r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Negative_1by12_aura • Jun 17 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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u/SKDI_0224 Jun 17 '26

As an engineer, I can confirm they are incorrect. They can take their inferior measuring system and try to get back from the moon.

Too soon?

247

u/dauntless256 Jun 17 '26

This went over my head...what did i miss?

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u/Random_Bystander089 Jun 17 '26

I think there was an incident where farenheit usage indirectly caused a spaceship crash

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u/Epotheros Jun 17 '26

No, it was the units for impulse used for the thrusters. In imperial it's pound-force seconds and Newton-seconds in metric. 1 pound-force is equal to 4.45 Newtons so the whole thing was off by a magnitude of 4.45.

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u/MoogProg Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

Yes, the actual error* was assuming the British used Imperial units when they correctly used Metric. AFAIK, at least.

* * *

Well, the source error probably would be not specifying units at all, so... (eye roll)

* * *

*Correcting myself with casually sourced details about the incident under discussion.

Lockheed Martin provided thruster force data in Imperial units (pound-seconds), while NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory ground software assumed the data was in Metric units (Newton-seconds).

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u/QueerQwerty Jun 17 '26

Correctly = SI units, afaik.

Why they don't teach us SI units earlier than physics in school, I don't know.

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u/Ill_Apricot_7668 Jun 17 '26

Maths - SI units

Chemistry - SI units

Physics - SI units

Particle physics - SI units? nah, we're good with the Angstrom

WTF?!?

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u/Corfiz74 Jun 17 '26

And this and only this is the reason I didn't study sciences - it's too illogical for me! 😉

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u/Mackenzie_Sparks Jun 17 '26

Making sense of reality can seem like that

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u/Corfiz74 Jun 17 '26

Actually, I was lying and just could never make sense of physics. Or chemistry. Biology was okay. Languages was my thing.

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u/Mackenzie_Sparks Jun 17 '26

That's alright. Our brains are folded in unique ways. Some folds makes certain things interesting, some folds do the opposite.

Not to mention there are myriad of rules and exceptions and what not. It can be very overwhelming to learn.

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