Talk:Furlong

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

News This page has been cited as a source by a media organization. The citation is in:


Contents

[edit] Trivia

I am not convinced that this trivia of furlong per fortnight is often misquoted, as I have, as far as I recall, never heard it quoted at all. It debases Wikipedia to have such a prominent bit of trivia - these silly examples may be accurate, but they are not useful or relevant. The point is made.

I suggest that it be severely trimmed down, leaving silly examples to the reader's imagination.

Spenny


      • Not everything needs to be useful or relevant, Spenny, lighten up! I enjoyed it.

- CharlieTuna

My first exposure to this was around 25 years ago in a Unix fortune cookie (a small program that displays a pithy or witty saying often run as part of the login process on Unix systems). As I recall it stated: "Data will always be expressed in the least useful units. For instance, speed will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight".

SurrealPenguin (talk) 08:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Furlongs per Fortnight - Minute hand speed

I particularly liked the reference to a furlong per fortnight, since that was actually the reason I was looking up the exact distance of a furlong. I've heard this phrase a number of times, being an engineer myself, and wanted to know how to post the speed limit on a highway properly in the appropriately unintelligible units :-D...

Also - I noticed the following section:

"one furlong per fortnight is 0.166 millimetres per second, which would be barely noticeable to the naked eye (the tip of an hour hand on a clock, measuring 3.75 feet in length, travels at about 1 furlong per fortnight — as does the tip of a second hand 1/16 of an inch in length)."

Missed a much more reasonable reference of the tip of a minute hand, 3.75 inches in length!

-KevinM

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.104.245.6 (talk) 06:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

I have heard F/F quoted. Never misquoted, though. Does the author have a reason why it is "misquoted"? Irrelevant or useless is fine. Simultaneously prescriptive, though?Still A Student 01:47, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I have never seen it misquoted, so I'm removing that. --Psm 18:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] F/F silliness

My first, and only, exposure to Furlongs/Fortnight was in a humorous short essay about engineers. It stated that engineers would always provide data in a form conveying the least meaning. E.g. velocity measured in furlongs per fortnight.

I don't believe there is anything inherently wrong with including the lighter side of a topic in an encyclopedia. In fact, the term 'encyclopedia' almost demands that all aspects be considered.

Knowledge that brings a smile is still knowledge.

Regards,

Phlogiston Warrior

I would like to see two examples add to the F/F entry to add some relevancy to the unit, as the ones described there demonstrate why it's irrelevant now. The two examples I would include would be human march speed and speed of travel by horse, as I'm pretty sure that these speeds figured in F/F would've been handy to merchants, couriers, and military commanders back in the Middle Ages (in fact, I came here from fortnight following a link from the Battle of Stamford Bridge, which King Harold fought a full fortnight before racing to fight the Battle of Hastings.)--YoungFreud 20:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
"F/F" is not a practical unit for expressing marching speeds, or travel speed for horses. It's too small a unit. Snails travel at approximately six furlongs per fortnight, which is basically one millimeter per second--it's not a rate, it's a punchline. People march at a rate of approximately 24 furlongs (three miles) per hour, or about 8000 furlongs per fortnight. It's pointless to choose these units to express marching rates, because nobody would march continuously for a fortnight. That's why it's a joke. Silarius 22:28, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bible References

I removed the following text from the Trivia section:

In the [[Bible|biblical]] book of Revelation (Ch 21:16), the King James version of the New Testament describes the Holy City of New Jerusalem as being 12,000 furlongs cubed. This works out to be almost 23½ cubic miles, 100 km³, or the volume of a single structure over four times the height of the [[Empire State Building]] covering the entire island of [[Manhattan]]

In case y'all think that was wrong, put it back. I'm removing it for several reasons, but primarily because the Bible reference in question is, indeed, from the King James version where "furlong" replaced the actual unit (the Greek stadion). (Source: New American Bible.) But also because this "trivia" has nothing to do with the concept of furlong (or stadion) at all.

[edit] prime number 11?

I'm totally stumped as to what this parenthetical comment has to do with the furlong. Someone's going to have to patiently explain it and not expect the meaning to immediately jump out at the reader (at least this reader). --209.7.195.158 16:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The prime number 11 comes from the reference to the rod, which is 11/2 yards. The least common multiple of this with the roman 1000 passus (5 feet each) made it reasonable to redefine a mile to a number that was a multiple of 11 - 5280 feet is 320 rods. -KevinM

The question then becomes: why is a rod eleven half-yards? Urhixidur 12:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

A Rod (unit) is 16.5 feet. This is 5.5 yards. A rod length is not derived from yards but from furlongs and chains, of which it is a convenient submultiple. A rod is also sometimes called a pole, and my dad told me of actually measuring off land by flipping off a 16.5 foot pole end over end while walking the boundaries of a rented field, to be sure it was the size described. An acre is the equivalent of 4 poles by 40 poles, or 1 chain by 4 chains, if I remember correctly. A farmer might not own a Gunter's chain, but he probably had lots of poles handy. I do not see why any mention of 11 being a prime number belongs in the article because of this. Edison 21:28, 23 May 2007 (UTC)