You never thought you’d get the invite.
But you find yourself smack-dab in the living room at that swanky party, hobnobbing with the cultural elite.
And that certain someone that you’ve been trading glances with all night? They are definitely moving your way. With alluring eyes, they start to chat you up:
“Say, how about these Asparagus-Wrap-hors-d’oeuvre-thingys? Amazing! And such generous portions!
“How long would you say these are?“
You fumble around, patting your pockets like you’re trying to put out a faulty battery phone-fire. To your horror, you realize that you’ve left your trusty tape-ruler-gadget at home.
The good one:
The Sleek, Accurate Stanley FatMax 25 With Blade Armour Technology™
tnocs.com/Embarrassingly-Shameless-Product-Placements
… for your secret deal today!
Don’t panic. I’m here to help. Should you ever find yourself in such a quandary, here’s a little cheat code:
The standard US currency bill length is roughly 6.14 inches.
Easy to remember. A half-a-foot, if we’re using the “close enough for government work” metric. Well done – you have just successfully cracked the Asparagus Code.
And now that you’ve dazzled the room with your calculating prowess, why stop there? With new-found confidence, imperturbable aplomb… and, you know, this dumb article… you, too, can expound upon the world of trivially contrived, yet supremely confident, oddball measurements. Such as:
The Beard-Second
Huh?
- The beard-second is a the length an average beard grows in one second.
This measurement can be used to define extremely short distances, such as those found in the lithographed circuit paths in semiconductor chips.
Who came up with this?
- Kemp Bennett Kolb, a beloved physics teacher during the 1960s at The Haverford School, Haverford, Pennsylvania.
(Sorry for the migraine-inducing photo. I searched for 90 minutes – it’s the only one I could find.)
The science?
- Kolb carefully calculated and defined the measurable distance as exactly 100 angstroms ( AKA 10 nanometers.) His methodology has been certified in the classic Nordling and Österman’s Physics Handbook.
The Jimmy Griffin Snow Index
Huh?
- The index is measured in cans of beer, with roughly one can for every 4 inches of expected snowfall.
Who came up with this?
- Television station WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York cooked up the delightfully named “Jimmy Griffin Snow Index” to measure the potential severity of a snowstorm. Hilarity and copious amounts of ice melt ensued.
It is named after former Buffalo mayor James D. Griffin, who in 1985 earned the nickname “Six Pack Jimmy” after suggesting residents grab a six-pack of Genesee beer to wait out an upcoming snowstorm.
The science?
- The index is not perfectly linear at its lower levels; thus, Griffin’s six-pack would be recommended for a storm bringing two feet of snow.
The mickey
Huh?
- One mickey is the smallest resolvable unit of distance by any given computer mouse pointing device.
Who came up with this?
- Russell J. Rowlett, B.S., M.S., and PhD. The unit is named after Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse cartoon character.
Mouse motion is reported in both horizontal and vertical mickeys. Device sensitivity is usually specified in mickeys per inch.
The science?
- Typical resolution is 500 mickeys per inch, but resolutions up to 16,000 mickeys per inch have been seen in the wild.
A Scaramucci
Huh?
- A Scaramucci (or “a Mooch” for short) is an elapsed time interval of 11 days.
It is named after the length of White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci’s tenure under former President Trump. A fortnight minus three.
Who came up with this?
- Hard to ID the exact person. But some believe that it was Former Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal. Who looks like that if he were given the chance, he most certainly would do so.
The science?
- Honestly, not much. But still fun. Scaramucci himself loves the term.
A Garn
Huh?
- A unit used to measure nausea and travel sickness caused by space adaptation syndrome.
Who came up with this?
- The merry pranksters at NASA.
It is named after astronaut Jake Garn, who was frequently quite sick during tests and eventually when in orbit. A score of one Garn means the sufferer is completely incapacitated.
The science?
- You know, this guy is clearly about to hurl, and have it documented in perpetuity on VHS.
We’re going to show some mercy, and just move on.
A Warhol
Huh?
- A Warhol is a cross-combinatorial measure of popularity and time. It represents being famous – for exactly fifteen minutes.
