OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

[Erik Max Francis]

Grant Edwards wrote:

> A slug is 14.593903 kg according to the trysty old Unix "units"
> program.  Hmm, I always thought a slug weighed exactly 32 lbs,
> but I see it's 32.174049.  Learn something new every day...

It's defined so that 1 slug times the acceleration due to gravity is a 
pound.  The acceleration due to gravity is only approximately 32 ft/s^2, 
so you were just remembering the short-hand approximation for 1 gee.

Let's hear it for incoherent unit systems ...

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Erik Max Francis && max at alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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   Man has wrested from nature the power to make the world a desert or
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