USMA 10875: >The following letter was sent to AP and to CNN. > >Satellites reveal shrinkage of polar ice sheet > >February 2, 2001 >Web posted at: 11:43 AM EST (1643 GMT) >http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/02/02/sci.meltingice.ap/index.html > >WASHINGTON (AP) -- >... >Now, satellite studies show that about 7.5 cubic miles (12 cubic km) of >ice have eroded from a key area in just eight years. >... >It covers 740,000 square miles (1,184,000 square km) of the frozen continent. >... >Antarctica contains about 7.2 million cubic miles (11.5 cubic km) of ice, > >---- >Above are three horrible errors made in this article. > >Quite simply, you cannot divide square and cubic km by 1.609*344 and >expect to get square or cubic miles. > >1 mile = 1.6 km >1 mi" = 2.59 km" >and >1 mi" = 4.168 km" > >One must square or cube the conversion factor in order to achieve the >correct answer. > >Knowing that the research was done by professional scientists (and I truly >hope that this article was NOT written by a >professional journalist... if so how many other gross errors are there!) I >would have to assume that the correct figures are the >metric numbers. > >Note that 12 km" is 2.9 mi", not 7.5 mi" (a difference of 4.6 mi"!); >1,184,000 km" is 457,000 mi", not 740,000 (a difference of >283,000 mi"!); and 11.5 million km" is 2.8 million mi", not 7.2 million (a >difference of 4.4 million mi"!) > >For this very reason America should adopt the metric system. How many >other errors does AP report when the editorial staff >cannot understand simple mathematics. If you report the correct, original, >metric values only then there would be no need to tax >your mental abilities to translate the values to those that Americans can >supposedly understand better. We already saw a >multimillion-dollar fiasco at NASA when they were unable to convert from >English values to proper metric values. > >Please don't insult us by assuming we don't understand metric quantities. >Please don't insult us with your ignorance. Please clean >up your act and report metric stories in metric only. > >Sincerely, > >Gregory Peterson > > >>>> "Bill Potts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2001-02-05 09:30:44 >>> >See the report at >http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/02/02/sci.meltingice.ap/index.html. > >Apparently, either AP or CNN has forgotten that the conversion factor from >cubic miles to cubic kilometers is the cube of the miles to kilometers >conversion factor: > > "Now, satellite studies show that about 7.5 cubic > miles (12 cubic km) of ice have eroded from a key > area in just eight years." > >Also, one of their conversions is out by a factor of about 2.5 million: > > "Antarctica contains about 7.2 million cubic miles > (11.5 cubic km) of ice ..." > >I'd write them, but I'm pressed for time at the moment. Anyone else like to >have a go at them? > >Bill Potts, CMS >San Jose, CA >http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] Joseph B. Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
