10 Weird Units of Measurement You Didn't Know Existed
Science isn't always serious. Sometimes, humans measure things in... donkeys, beards, and pirates.
We all know meters, liters, and grams. But the world of measurement is full of oddities born from folklore, specific scientific needs, or just plain jokes that stuck. Here are ten of the strangest units ever used.
1. The Beard-Second
Inspired by the light-year, a beard-second is the length an average physicist's beard grows in one second. It's roughly 5 nanometers.
2. The Smoot
In 1958, MIT students measured the Harvard Bridge using their shortest fraternity pledge, Oliver Smoot. The bridge is officially 364.4 Smoots long (plus or minus one ear). The markings remain to this day, and Google Earth even recognizes the unit!
3. The Barleycorn
Still lurking in your shoe size! In 1324, King Edward II decreed that an inch was three dry barleycorns placed end-to-end. British and US shoe sizes are still based on the barleycorn (1/3 of an inch).
4. The Shake
Used in nuclear physics, a "shake" comes from the phrase "two shakes of a lamb's tail." It represents 10 nanoseconds. It was convenient for calculating nuclear reaction timing in the Manhattan Project.
5. The Pirate-Ninja
A tongue-in-cheek unit defined by the Andy Weir (author of The Martian) to represent power per mass. One Pirate-Ninja is equal to one kilowatt-hour per Martian day (sol). It was actually used by the Curiosity rover team!
6. The Mickey
The smallest detectable movement of a computer mouse is called a Mickey. It's usually about 0.1 mm, though modern gaming mice have thousands of Mickeys per inch.
7. The Wheaton
Named after Wil Wheaton (from Star Trek), this unit measures Twitter followers. One Wheaton represents 500,000 followers. Most of us are measuring in milli-Wheatons or micro-Wheatons.
8. The Donkey Power
Engineers have Horsepower, but what about the humble donkey? One Donkey Power is roughly equal to 250 watts, or about 1/3 of a horsepower.
9. The Barn
A specific unit of area used in nuclear physics to describe the cross-sectional area of a nucleus. It's tiny (10-28 m2), but from a subatomic particle's perspective, hitting a uranium nucleus is as easy as "hitting the broad side of a barn."
10. The Megaifon
A unit of sadness or bad luck, proposed by sci-fi author Isaac Asimov. One Megaifon is equivalent to 1 million microphones of suffering.
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