Who came up with this?
- American writer and journalist Cullen Murphy, for the pop-culture idiomatic win.
It’s derived from the alleged dictum attributed to Andy Warhol that everyone would be world-famous for fifteen minutes.
Although many scholars have doubts that Warhol ever actually said this, the phrase sure fits the Pop artist’s brand.
Warhol’s alleged quotation first appeared in 1968 at an art exhibit in Sweden. An overenthusiastic typesetter inserted this famous line: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” into the the show’s printed program. When challenged by the exhibitors, the embellishing writer replied, “If he didn’t say it, he could very well have said it. Let’s put it in.”
The science?
- Sketchy, especially considering that Warhol never said it. But we do have some sciencey-looking variations:
- 1 kilowarhol – famous for 15,000 minutes, or 10.42 days.
- 1 megawarhol – famous for 15 million minutes, or 28.5 years.
Something to aspire to, I suppose.
A Smoot
Huh?
- The Smoot is a unit of length, defined as the height in 1958 of Oliver R. Smoot. It is used to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Who came up with this?
- Those wacky Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity members at MIT. Specifically: The Class of 1962,
In a likely beer-infused truly inspired effort, the resourceful frat members employed Mr. Smoot himself as a ruler – laid out end to end, over and over, in order to obtain an accurate measurement. Of a bridge. On cold pavement. It hurts my back just thinking about it.
The science?
- These are MIT people. So we believe them when they tell us that the bridge was determined to be 364.4 Smoots, plus or minus one ear. At the time, Smoot was 5 feet, 7 inches tall.
- Both Google Earth and Google Calculator include the smoot as a unit of measurement.
Bonus Beat:
- The Cambridge Police Department adopted the convention of using Smoots to determine the locations of accidents and other such matters on the bridge.
Bonus Bonus Beat: For what was likely the only time in law enforcement history, police requested graffiti: when the original markers were removed during bridge maintenance, they put out a call for the Smoot scale to be properly reinstated.
Bonus Bonus Bonus Beat:
Smoot was not the sort to take things lying down, as it were.
In an ironic and kind of hilarious turn of events, he picked himself up from the literal gutter and eventually became:
- The Chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
- And later: The President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO):
…The two worldwide-known, acknowledged and respected organizations for defining, assigning and maintaining global measurement standards.
And by our calculations:
He served with precision and distinction for 1091.3452 Scaramuccis.
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Fascinating stuff. When the word “smoot” was used in the teaser yesterday, I thought to myself, “why would former NFL cornerback Fred Smoot be featured in tnocs?” After looking it up and seeing that it was an offbeat measurement, I was truly perplexed at what today’s article would look like. Very fun topic!
I thought you were taking the mickey out of us, but it seems you took many thousands of Mickeys of online searching for these facts.
The Warhol quote is even better if Warhol never said it. Perfectly embodies his aesthetic.
How does one count Warhols, beyond 1? If someone is famous for only 15 minutes, then it’s always going to be 1.
I guess we could do number of Warhols occurring in a population. From which the Center for Celebrity Control can calculate rates.
I am enlightened. Thanks mt!
I would like to think that Andy himself would welcome any and all extrapolations!
“I totally agree, mt.” — Andy Warhol, 1968
Excellent stuff, mt58. We need more
uselessfascinating information like this in our everyday lives. For instance, did you know that a dash is an eight of a teaspoon, a pinch is half a dash, and a smidgen half a pinch?Similarly, if someone can be three times a lady, then someone can be one time a lady. And therefore:
https://youtu.be/so-vHyYjgZk?t=95
Also: Did you know that the phrase “good enough for government work” used to indicate a high standard?
As a government worker…no comment. 🙂
Amusing beyond measure.
There is a measure for amusement; the aH. Developed by Japanese scientists. Who may have had too much time on their hands.
https://www.intmath.com/blog/mathematics/laughing-scale-999
I haven’t read a better article since the one on wallpaper paste! Fascinating, mt!
Highly entertaining. Knowledge that I didn’t know I needed and will probably struggle to utilise but still all the better for knowing it.