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Metric System Quotes

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Metric System Quotes

“The term micro-hub didn't have much to do with the size of the drones. It was nomenclature Hail's crew used to refer to a drone's heritage. The main drone was Foghat, which dropped off the hub called Led Zeppelin or its mini-drone. The next group of hubs that were released by Led Zeppelin was referred to as micro-hubs. If those hubs parented more hubs, then those would be called nano-hubs and so on until pico has been used. Hail's drone laboratories had never nested drones deeper than pico, so there was no need for any further classification. The inventors of the metric system in 18th century France, had little need for any terminology smaller than micro, because they didn't have instruments fine enough to measure more minute increments. But in later years, pico, femto, atto, zepto and yocto metric increments had been established in case Hail's team ever needed them.”

“In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade—which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go fuck yourself,’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.”

“The weightlifting competition I saw was the women's 63 kg class. I'm not sure whether this means the actual women weighed 63 kg or the weights they lifted weighed 63 kg. Or possibly the temperature in the weightlifting hall was 63 kg. There's no way to know for sure without finding out what a "kg" is, and my belief, as an American, is that if I have to start understanding the metric system, then the terrorists have won.”

“In the heavens we discover [stars] by their light, and by their light alone ... the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds ... that each of them is built up of molecules of the same kinds we find on earth. A molecule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius or in Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time. Each molecule therefore throughout the universe bears impressed upon it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives at Paris, or the royal cubit of the Temple of Karnac.”