There was also significant uplight from the 2016 Kaikōura earthquakes in New Zealand. It was quite amazing to see. It lead to massive death of marine organisms that were underwater and then suddenly were not.
American football fields, or "soccer" fields? Surprisingly, the answer is in the article:
> In some places, the earthquake extended the coastline by as much as 250 meters, or about 820 feet, according to a statement from the University of Tokyo. That's about the length of 2.2 American football fields.
In case anyone else was curious: The American football fields are 109.8 meters long, while football/soccer fields are 90 to 120 meters long (but most commonly 105 meters long for professional stadium fields).
> Linguistically creative students at the University of Oxford in the 1880s distinguished between the sports of “rugger” (rugby football) and “assoccer” (association football). The latter term was further shortened to “soccer” (sometimes spelled “socker”), and the name quickly spread beyond the campus. However, “soccer” never became much more than a nickname in Great Britain. By the 20th century, rugby football was more commonly called rugby, while association football had earned the right to be known as just plain football.
> Meanwhile, in the United States, a sport emerged in the late 19th century that borrowed elements of both rugby and association football. Before long, it had proved more popular than either of them. In full, it was known as gridiron football, but most people never bothered with the first word. As a result, American association-football players increasingly adopted soccer to refer to their sport.
Did you use the American bald eagle wingspan (latitudinal) length or the length (longitudinal) of the said bald eagle from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail in your calculations?
Considering the length of an American football field to be 109.73 metres (120 yards), and an average wingspan for the bald eagle to be 2 metres (approximately 6.7 feet), only 107 bald eagles would equate to the length of a single football field.
However, if you used an average longitudinal length of 86.5 cm for the American bald eagle, one football field would equate to approximately 127 bald eagles in length, and then you have a rounding error that has crept into your calculations.
> the earthquake extended the coastline by as much as 250 meters,
I took the 250 metres (I know, I know ... a 'metre' is approximately 0.2 Ford Mustangs), and the wingspan of a bald eagle of 1.8 metres (1 Steven Spielberg).
Divide the two numbers and you get 138 bald eagles.
Rounding errors in unit translation may have occurred.
Which year of the Ford Mustang? Since 1 metre is 0.019 of the Ford Mustang 2024.50MY, that could have been the source of the descrepancy.
It is imperative that we steadfastly adhere to the rigorous standards of scientific exactitude in the process of undertaking the pertinent observations and calculations, lest we compromise the integrity of our findings and forfeit the esteemed reputation of our learned congregation.
I mean, the fact that they even had to use "football" fields as a measure of size was obviously an American thing! It's common to hear that on the news here. The other day there was news about a hole the size of a "fridge" on a street...
The lengths Americans go to avoid the metric system :)
I was ready to defend it this time, because for area, it isn't intuitive to grasp square metres or kilometres for irregular shapes. But in fact they are using it for length here. Maybe I still want to defend it as it does give me a mental visual image and practically everyone has the experience of watching a variety of football and/or playing a variety of football.
I think it works here because it gives a sense like "imagine two new football fields showed up on your local coastline". But then maybe that's not the right sense. It could be true for miles of coastline. Regardless it is a significant change.
I did a "Sportsball Fields" conversion tool for calculator. Only thing is it assumes area, not length. It lets me convert between regulation fields for National Football League, International Football Association Board, Canadian Football League, Rugby Union (max and min permissible), Rugby League (max & min) plus curling, and ice hockey (NFL and IIHF). Just need to figure out Australian Rules Football. And then sorry do it all over for length.
You say that, but I have no idea how long those. If we played soccer, we'd play it at the local footy oval[0]. I don't know anyone who plays gridiron ("American Football"), but I assume they'd play that there too.
250 meters is 273 yards. An American football field is generally understood to be 100 yards in this context but the article claims a distance of 2.2 football fields. 273/100 is 2.7 fields. 273/2.2 is 124 yards per field. Are they using the total length with endzones? That's a confusing definition. They could have just said "roughly two football fields" and been fine. But then they did the math and made it more confusing.
