For your consideration: a new SI unit

OK, let’s say I weigh 220 lbs.  I don’t, but it makes the calculations easier.  Engineers are kinda like physics students sometimes.  Let’s further assume that my mean body density is equal to that of water - again, an approximation. If I thus weigh 100 kg then I have a total volume of 100 liters, or about 0.1 cubic meter, or about 100,000 cc’s of pure, unadulterated Rob.  And some butter.  Now, let’s go a bit off-track.
About how much volume does my pinky finger occupy?

Wow, it just got quiet in here.

Well, I’m comfortable with the approximation that my right pinky finger is about 1 square centimeter in cross-section and about six centimeters long, totaling about six cubic centimeters. It’s not the size that matters, anyway. Trust me.  So, anyway, I have a total body volume of 100,000 cc’s and a right pinky finger of 6 cubic centimeters’ displacement. That pinky finger occupies, therefore, approximately 1 / 16,666th of my total volume.  If one were to say that I had a certain amount of something (virility, intelligence, charisma, etc) in my pinky, it would be implied that my entire body carried about 16,667 times that much of that stuff (e.g., butter). Hm.

Now, let’s go one step further down the path of ridiculosity.  What if we needed a standard unit of mojo?  We would logically equate it to the amount of mojo in a normal human male, similar to the way in which a unit of power is referred to as “horsepower (hp)” and is intended to be on the order of the amount of power that could be generated by the average horse, presumably so as to give the average cultured gentleman a way to innately understand that amount of power in a way that the dry sobriquet “watts (w)” does not convey; after all, who knows how well the esteemed James Watt after whom the aforementioned unit is named could deliver the goods in terms of pulling plows, hauling cotton, or accelerating one’s own bulk around an oval track whilst carrying (CARRYING!) a human rider?  Certainly not I.  So, let us assume that the average human male has about one such unit of mojo.  What shall we name it?  The “dude (du)”?  Tigger, please. No, like the Tesla, you name it after he who is most closely associated with the referenced unit - Austin Powers.  I hereby respectfully submit that the unit of “mojo” should henceforth be known as the “Austin (Au)”.

It is clear that inasmuch as Austin Powers has as much mojo in his little finger as the average man ‘as in his entire body, we can also say quite accurately that the “Austin” is the amount of mojo in Austin Powers’ pinky finger.  This gives us a very accurate standard reference, much as time is referenced to wavelengths of light (or vice versa) and {insert standard political jab here} (or Vice President - har, har, har!)

Note also that it can be predicted that the total amount of Austin Powers’ mojó is about 16,667 kAu, but actual field experiments continue to return exact measurements of 16,969 kAu.  Yeah, baby!

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One Comment on "For your consideration: a new SI unit"

  1. Rob
    Amy
    28/08/2009 at 3:12 am Permalink

    do the “Butter Dance” an Amy Bark TM

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