Units of Measurement

The questions I have now are
1) What is a Nottingham tram?
2) How long is such a tram?

Extract from an article about funding for geothermal boreholes:-

"The geothermal system draws and stores energy from 64 boreholes each up to 250m below ground, equivalent to the length of seven Nottingham trams"
 
Indeed, how much longer is a Nottingham Tram to a Croydon or Manchester Tram? Or an Amsterdam or Lisbon Tram? Or a San Francisco Tram?
The curious among us need to know!

I strongly suspect that the person who wrote the report was a resident of Nottinghamshire and was simply more familiar with the trams he had seen with his own eyes. However, what is this obsession with describing the size of things in terms of public transport vehicles? As you have demonstrated here, it means absolutely nothing to most people, and we have already shown earlier in this thread that there have been many varieties of "London Bus" with widely different heights, so it isn't even an accurate measurement to use.
 
My current favourite. Is that a total of 200 pugs, 100 pugs per asteroid, or 2 x 50-pug-sized asteroids? I think we should have been told...

Fn7rbuGagAApn1T.jpg
I also like the fact that they thought it necessary to add (illustrative) to the picture caption, just in case we thought that it's a real asteroid, being followed by a spacecraft with a camera...
 
That isn't an asteroid in the AI picture either, it looks like a piece of granite*. Also, if it were that close to the Earth then I doubt that it would "pass" by, but would be captured by gravity. So, it's far from being "(illustrative)" of "an asteroid is seen approaching Earth"! The whole report is nonsense.

*Granite is formed by the slow cooling of magma (with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides) at depth within the Earth's crust. Asteroids have a much higher Iron and Nickel content and so look much darker (even the stony types are darker than that.)
 
As the scandal grows, I can almost see the following headline:

Newspaper Claims its Illustration of an Asteroid is Based on Rock Solid Information​
 
Going slightly off-topic but there was a similar illustration today in the Metro about water found on an asteroid, together with a blown-up AI picture of what looked like blue and white medicine capsules, that were supposed to represent "water" under a microscope (I guess??) Maybe I over-react, but the reason I think this is very important is that "science" literacy is already low enough, and journalists have a large responsibility for not changing that, seeing that Newspapers and TV News are where most people get their factual information from. Now people will think that if you look hard enough you can see water molecules that are blue and white capsules. Even under an electron microscope (black and white) they look like balls with two much smaller lumps, but they also tend to stick together in clumps with whatever solutes are dissolved, so never look like the illustration provided.

If the AI picture is not going to illustrate anything resembling the real thing, then is there is little point to using it at all?
 
Okay, I get it now. That Aaron Reich is just having a laugh at us. I guess he's bored, and annoyed that no one reads his articles or posts them to forums unless he describes an asteroid in comparison to the size of another news topic and uses his new AI picture App.
 
Surely the most pertinent answer to that question, given that we're still waiting for book six (out of seven), is Still Not Long Enough.

I'm not sure what measurement would be most useful for... er... measuring that.
 
Danny McG said:
The questions I have now are
1) What is a Nottingham tram?
2) How long is such a tram?

Extract from an article about funding for geothermal boreholes:-

"The geothermal system draws and stores energy from 64 boreholes each up to 250m below ground, equivalent to the length of seven Nottingham trams"
Click to expand...
Apparently each Nottingham Tram can carry the equivalent of almost three double decker buses, or 170 cars.

Tram Services – Transport Nottingham

www.transportnottingham.com www.transportnottingham.com

There ya go.
 
Harpo said:
Apparently each Nottingham Tram can carry the equivalent of almost three double decker buses, or 170 cars.
Click to expand...
Are those packed rush hour buses when one bus in front has been told to terminate, and to deposit everyone to catch the next packed bus behind it, or are they some buses I've been on in sleepy outer suburbs where there was no one else on board, and even the driver disappeared off to visit the loo?

Are those Reliant Robin cars with one careful owner, or are they Cadillac Escalade ESV (which is essentially a tank without the tracks on)?
 
Dave said:
Are those packed rush hour buses when one bus in front has been told to terminate, and to deposit everyone to catch the next packed bus behind it, or are they some buses I've been on in sleepy outer suburbs where there was no one else on board, and even the driver disappeared off to visit the loo?

Are those Reliant Robin cars with one careful owner, or are they Cadillac Escalade ESV (which is essentially a tank without the tracks on)?
Click to expand...
And how many of those passengers are the same height as Taylor Swift?
 
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