IT HAD to happen. A journalist at CBS News, reporting a school of blue whales putting on a show off Southern California, felt the need to give inland readers and viewers a feel for just how large a blue whale is. Did they start by using the traditional unit for large objects and realise that 鈥渁bout as large as a blue whale鈥� just wouldn鈥檛 do? Whatever, they 鈥渟tretching the length of a basketball court and weighing as much as eight airplanes鈥�.
鈥淚KEA鈥檚 response to an email John Poyner sent regarding one of the store鈥檚 products was: 鈥淲e will respond to your query within 24 hours if not sooner鈥�
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How big would those airplanes be, then? Colin MacLeod, who alerted us to this, wonders whether he鈥檚 found an answer in some online notes by teacher Mr Hand, in the town of Mansfield, Connecticut, at 鈥� which ask: 鈥淗ow can an airplane as heavy as three blue whales get off the ground?鈥� This seems, says Colin, 鈥渓ike a nice bit of recursive comparative unit definition鈥�.
But, as so often with recursion, there is a problem. If, as Colin notes, 鈥渁 blue whale weighs as much as eight aeroplanes, and one aeroplane weighs three blue whales, in standard blue whale units the 8 aeroplanes would weigh 24 blue whales, which would weigh 192 aeroplanes, which would weigh 576 blue whales, which would weigh 4608 aeroplanes, which is approaching the total biomass of all the blue whales currently living on the planet.鈥�
We鈥檙e still not very clear about where that escalating conversion starts, though. Colin looked up the world鈥檚 lightest aeroplane, the 105-kilogram . A standard blue whale would surely weigh more than eight of these. But perhaps Mr Hand was talking about a Boeing 747-400? Our own research reveals that one of these can weigh 412 tonnes when it takes off 鈥� but only about 180 tonnes when landing empty. Where does that leave the blue whale comparison? Come to that, have the blue whales in question had breakfast?
READER John Cook sends a copy of an 18 September BBC news story which, he says, is 鈥渁 case for the attention of the Society for Promotion of Numerate Proofreading鈥� (Feedback New 杏吧原创, 6 August).
The story announces that Rital and Ritag Bagoura, twin girls who were born joined at the head, had been successfully separated by a team of British doctors.
鈥淥nly 1 in 10 million sufferers survive their rare condition,鈥� the article informs us, a figure that John finds highly dubious. 鈥淗ow many pairs of conjoined twins would be needed to allow such an estimate,鈥� he asks? 鈥淚 doubt if there have been anywhere near the numbers needed to provide a reliable estimate of 1 in 10 million survival.鈥�
Here is the earthquake forecast
FOLLOWING our note about a forecast that the windy city of Edinburgh would experience a temperature that 鈥渇eels like鈥� -223 掳C (10 September), Chlo毛 Dear sent us more Metcheck forecasts for the region. One shows a predicted wind speed of 263 miles (423 kilometres) per hour.
Chlo毛 reports going to Edinburgh鈥檚 Leith Links area to run an outdoor festival there and 鈥済etting nervous emails from crew who follow Metcheck 鈥� I just told everyone to be prepared for whatever the weather.鈥�
What more calamities could wreck their festival? We notice that one of the forecasts she sends bears the legend 鈥淎SL: 2m鈥�. Assuming this is referring to metres above sea level, we think that seems a bit low. Her Majesty鈥檚 Ordnance Survey agrees with us, telling us that on Leith Links is 7 metres above sea level, a difference of 5 metres. Should the crew prepare for earthquakes, too?
Predictive competition results
THE New Zealand Society of Authors published this message back on 22 July: 鈥淓ntries for the 9th Landfall Essay Competition (2011) will be accepted from 1 May 2011. The closing date for receipt of entries is 5 pm 31 July 2011. The winning entries will be published in the November 2010 issue of Landfall.鈥�
John Henderson says he had intended to write an entry, despite the short lead time remaining. However, on checking the November 2010 issue he found he hadn鈥檛 won, so he didn鈥檛 bother.
He wondered what the outcome would have been if all the society鈥檚 members had checked first. Would the winner, on finding their entry published, then set to and write it? Given that there is no free will, John says, he supposes they would have to.
FINALLY, the Association of British Science Writers wants to expand the number of entries for its journalism awards, so it has sent out this plea to all its contacts: 鈥淗ave you seen a great TV programme, heard an outstanding podcast, or read a stunning article in 2012? If so then do let us know about it.鈥�
Feedback thinks: yes, they probably would want to know about something like that.