Re: Loc.khe.ed's wonderful Martian blooper

Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Sat, 02 Oct 1999 08:15:35 -0700

Damien Broderick wrote:

> Hey Spike, I'm glad your guys are ready to save the land of the free from
> incoming nukes. Just remind them to check that they're calibrating
> distances in newfangled metric OR classic imperial, not both. :(

One other thing: the nukes use units that are neither metric nor classical imperical: nautical miles. A nautical mile is one minute of arc on the earth's surface, which is very useful for these sorts of calculations. spike