When you think of a unit of length, do you think of Antony Gormley's rusty anatomy?
(2021/12/03)
- Reference: 1638523812
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/12/03/asteroid_measurement_angel_north_oddity/
- Source link:
A local rag in Britain has gone wildly off-piste by measuring the size of an asteroid swinging by the Earth using units of measure derived from a rusting statue.
The Newcastle Chronicle, a newspaper for inhabitants of the northeastern city in England, published an [1]article in November about how "a giant 430ft [131m] asteroid is hurtling towards Earth's orbital path." (Spoiler alert – 1994 WR 12 [2]was estimated to have missed our planet by 6.1 million kilometres on Monday night and had been removed from the [3]Sentry Risk Table in 2016. )
All well and good. But then the Chronicle added that the 430ft space rock is "seven times the height of the Angel of the North."
[4]
"I hope this helps clear up something, to someone, somewhere, one day," said Reg reader Karl who forwarded this to us for our perusal.
[5]
[6]
The Angel of the North is a piece of modern art made by Antony Gormley and located on a delightful hilltop beside the A1 that overlooks a major road interchange and a railway depot. It is a humanoid figure (apparently modelled on Gormley himself) with two damn great steel sails in place of arms. As part of the sculpture, the steel it is made from is unpainted: thus it is rusted.
[7]
The Angel of the North, Gateshead, is a steel sculpture by Antony Gormley
"It has a wingspan greater than a Boeing 757 and is able to withstand winds of over 100mph in its exposed hilltop location," [8]said civil engineering company Arup, which built the thing to Gormley's specification.
It stands 66 feet (20m) high and has a wingspan of 177 feet (54m).
[9]The unit of measure for fatbergs is not hippopotami, even if the operator of an Australian sewer says so
[10]Gummy bears as a unit of measure? The Reg Standards Soviet will not stand for this sort of silliness
[11]One does not simply shove elephants on a ballet shoe point and call it an acceptable measure of pressure
[12]UK national debt hits 1.46 Apples – and weighs as much as 2 billion adult badgers
[13]Upstart Americans brandish alligators at the almighty Reg Standards Soviet
[14]China launches aircraft carrier the length of 13.6 brontosauruses
Of course, these are non-standard units. The [15]Register Standards Soviet decreed back in the mists of time that length is to be measured in the approved unit of linguine, brontosauruses, double-decker buses or Devon fatbergs; thus we must correctly describe the rusty steel Gormley as measuring just under six [16]double-decker buses , meaning it's over two-and-a-half [17]standardised brontosauruses high.
But what of the asteroid, which according to NASA will be back for an even closer (1.6 million km) and similarly uneventful encounter in 2046? We're told it's 430ft high, which [18]in proper units is 936.2073 linguine, or [19]two Devon fatbergs if you're struggling with that visualisation.
Tempting as it is to think of Antony Gormley's oxidised metal anatomy every time we want to consider a unit of length, the Standards Soviet will be rejecting this particular measurement as being incorrect. ®
Get our [20]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/uk-news/asteroid-22301173
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_WR12
[3] https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/removed.html
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yan43hHrsWaBiRgQUvUqJwAAAIc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yan43hHrsWaBiRgQUvUqJwAAAIc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yan43hHrsWaBiRgQUvUqJwAAAIc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/12/01/shutterstock_angel_of_the_north.jpg
[8] https://www.arup.com/projects/the-angel-of-the-north
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/02/sewer_hippo_outrage/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/12/gummy_bear_outrage/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/20/elephant_ballet_shoe_pressure_oddity/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/21/uk_national_debt_2_trillion/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/09/socially_distancing_alligators/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2017/04/27/china_aircraft_carrier/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2019/01/08/reg_standards_bureau_introduces_the_devon_fatberg/
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The Newcastle Chronicle, a newspaper for inhabitants of the northeastern city in England, published an [1]article in November about how "a giant 430ft [131m] asteroid is hurtling towards Earth's orbital path." (Spoiler alert – 1994 WR 12 [2]was estimated to have missed our planet by 6.1 million kilometres on Monday night and had been removed from the [3]Sentry Risk Table in 2016. )
All well and good. But then the Chronicle added that the 430ft space rock is "seven times the height of the Angel of the North."
