Talk:List of unusual units of measurement

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Sections describing units that are believed not to fulfill Wikipedia criteria for notability can be found in Talk:List of unusual units of measurement/Candidates. Only if sufficient documentation and references can be found of actual usage and notability, can they be moved into the main article.

Measures defined as a distance traveled over time

In texts from classical antiquity there are a number of measures defined as a distance traveled over time, a Days sale, a minute of March, a River's journey.

Days Sail

The days sail is the distance of one geographical degree covered in a day of 24 hours traveling at about 3 knots. Its sometimes split into a reach and a rest of 12 hours each and often In "The Periplus of the Erythrian Sea" used in the format "two or three days sail"

Rivers journey

Egypt has an itrw or river journey. Both Gardiner "Egyptian Grammar", and the article on Ancient Egyptian units of measurement give this as "the Greek schoenis 20,000 royal cubits, 10.5 km". The Greek schoenus has been given by Herodotus as 60 stadia or 1/10 degree, with the Egyptian value for the degree 11.025 km or 21,000 Royal cubits; 6.25 miles not quite as precise as the Roman 11.1 km, 6.89722 mi a person who can row 3m/sec can cover 10,800m in an hour or 35433.07 ft, 6.71 miles in an hour.

Neck and neck

We are asserting "Neck and neck" is an example of a linguistic Siamese twin which refers to the neck as a unit of measurement in horse racing. I've no problem with the first part of the sentence -- the article itself mentions the expression as a reduplicative Siamese twin. The second part is less clear; in the first of the two newly provided sources, among the nine definitions provided, only one suggests that it has something to do with the unit of measurement ("This phrase, together with win by a neck below, originally developed with reference to horse racing. A neck is the length of the head and neck of a horse as a measure of its lead in a race"); the others simply say it is literal (their necks are next to each other). The second source doesn't so much as mention the expression "neck and neck". --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 15:32, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Smoot doesn't belong

The Smoot is a delightful unit of measurement, but IMHO it does not belong in this article because it has never been used seriously. It is part of the "list of humorous units of measurement" article, where it belongs. I would like to remove it, unless anybody objects. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:22, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't think it needs to be in both places. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 06:31, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Remove it. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:55, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Done. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:59, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

• It's used regularly by Cambridge Police for crime and traffic reports related to the bridge. Unlike feet or yards, the bridge is already labelled in Smoots. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:16, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Is it really? I've seen that claim made in passing by MIT and others, but have never seen it cited in a news story. The second-hand reports say that they are used as location markers rather than a units of measurement - something like "the accident happened at Smoot No. 17" rather than "the car traveled 3.2 Smoots after striking the guardrail." - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:35, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't think, in any case, that the move from one article to the other requires that it never be used - the distinction in the hatnote is "unusual units of measure invented primarily for amusement", which I think applies. Quite a few entries there describe times they have actually been used - the pirate-ninja, for example, was apparently genuinely used by the Curiosity Rover team, but is still basically a humorous rather than a serious unit of measurement. TSP (talk) 17:39, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Does Gas Mark Belong?

On the one hand, Gas Mark was conceived of as a simple scale, rather than a unit of measurement; it is only really useful, and only really used, between ≈100°C and ≈300°C.

On the other hand, it can be converted to and from SI units:

Above 408°K Gas Mark = (Kelvin-394)/14

Below 408°K Gas Mark = 0.5^(11-(((Kelvin-273)*1.8)+32)/25).

So, for example, it could be truthfully said that the surface of the Sun is about Gas Mark 350, and that room temperature is about Gas Mark 0.003 - should Gas Mark then be added as an unusual unit of measurement?

It "could be" said, but is it? Is gas mark used as a unit of measurement in the real world? Can you point to examples? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 12:46, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Certainly; it's used widely by the culinary industry in the UK. There are some examples in the Gas Mark article. But does use in such a narrowly-defined context qualify? Might it be considered similar to (for example) the Rack Unit or the TEU in this sense, which are also only used within their own industries? — 79.69.185.49 (talk) 14:09, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

This is neat - I had never heard of it. I really like the fact that in France it's based on Fahrenheit which they don't use!

That particular nugget wasn't lost on me, either! I've always found it curious how (for instance) mobile phone screen size are given in inches in France..

However, it seems to me that Gas Mark, as you said in your comment, is a scale rather than a unit of measurement. It doesn't seem like any chef would say "this is undercooked - you need to increase the temperature by 2 gas marks" but would say "don't set the oven at 2 gas marks, set it at 4." Does that make sense? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:02, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Absolutely, that makes perfect sense. One tends to pick values, but performing even simple operations on values doesn't come naturally. This seems like it could be a convenient way to differentiate between a scale and a full-fledged unit, in future cases. — 79.69.185.49 (talk) 23:30, 3 April 2019 (UTC)