I think this article refers to some areas rising enough to have the coast move back by about 250m, not to an increase in length of the entire Japanese coastline.
It does not have a well defined length in itself, but as soon as you define a method of measurement that problem goes away, so assuming the same method has been used for the old and new number there is no problem.
You can still say that the perimeter definitively got longer. Just add a parameter epsilon greater than zero for each possible way of measuring it, so that all of them are longer by some indefinite amount.
Aren't the marked in between the centimetres? And aren't they useful if you're working with something that was originally measured in inches and you're doing a lot of cuts of 2.54cm etc.?
I have a tape measure in mm and have absolutely no issue using it to measure things up to 5m in length. It’s trivial to convert in your head between mm, cm, and meters and record whatever unit makes the most sense. Or it’s also fine to just work in mm for largish objects - anyone with any experience with metric units should have no trouble visualizing a car, for example, that is 4,555 mm long. And car dimensions are routinely given in mm by manufacturers on websites, pamphlets, etc for use by the general public.
So I think mm should be just fine for a bookshelf, unless it’s 10+ meters long.
BTW I am an American who grew up using feet/inches, and am now a total metric system convert. I too grow tired of the endless snarky remarks every time someone uses a non-SI unit on the internet, but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking the US way (and other countries who still use non-SI units for certain applications, the US isn’t the only one although it is perhaps the worst offender) of doing things is somehow better. It’s just the convention that people are familiar with in the US.
You can't multiply by two? The fractional scale is based on reciprocal powers of two. Would it be easier for you if they were denoted in binary? It's the same idea, with the same benefits.
You are conflating two ideas. The fractional scale could be applied to metric units just as well as US customary units. Like how Americans use thousandths of inches in some cases.
Buying "American" tools is no different than buying metric tools. They come in sets with common sizes.
The metric system is in widespread use in the US and has been for decades.
You can choose to interpret the continued use of US Customary units as stubbornness or ignorance but that says more about you than Americans.
I choose to view it as Americans being comfortable using the right tool for the job instead of swinging the same old hammer at every new screw.
5280. 1320. 660. 2640*12 is 26400+5280 so 31680 inches.
Since we are playing games tell me the last time it was important for you to know that something was 768,342 millimeters away? Or do you just call that 750 meters? You use the appropriate unit for the task.
I know HN commenters get irrationally angry about the US customary system but you missed the entire point here. Fractions aren't unique to US customary units and powers of 10 aren't unique to the metric system. You fell back into that same trap of "everything is powers of 10!" like that's the only thing that matters.
But if powers of 10 are so great why isn't everything base 10?
How many degrees are in a circle? How many hours in a day? Seconds per minute? Days per month? Months per year? How many letters in the alphabet? How many bits per byte?
We all use different bases all the time, without really thinking about it. It's just not a big deal.
What is the actual point you're trying to make here? The parent is right, you cannot answer those questions off the top of your head, even if you can, millions, or some obscure fraction of the population cannot.
Besides, the English invented this stuff and moved on. The Americans cling to it, but it's not some special part of the American culture which requires preserving.
The British did not invent the US Customary System. The US adopted the metric system decades before the British. The US already uses the metric system everywhere it matters so there’s no economic benefit to be gained.
I have been clear here. If you don’t get it that’s your choice. I encourage to you look into the history and reality of metrication globally and the difference between the imperial and US customary systems.
Somewhat related, the 24 hour clock. It's really handy once you get used to it. But I think a lot of am/pm users just resist the idea of mental math. 12 is much too complex to add or subtract during a mental migration phase.
I set my clocks to 24 hours whenever possible. I started doing this because it is easier for me at work and that just carried over.
I don’t think anyone is resisting the idea of a 24 hour clock. It’s more likely they are just sticking with what they know and have bigger problems than thinking about how they keep time.
