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Metric and Standard Measurement Systems - Contenido educativo

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Subido el 28 de mayo de 2007 por EducaMadrid

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NASA Connect Segment explaining the development of the US standard system of measurement and the metric system and how the two systems differ.

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How did the U.S. Standard System of Measurement develop? 00:00:00
How is the metric system devised? 00:00:08
How are the two systems different? 00:00:10
Let's begin our measurement journey by visiting the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport 00:00:13
News, Virginia. 00:00:17
People have been measuring things for thousands of years. 00:00:18
Hey, that's one thing we measure, time. 00:00:21
What are some of the other things we measure? 00:00:25
Temperature. 00:00:27
How high is it? 00:00:28
Volume. 00:00:29
How much space is in your garage? 00:00:30
Mass and weight. 00:00:31
How heavy is it? 00:00:32
Length. 00:00:33
How long is your street? 00:00:34
Get this. 00:00:42
The ancient Egyptians used their fingers, hands, and even arms to measure things. 00:00:43
There were no measuring tools like rulers back then. 00:00:47
The width of one finger was a digit, and the width of four fingers was a palm. 00:00:50
Here's another ancient Egyptian measurement. 00:00:54
Open your hand and spread out your fingers just like this. 00:00:57
The distance from the tip of your thumb to the end of your little pinky was called a 00:00:59
span. 00:01:04
The ancient Egyptians also created a measurement called the cubit. 00:01:05
If you bend your arm, the distance from the elbow to the tip of your middle finger was 00:01:09
a cubit. 00:01:13
In the ancient world, the cubit was the most popular way to measure length. 00:01:14
So you see, all these units of measurement were based on something familiar to ancient 00:01:18
people, body parts. 00:01:22
Of course, using your hand or elbow to measure a pyramid would take forever. 00:01:24
Not only that, it's not an accurate or exact measurement. 00:01:30
Here's why. 00:01:33
My friend Jimmy is taller than I am. 00:01:34
It takes four of my cubit arm lengths, but only three of his to measure my butt. 00:01:36
How can we get the same measurement if our arms are different lengths? 00:01:40
Good point. 00:01:44
In ancient Egypt, it was up to the pharaoh to decide how to make measurements standard, 00:01:45
or the same, for all situations. 00:01:49
So the standard cubit length was set by the length of the pharaoh's arm. 00:01:52
But even then, it could be pretty tough measuring a pyramid with a pharaoh under your arm. 00:01:56
As time went on, people created many ways to measure things. 00:02:01
Unfortunately, none of them were the same when it came to mathematics. 00:02:04
You see, scientists couldn't repeat each other's experiments because there was not an agreed-upon 00:02:07
standard of measurement. 00:02:12
Today, our world operates according to two different systems of measurement. 00:02:14
Here's some expert help. 00:02:18
In the U.S. standard system, the inch, foot, yard, and mile develop from traditional practices 00:02:20
of measurement dating back to ancient times. 00:02:27
One disadvantage of the U.S. standard system is the different size units often have no 00:02:30
simple relationship to each other. 00:02:36
For instance, there are 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1,760 yards, or 5,280 feet 00:02:38
in a mile. 00:02:51
Converting different units of measurement, like miles to inches, requires some math. 00:02:53
Here's an example. 00:02:57
It's about 431 miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco. 00:02:59
To convert these miles into inches, simply multiply the number of miles, 431, by the 00:03:03
number of feet in a mile, 5,280, by the number of inches in a foot, 12. 00:03:09
431 miles converts to 27,308,169 inches. 00:03:16
Whew! 00:03:22
Using the decimal system is a much easier way to measure and change units. 00:03:23
Because earlier systems of measuring units were so confusing, the decimal system was 00:03:30
devised. 00:03:35
This system is based on tens and multiples of tens. 00:03:36
Tenth numbers, or decimals, are easier to use than the U.S. standard system, which is 00:03:41
based on twelfths. 00:03:47
One advantage of the decimal system is the decimal point. 00:03:49
Depending upon where it is moved, whole numbers can become fractions or multiples of tens. 00:03:53
Thanks, Dr. Morgan. 00:04:00
We now know why there is a metric system of measurement. 00:04:03
Yep, and the metric system is based on the meter. 00:04:05
The original meter was not the length of someone's finger or arm. 00:04:09
Instead, it represented one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the 00:04:13
equator. 00:04:18
Hey, the meter is the most widely used measurement system for scientific work. 00:04:19
Using the metric system, we can easily convert units with some mental math. 00:04:25
For example, we know Los Angeles is approximately 600 kilometers from San Francisco. 00:04:29
Now if we want to know that same distance in meters, for example, all we have to do 00:04:35
is multiply by 1,000. 00:04:39
Why? 00:04:42
Because there's 1,000 meters in 1 kilometer. 00:04:43
Now you multiply 600 times 1,000 and you get 600,000 meters. 00:04:46
600 kilometers is the same as 600,000 meters. 00:04:52
The Egyptians would have appreciated the meter stick. 00:04:57
It's better than a pharaoh's arm. 00:05:00
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Idioma/s:
en
Materias:
Matemáticas
Niveles educativos:
▼ Mostrar / ocultar niveles
      • Nivel Intermedio
Autor/es:
NASA LaRC Office of Education
Subido por:
EducaMadrid
Licencia:
Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada
Visualizaciones:
2142
Fecha:
28 de mayo de 2007 - 16:53
Visibilidad:
Público
Enlace Relacionado:
NASAs center for distance learning
Relación de aspecto:
4:3 Hasta 2009 fue el estándar utilizado en la televisión PAL; muchas pantallas de ordenador y televisores usan este estándar, erróneamente llamado cuadrado, cuando en la realidad es rectangular o wide.
Resolución:
480x360 píxeles
Tamaño:
30.49 MBytes

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