2001-12-11
That is a good point. When Christiane said a
"four kilometre square", did she mean a 4 x 4 km plot of land or did she mean a
total area of 4 km�? Did she know what she meant or did
she just read off of a prompter someone else's words? We really can't be
sure.
As for Bill's comment about the farmers and acres,
I doubt they could do it either. They may know the sizes of certain parcels of
land, not because they can measure it or guess it, but because they were told
that by someone else. Anyway, nobody is going to bother to check for
accuracy.
John
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph B. Reid" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, 2001-12-11 14:10
Subject: [USMA:16599] RE: Metric in the
news
>
> >on 12/11/2001 6:49 AM, Bill Potts at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> >> Interestingly, on CNN, Christiane Amanpour was describing the area being
> >> bombed as a four kilometer square. The news readers were referring to
> >>the same
> >> area as one and a half square miles -- an unnecessary and completely
> >>incorrect
> >> conversion.
> >>
> >> A four kilometer square is 16 square kilometers, or approximately 6 square
> >> miles.
> >>
> >> Bill Potts, CMS
> >
> >Unfortunately, a lot of people think that, because a square shape one
> >kilometre long and one kilometres wide has an area of one square kilometre,
> >then a square four kilometres long and four kilometres wide must be FOUR
> >square kilometres.
> >
> >That's WRONG, of course (4 km by 4 km is 16 square kilometres as Potts
> >noted), but not everyone knows that. Somewhere we fail to teach our children
> >in school what the concept of area is all about (and how it is calculated).
> >A related problem is the assumption that, if there are 0.6 MILES in one
> >kilometre, there will be 0.6 SQUARE miles in one SQUARE kilometre.
> >
> >I suspect that most Americans don't understand these things well. But
> >"that's all right" (sarcastic), they couldn't tell the difference between
> >CNN's 1.5 square miles and the correct 6 square miles anyway. How many
> >people do you think could look out over a large area of land and give you an
> >accurate estimate of it's area in square anythings? (Perhaps some farmers
> >could do it, but thay'd do it in acres.)
>
> >Bill Hooper
>
>
> I suspect that the area of devastation caused by the big bomb was 4 square
> kilometres and the an ignorant scribe thought that was the same as a 4
> kilometre square. In which case, by another error by another scribe, the
> correct result of 1.5 square miles was produced.
>
> Joseph B.Reid
> 17 Glebe Road West
> Toronto M5P 1C8 TEL. 416-486-6071
>
