Some Unusual Units

HURRICANES

Hurricanes are high powered tropical storms (also known as typhoons or cyclones) which occur at sea. In the northern hemisphere the winds blow anticlockwise. Hurricanes are measured in categories from 1-5 with 5 being the strongest.

In the North Atlantic, any tropical storm with winds over 38 mph is given a name chosen from a list in alpabetical order. Some of these develop to become hurricanes. (Q,U,X,Y and Z are not used, so if your name is Quentin or Zoe then you'll never get to wreak havoc in the Carribean.) Here are some of the planned names for different years:

2005 Arlene Bret Cindy Dennis Emily Franklin Gert Harvey Irene Jose Katrina Lee Maria Nate Ophelia Philippe Rita Stan Tammy Vince Wilma
2006 Alberto Beryl Chris Debby Ernesto Florence Gordon Helene Isaac Joyce Kirk Leslie Michael Nadine Oscar Patty Rafael Sandy Tony Valerie William
2007 Andrea Barry Chantal Dean Erin Felix Gabrielle Humberto Ingrid Jerry Karen Lorenzo Melissa Noel Olga Pablo Rebekah Sebastien Tanya Van Wendy
2008 Arthur Bertha Cristobal Dolly Edouard Fay Gustav Hanna Ike Josephine Kyle Laura Marco Nana Omar Paloma Rene Sally Teddy Vicky Wilfred
2009 Ana Bill Claudette Danny Erika Fred Grace Henri Ida Joaquin Kate Larry Mindy Nicholas Odette Peter Rose Sam Teresa Victor Wanda

CHILLI PEPPERS

The HOTTEST Chilli Sauce in the World! May 2005

In 1912 a German scientist, Wilbur Scoville, was the first person to measure the hotness of chillies. Originally he just did it by taste (and how sore they made his mouth) but now it's done with fancy food analysing machines.

Here's roughly how the scale works:

• Ordinary "peppers"
  Scoville rating: 0
• Jalapeno peppers (if you get a pizza with little bits of chopped chilli on it, these are usually Jalapeno - and for most people they taste too hot!)
  Scoville rating: about 5,000
• Scotch Bonnet (about the hottest thing you can buy in a very specialist shop)
  Scoville rating: between 80,000 and 300,000. ARGHH!
• Savina Habanero (a rare Mexican chilli)
  Scoville rating: about 550,000.

But beware! They have just discovered a chilli in Assam, northeast India called NAGA JOLOKIA. It is so hot it can cause heart attacks so only a mad person would try to eat it. Just to touch it you'd need to be wearing thick gloves! As for the Scoville rating... it's an awesome 855,500.

EARTHQUAKES

Earthquakes are measured on the Richter Scale which was invented by a Californian called Charles E Richter in 1935. (They get quite a few earthquakes and tremours in California.) The Richter Scale is logarithmic which means that if an earthquake is measured as 1 point bigger on the scale, it's 10 times more powerful. If it's 2 points bigger on the scale it's 100 times more powerful and so on. The very middle of an earthquake (where the vibrations are biggest) is called the epicentre.

RICHTER MAGNITUDE	WHAT THE EARTHQUAKE FEELS LIKE
Less than 2	You wouldn't notice it, but sensitive measuring machines (called seismometers) would pick it up.
2 - 3	You might feel a little shake as if a big lorry was going past.
3 - 4	It would give you a bit of a wobble and possibly bring down a few loose roof tiles.
4 - 5	This would wake you up and probably make some chimney pots fall down.
5 - 6	Badly built buildings near the epicentre could suffer a lot of damage.
6 - 7	Getting really nasty for anyone within 70 miles (100km) of the epicentre.
7 - 8	MAJOR EARTHQUAKE with massive damage to buildings within 150 miles (200km) of epicentre.
Over 8	GREAT EARTHQUAKE causing devastation for hundreds of miles.

PRIESTS!

A Murderous Maths fan just calling him/herself Macpherson suggests that the unit for measuring the holiness of a priest is a "Philigrahams". (It's a good joke for older people!)

BEAUTY (and SHIP LAUNCHABILITY)

Many thanks to Max from New Zealand who told us about the "MILLIHELEN". It's based on the fact that thousands of years ago the Trojan wars started when Paris, the prince of Troy stole the beautiful Helen from the Greeks. This caused the Greeks to send over a massive navy to get her back and hence Helen is said to have had "the face that launched a thousand ships". Therefore it's obvious that:

• 1 MILLIHELEN is a unit of beauty equal to the ability to launch one ship

This nicely leads to:

• 1 CENTIHELEN would launch 10 ships
• 1 DECIHELEN would launch 100 ships.

If you know of any more unusual units of measurement - real or just funny - please let us know! We'll put them on the site along with your name.

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