I personally don't care about this too much, I just buy a lot more tools and other instruments from China because the metric system is a better and simpler to use and their tools are starting to get better and better all the time.
I've seen plenty of videos of other American craftsmen deciding to go metric voluntarily because dealing with fractions is for chumps and they also want access to a wider range of tools.
I think it's a loss for America...and it is stubbornness just adapt and our whole species can more easily move forwards together.
They don't because the birth rate tanked, and besides China is going to claim the new land as originally part of the Seventh Kingdom and invade it after Taiwan.
It's really strange how "football fields" or "Olympic swimming pools" etc became such common comparison points for news headlines. Isn't the universality kind of the appeal of having units of measurement? I'd argue most people see things that are a meter long a lot more often than football fields.
For me, a few hundred meters is difficult to comceptualize. I can search a football arena and notice the people around/inside it and get a better feel for the story than if just presented in meters
To me the point of these is not to explain size but more to address the feeling of "it's bigger than the biggest thing you might have experienced"
An other common reference in Japan is the Tokyo Dome baseball stadium also used for live performances, and it feels exactly the same as telling someone you store 5 Library of Congress worth of data in your NAS.
Not really, as in American football, the goal is to traverse some specific length, so no one really thinks about the area in much detail. For example, I could tell you that a football field is 120 yards in length (100 yards for the actual play area and 10 yards on each side for the endzone) but I could not tell you the width off the top of my head.
It's an approximation. If you say 220 meters, you have no wiggle room. If you say two football field's length you get the idea and it leaves wiggle room. Meters are too precise in this case.
If they had said furlong, that would be about right and gives enough coarseness to the measure to be effective. Unfortunately, with horseracing dying not many people are familiar with the measure any more.
Business Insider is a US publication so they are using a unit that makes sense to their readership. Everyone in the US has a sense for the size of a football field. In this case it seems like an appropriate comparison. I immediately realize this is a significant change that would impact things like docks and boat ramps.
This intuition works for any reasonable interpretation of "football field".
If we are talking about how far Voyager has traveled then you may have an interesting critique.
Has the opposite ever occurred, causing someone's entire house & property to become permenantly submerged underwater?
Are there any insurance riders that'd cover such an event, or would affected individuals be entirely at the mercy of gov't disaster relief contingencies / personal savings?
Coastal erosion happens all the time. And yes, it's either covered under property insurance or your house is uninsurable, depending on the known risk when you buy/renew the insurance.
Not an entirely permanent case, but I remember seeing a documentary about people living on shifting river deltas in Bangladesh, where the land they 'own' can get submerged for some years, forcing them to make a temporary house elsewhere, but able to go back and rebuild when/if the land re-emerges.
But insurance is of course not really involved because the people living in these circumstances are typically not so well off. IIRC government relief is also not really much of a thing for those communities. They just rely on each other, knowing that by helping others in the community, they'll get help in return when they need it.
This earthquake has been really devastating for the Noto peninsula. 128 confirmed deaths so far, with 195 people still reported as missing/unconfirmed. 28,000 people have evacuated to shelters, and many more are without power and water in their homes. And right now it is snowing, compounding the suffering for people without power, and complicating cleanup efforts. [1]
A lot of the infrastucture has been destroyed in the area, and 2,000 people are isolated due to roads being impassable. Fishing is one of the primary industries in the area, and many boats and coastal buildings were lost/damaged in the resulting tsunami. And with the coast having risen by up to 4m in some areas, there are ports which are no longer even accessible by boat.
Most of the people worst affected have been the elderly. More than 50% of the population in the area is over the age of 65. And older people are more likely to live in older homes that are more susceptible to damage in an earthquake. And there are reports of covid and the flu spreading at evacuation centers.
