Could that guy who'd walk a mile for a Camel plod a picoparsec for a Pall Mall?
What is a parsec??
Prof. Rowlett kindly answered that it is indeed based on the semimajor axis, which his pages seem to claim is known to +-30m!? Weisstein's parsec page concurs and clearly indicates parsec = ua cot 1" . So (c184) uconv(1.0*picoparsec,mi) (d184) 19.1735 mi (Note how a coefficient of single, double, or multiple precision 1.0 suppresses the big rational coefficient.) So, walkable, but maybe not for a smoker. mkleber>How about uconv(decadent, tridents) ? Rats, I can't
think of any legitimate reason it should recognize tri-.
I have triennium, etc., but not the craziness to genericize those prefixes. On the other hand megacephaly converts to a clinically impressive trillion microcephalies. hgb> I worked on a computer program to virtually "lay out" ("marking") the pattern
pieces on the wool to figure out how much cloth a suit would require. Laying out multiple suits at the same time is typically more efficient in terms of fitting the parts together better,
Mike Sinclair at Microsoft once consulted to an outfit that solved this by analog computation. They laser-cut 1/6 scale patterns from plastic, then shook them for an hour on an inclined table. Finally, a young eavesdropper contributes:
Speaking of units, NASA doesn't seem to understand them. Have a look at http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/html/saturnVcenter.html:
The amount of power that the Saturn V produced upon blast off (7.5 million pounds of thrust) could light up New York City for 1 hour and 15 minutes!
Wow, they somehow managed to mix up force, power, and energy. I wonder if they used Prentice Hall textbooks to aid them in the calculation.
Your tax dollars at work. --rwg