I 'm starting with gallon both because it's a defined measurement, but also because I don't have the info for larger measures on hand.

A gallon is legally defined as 231 cubic inches.

1 gallon = 2 pottles = 128 fluid ounces
1 pottle = 2 quarts = 64 fluid ounces
1 quart = 2 pints = 32 fluid ounces
1 pint = 2 cups =16 fluid ounces
1 cup = 2 gills = 8 fluid ( Read more... )

There are a bunch of units based on the human body.

Finger: width of a finger, used for drinks mostly these days
Thumb: length of last joint of the thumb. about an inch
Hand: used for height of horses. 4 inches
Span: distance from tip of thumb to tip of little finger with them spread as far apart as possible. about 6 inches
Foot: length of foot
Cubit: ( Read more... )

I know some of you have heard mention of fun chemicals like chlorine trifluoride (ClF3) and dioxygen diflouride (FOOF).

Well, here are a few more

Chlorine pentafluoride (ClF5)
surprisingly, this is *less* reactive than ClF3. Thought to be because the fluorine atoms are packed tightly enough to interfere with each other when it comes to reacting with ( Read more... )

Back in the late 60s a local bank was giving away key chains. Pretty ordinary with a big "gold" oval fob with the banks logo on it (It may have been Lincoln Savings & Loan).

I happened to discover something interesting about the fob. It was *para*magnetic. That is, it was attracted by magnets, but only weakly. Very strange.

Whatever the fob was made ( Read more... )

For some reason a variation on the old Pillsbury jingle keeps popping up in my head.

At first it was just:

Nothing says lovin'
like something from the coven
and [blank] says best

The blank was irritating and finally I came up with "Avesbury" to fit the rhyme.

Now, mind you most of the fictional references to Avesbury that I've encountered were in ( Read more... )

Attention:
( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Ok, they finally quit letting me grab things about 3 pm on Monday. Got most of the stuff I wanted, I think ( Read more... )

I wound up with a bag of spice drops from the food pantry the other day ( Read more... )

This is likely not anything new to the math geeks, but I thought it might be of interest to the rest of you ( Read more... )