Over the past several years there has been an "earthquake swarm" in the area. Experts have speculated that it is due to water seeping into the earth's crust along with a subducting oceanic plate, causing swelling, weakening bedrock, and making faults more "slippery". [2] The Jan 1 earthquake occurred over a far wider area than previous quakes in the region, starting in the Suzu area and spreading to other active faults in the area. [3] Experts are advising that, while considerable stress has been released from this event, people should be on alert for more quakes in the future including the possibility of another magnitude 7+ quake.
76 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Kaik%C5%8Dura_earthquake
> In some places, the earthquake extended the coastline by as much as 250 meters, or about 820 feet, according to a statement from the University of Tokyo. That's about the length of 2.2 American football fields.
Are talking about American American football fields, or Canadian American football fields? Or American arena football fields?
> Linguistically creative students at the University of Oxford in the 1880s distinguished between the sports of “rugger” (rugby football) and “assoccer” (association football). The latter term was further shortened to “soccer” (sometimes spelled “socker”), and the name quickly spread beyond the campus. However, “soccer” never became much more than a nickname in Great Britain. By the 20th century, rugby football was more commonly called rugby, while association football had earned the right to be known as just plain football.
> Meanwhile, in the United States, a sport emerged in the late 19th century that borrowed elements of both rugby and association football. Before long, it had proved more popular than either of them. In full, it was known as gridiron football, but most people never bothered with the first word. As a result, American association-football players increasingly adopted soccer to refer to their sport.
https://www.britannica.com/story/why-do-some-people-call-foo...
unlike hands and eggs
Considering the length of an American football field to be 109.73 metres (120 yards), and an average wingspan for the bald eagle to be 2 metres (approximately 6.7 feet), only 107 bald eagles would equate to the length of a single football field.
However, if you used an average longitudinal length of 86.5 cm for the American bald eagle, one football field would equate to approximately 127 bald eagles in length, and then you have a rounding error that has crept into your calculations.
I took the 250 metres (I know, I know ... a 'metre' is approximately 0.2 Ford Mustangs), and the wingspan of a bald eagle of 1.8 metres (1 Steven Spielberg).
Divide the two numbers and you get 138 bald eagles.
Rounding errors in unit translation may have occurred.
But Spielberg’s height is 1.72m. Did you mean Taylor Swift, Brad Pitt, or Leonardo DiCaprio?
It is imperative that we steadfastly adhere to the rigorous standards of scientific exactitude in the process of undertaking the pertinent observations and calculations, lest we compromise the integrity of our findings and forfeit the esteemed reputation of our learned congregation.
1971.5
The lengths Americans go to avoid the metric system :)
Anything but metric.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football_play...
Sure. I am totally going to measure my new bookshelf in mm.
So I think mm should be just fine for a bookshelf, unless it’s 10+ meters long.
BTW I am an American who grew up using feet/inches, and am now a total metric system convert. I too grow tired of the endless snarky remarks every time someone uses a non-SI unit on the internet, but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking the US way (and other countries who still use non-SI units for certain applications, the US isn’t the only one although it is perhaps the worst offender) of doing things is somehow better. It’s just the convention that people are familiar with in the US.
Buying American tools is such a pain in the ass, for example.
You are conflating two ideas. The fractional scale could be applied to metric units just as well as US customary units. Like how Americans use thousandths of inches in some cases.
Buying "American" tools is no different than buying metric tools. They come in sets with common sizes.
The metric system is in widespread use in the US and has been for decades.
You can choose to interpret the continued use of US Customary units as stubbornness or ignorance but that says more about you than Americans.
I choose to view it as Americans being comfortable using the right tool for the job instead of swinging the same old hammer at every new screw.
Now try with kilometers, meters, and centimeters. I think this is the point that is being made.
5280. 1320. 660. 2640*12 is 26400+5280 so 31680 inches.
Since we are playing games tell me the last time it was important for you to know that something was 768,342 millimeters away? Or do you just call that 750 meters? You use the appropriate unit for the task.
