Re: [Phys-l] Fun/cool unit conversion example?

[Brian Whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net>]

Talking of recherche conversions, recall that John D offered the 
capacitance of a 1 cm sq capacitor and the inductance  of a 1 turn coil 
of diam 1 meter.
If these are resonated together, what nuclear resonance of an isotope 
of a common gas is mimicked  in a NMR spectrometer which uses a 500 MHz 
magnet?   :-)

Brian W

Larry Smith wrote:
> At 2:16 PM -0700 1/18/10, Jeff Loats wrote:
>   
> > On the first day of class I do a brief example to illustrate unit conversion (snore) and I usually spice it up by making it very silly (such as density measured in gigaslugs per parsec cubed).
> >
> > I thought I would ask here to see if anyone had a neat unit conversion example that left you with a sense of "huh, I didn't know that" or "that was cool!" or something similar.
> >     
> I tell them Benjamin Franklin was famous for hiding oil in the joint of his bamboo cane and then "calming the waters" of a troubled pond by releasing the oil on it.  Turns out that one teaspoon of oil spreads out to cover about 0.5 acre of pond.  /snip/
>
> Larry
>
>