. Aircraft glided down to old RCAF airbase in Gimli. Aircraft gauges measure fuel by weight but fuel is uploaded by volume. You have to do what is called a discrepancy check to ensure that the converted volume is the same as the aircraft fuel gauges measure!!