You wanted us to think?
Barometer joke
My friend once saw a question like this on his physics final: How would you use a barometer to find the height of a building.
1. Find someone who knows how tall the building is, and trade him the barometer for the information. Teacher rejects: not a property characteristic of the barometer
2. Measure the height of the barometer. Scale the side of the building, measuring its height in barometer-units. Rejected: uses no basic scientific principles
3. Drop the barometer from the top of the building. Measure the time until it hits the street. Correcting for the mass/surface ratio of the instrument, use basic acceleration equation to find the height. Rejected: barometer is no longer a barometer
4. Tie string to top of barometer. Lower from roof to almost ground. Swing. Period of pendulum can be used to find distance from barometer's Center of Gravity to top of building. Add displacement from CG to bottom of barometer; this is height. Rejected: does not incorporate barometer's intended function
5. Take the barometer outside on a sunny day, measure its shadow and the buildings shadow. Rejected: cloudy today
6. Sell the barometer. Purchase a tape measure long enough to measure the height of the building. Rejected: this is not a business course.
7. Give the barometer as a prize to the one who comes up with the most accurate measurement of the building's height. Rejected: you have to return the barometer after you finish.
8. Measure the barometric pressure at the top and bottom of the building. Plug these into the equation in the book and spit out the answer. Accepted: Finally, what the teacher wanted. Oh! You want that boring stuff from the beginning of the term! What is something this simple doing on the final? Anyone who doesn't know that has already dropped. I assumed you wanted us to think!
A Party Chief used a barometer to measure the height...
of a building. Why did he get fired?
Answer: because he was sleeping with the boss's wife.
OH HA HA HA!
> You all are missing my point.
> Who uses them for real?
> Handy to compute and arc-length - ok, I'll give you that.
>
> Next time one of you guys or gals has nothing better to do, take one of your plats wtih lots of bearings in DMS and convert the entire thing to be in radians. Take it to the county to file or give it to a knowledgeable client and see how that goes over. 🙂
> E.
didn't miss the point...I think you did. For geodetic computations, State Plane Coords, etc (anything that may not involve a trigonometric function in the equation/calculation), angular values (lat, long, whatever) are always required to be in (or converted to) radian measure.
yes, Excel requires radians but it is true the final answer is given in DMS.
> yes, Excel requires radians but it is true the final answer is given in DMS.
Its regardless of the software / hardware used, certain calculations require the dimensionless (scalar) quality of radians - there are no units to worry about cancelling out in calculations.
Yes, angular dimensions have inherent meaning in DMS units after comps.
A Party Chief used a barometer to measure the height...
Rimshot!