I know HN commenters get irrationally angry about the US customary system but you missed the entire point here. Fractions aren't unique to US customary units and powers of 10 aren't unique to the metric system. You fell back into that same trap of "everything is powers of 10!" like that's the only thing that matters.
But if powers of 10 are so great why isn't everything base 10?
How many degrees are in a circle? How many hours in a day? Seconds per minute? Days per month? Months per year? How many letters in the alphabet? How many bits per byte?
We all use different bases all the time, without really thinking about it. It's just not a big deal.
Besides, the English invented this stuff and moved on. The Americans cling to it, but it's not some special part of the American culture which requires preserving.
I have been clear here. If you don’t get it that’s your choice. I encourage to you look into the history and reality of metrication globally and the difference between the imperial and US customary systems.
“Lol inches” is a cliche and ignorant take.
I dislike your comments because you seem to just gloss over reality and pretend everything is as you imagine it when it's not.
Every single weather report in the USA today is in Fahrenheit, is this the metric system?
Every single car I drive in America is using miles, is this metric?
You're delusional if you think that America actively uses the metric system.
I don’t think anyone is resisting the idea of a 24 hour clock. It’s more likely they are just sticking with what they know and have bigger problems than thinking about how they keep time.
I've seen plenty of videos of other American craftsmen deciding to go metric voluntarily because dealing with fractions is for chumps and they also want access to a wider range of tools.
I think it's a loss for America...and it is stubbornness just adapt and our whole species can more easily move forwards together.
Example NIST website https://www.nist.gov/pml/owm/si-units-length
>The value for the inch, derived from the value of the Yard effective July 1, 1959, is exactly equivalent to 25.4 mm.
An other common reference in Japan is the Tokyo Dome baseball stadium also used for live performances, and it feels exactly the same as telling someone you store 5 Library of Congress worth of data in your NAS.
If they had said furlong, that would be about right and gives enough coarseness to the measure to be effective. Unfortunately, with horseracing dying not many people are familiar with the measure any more.
This intuition works for any reasonable interpretation of "football field".
If we are talking about how far Voyager has traveled then you may have an interesting critique.
Are there any insurance riders that'd cover such an event, or would affected individuals be entirely at the mercy of gov't disaster relief contingencies / personal savings?
To my knowledge no one will insure that kind of damage, just general insurance for any buildings on the property.
But insurance is of course not really involved because the people living in these circumstances are typically not so well off. IIRC government relief is also not really much of a thing for those communities. They just rely on each other, knowing that by helping others in the community, they'll get help in return when they need it.
1: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/fdc126664613350e8448eed52c...
A lot of the infrastucture has been destroyed in the area, and 2,000 people are isolated due to roads being impassable. Fishing is one of the primary industries in the area, and many boats and coastal buildings were lost/damaged in the resulting tsunami. And with the coast having risen by up to 4m in some areas, there are ports which are no longer even accessible by boat.
Most of the people worst affected have been the elderly. More than 50% of the population in the area is over the age of 65. And older people are more likely to live in older homes that are more susceptible to damage in an earthquake. And there are reports of covid and the flu spreading at evacuation centers.
Over the past several years there has been an "earthquake swarm" in the area. Experts have speculated that it is due to water seeping into the earth's crust along with a subducting oceanic plate, causing swelling, weakening bedrock, and making faults more "slippery". [2] The Jan 1 earthquake occurred over a far wider area than previous quakes in the region, starting in the Suzu area and spreading to other active faults in the area. [3] Experts are advising that, while considerable stress has been released from this event, people should be on alert for more quakes in the future including the possibility of another magnitude 7+ quake.
[1] https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240108_02/
[2] https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14515789
[3] https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/2944/
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240102_27/
Extending the coastline by 250m is one thing, but having football fields appear just like that really is something.
I hope the energy released by the earthquake didn't result in the appearance of a bunch of Hiroshima bombs.