lambda with floats

[monkeys paw]

On 4/9/2010 2:40 PM, Patrick Maupin wrote:
> On Apr 9, 1:22 pm, monkeys paw<mon... at joemoney.net>  wrote:
>> On 4/9/2010 3:43 AM, Bas wrote:
>>
>>> On Apr 7, 6:15 am, Patrick Maupin<pmau... at gmail.com>    wrote:
>>>> I should stop making a habit of responding to myself, BUT.  This isn't
>>>> quite an acre in square feet.  I just saw the 43xxx and assumed it
>>>> was, and then realized it couldn't be, because it wasn't divisible by
>>>> 10.  (I used to measure land with my grandfather with a 66 foot long
>>>> chain, and learned at an early age that an acre was 1 chain by 10
>>>> chains, or 66 * 66 * 10 = 43560 sqft.)
>>>> That's an exact number, and 208 is a poor approximation of its square
>>>> root.
>>
>>> There is no need to remember those numbers for the imperially
>>> challenged people:
>>
>>> In [1]: import scipy.constants as c
>>
>> scipy.constants ??
>>
>> doesn't work for me.
>>
>>
>>
>>> In [2]: def acre2sqft(a):
>>>      ...:     return a * c.acre / (c.foot * c.foot)
>>>      ...:
>>
>>> In [3]: acre2sqft(1)
>>> Out[3]: 43560.0
>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Bas
>>
>>
>
> Basically, he's saying that, instead of remembering the very simple
> "66" and "10" values, you can download and install a multi-megabyte
> gzipped tar file for the scipy project. ;-)
>
> (Of course, you get a few nice functions thrown in for free along with
> your constants, but downloading scipy for its constants is like
> choosing a sports car for its cupholders.)

yea, the 66 foot chain story is a good one, i cant forget that. 
Appreciate the help, i just looked up the SciPY Project download,
it is 40 MB. I'm gonna check it out none the less...