T W A U ... The Chase....today's Gem.....

[ToraToraTora]

Q: What body in the solar system is just under 1.4million Kilometres across?

A: The Moon!

🤣

[1ozzy]

I'd hazard a guess you know where the sun shines from TTT, and it ain't Uranus 🤣

[1ozzy]

Although you may think it does🥱

[johnk]

So what is it smartbottom

[Mozz71]

It's the sun John, but against the clock in the studio is a lot harder than it is sat on your backside in front of the box. 

[bhg481]

The problem I have with questions like this is that I learned all my general knowledge facts in Imperial units; that means I have to start with a conversion from metric before I start thinking about the answer and, in a time-critical situation, could be too long even though I'm prety good at mental arithmetic.

[ToraToraTora]

BHG the word "million" should have told you all you need to know. The only think with a diameter measured in millions of Km is the sun.

[bhg481]

I automatically go for a conversion and then think about the question.

[Canary42]

I thought the moon looked a bit bigger than usual last night 😀

[davebro3]

were you converting to furlongs?😂

[douglas9401]

Remember when school jotters had various exotic sets of measurements on the back cover?

Roods, chains, avoirdupois etc.

Simpler times. 🤣

[bhg481]

I wonder how many people on here know the fuel consumption of their car in miles/litre, since we buy fuel in litres; even fewer in the continental system of litres/100km and fewer still in KWatts/mile for electric cars. If someone asks you to take them somewhere x miles away and they'll pay your fuel cost you'll have a litres to gallons conversion somewhere in a car using liquid fuel.

[ToraToraTora]

09:33 that's a much more complex calc than KM to miles and would never be a quick fire quiz question. I was educated at the cross over between metric and imperial and do both. We were taught simple rough conversions to get you in the ball park.

EG: for KM to miles just take 2 thirds, yes pedants not exact but it gets you in the ball park so 2/3 x 1.4 = 0.93 ( actual answer 0.86)

Then we had mnemonics "a litre of water is a pint and three quarter" .....

25mm = 1 inch etc etc

 

[bhg481]

Yes, here's always an approximate conversion. I use half km to miles when driving on the continent - it's near enough and simpler than 2/3. 3 ft to a metre etc is good enough for most purposes. It's just that you have to do the conversion which takes a small amount of time in a time-critical situation.

[davebro3]

I was driving in Germany and converting Km to Miles in my head but my co-pilot was doing it much more quickly - I realised he was looking at the 2 scales on the speedo!

[bhg481]

dave - not furlongs then?

Seriously though, when talking driving speeds you need to be a bit more accurate than a rough conversion if you want to avoid a fine.

[sandyRoe]

5 furlongs= 1km.

Do many people know that?

Km to miles, multiply by 5 then devide by 8.

Example 8km X 5=40/8=5miles.

[ToraToraTora]

well 1 mile is 1.6k so from that we can do 1600/8 = 200m to a furlong actually 1609 is a mile so it's 201 ish

....so a chain is 20m ...tada!

[perseverer]

Back to the OP. Given that Jupiter is constantly referred to as a giant planet, it would have been a plausible guess. In fact it is about 1/10 the diameter of the sun.