[4]
"I hope this helps clear up something, to someone, somewhere, one day," said Reg reader Karl who forwarded this to us for our perusal.
[5]
[6]
The Angel of the North is a piece of modern art made by Antony Gormley and located on a delightful hilltop beside the A1 that overlooks a major road interchange and a railway depot. It is a humanoid figure (apparently modelled on Gormley himself) with two damn great steel sails in place of arms. As part of the sculpture, the steel it is made from is unpainted: thus it is rusted.
[7]
The Angel of the North, Gateshead, is a steel sculpture by Antony Gormley
"It has a wingspan greater than a Boeing 757 and is able to withstand winds of over 100mph in its exposed hilltop location," [8]said civil engineering company Arup, which built the thing to Gormley's specification.
It stands 66 feet (20m) high and has a wingspan of 177 feet (54m).
[9]The unit of measure for fatbergs is not hippopotami, even if the operator of an Australian sewer says so
[10]Gummy bears as a unit of measure? The Reg Standards Soviet will not stand for this sort of silliness
[11]One does not simply shove elephants on a ballet shoe point and call it an acceptable measure of pressure
[12]UK national debt hits 1.46 Apples – and weighs as much as 2 billion adult badgers
[13]Upstart Americans brandish alligators at the almighty Reg Standards Soviet
[14]China launches aircraft carrier the length of 13.6 brontosauruses
Of course, these are non-standard units. The [15]Register Standards Soviet decreed back in the mists of time that length is to be measured in the approved unit of linguine, brontosauruses, double-decker buses or Devon fatbergs; thus we must correctly describe the rusty steel Gormley as measuring just under six [16]double-decker buses , meaning it's over two-and-a-half [17]standardised brontosauruses high.
But what of the asteroid, which according to NASA will be back for an even closer (1.6 million km) and similarly uneventful encounter in 2046? We're told it's 430ft high, which [18]in proper units is 936.2073 linguine, or [19]two Devon fatbergs if you're struggling with that visualisation.
Tempting as it is to think of Antony Gormley's oxidised metal anatomy every time we want to consider a unit of length, the Standards Soviet will be rejecting this particular measurement as being incorrect. ®
Get our [20]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/uk-news/asteroid-22301173
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_WR12
[3] https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/removed.html
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yan43hHrsWaBiRgQUvUqJwAAAIc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yan43hHrsWaBiRgQUvUqJwAAAIc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yan43hHrsWaBiRgQUvUqJwAAAIc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/12/01/shutterstock_angel_of_the_north.jpg
[8] https://www.arup.com/projects/the-angel-of-the-north
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/02/sewer_hippo_outrage/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/12/gummy_bear_outrage/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/20/elephant_ballet_shoe_pressure_oddity/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/21/uk_national_debt_2_trillion/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/09/socially_distancing_alligators/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2017/04/27/china_aircraft_carrier/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2019/01/08/reg_standards_bureau_introduces_the_devon_fatberg/
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Angel of the North, Rusty? not really...
Goat Boy
"Its still an invalid unit of length though!"
Agreed but doubly so when using the height as the unit when its most prominet feature is the mahoosive wingspan*
* Any chance we can use the Phelps for future wingspan measurements please? ta.
Rust Anatomy
GlenP
If you really want to see Mr Gormley's rusty anatomy you need to visit Another Place on Crosby Beach. There are 100 life size copies there, referred to by a local friend as The Nekkid Men!
Re: Rust Anatomy
Anonymous Coward
Begs the obvious question... how big is his linguine?
And, the bonus question, The Angel Of The North's linguine?
Angel of the North, Rusty? not really...
Its made from COR-TEN Steel.
which Wiki describes thusly: "Weathering steel, often referred to by the genericised trademark COR-TEN steel and sometimes written without the hyphen as corten steel, is a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting, and form a stable rust-like appearance after several years' exposure to weather."
Its still an invalid unit of length though!