spitfires
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: MPH vs. RPM, Spitfire 1500

To: spitfires@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: MPH vs. RPM, Spitfire 1500
From: Michael Hargreave Mawson <OC@46thFoot.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 09:12:56 +0000
In article <200112181854.NAA26392@chelseamsl.com>, Donald H Locker 
<dhl@chelseamsl.com> writes
>Two notes:  Roman Legionaires had regular legs -- a pace is two steps
>(left foot to left foot) so each step was 0.8 yards long.

Ah, very *short* legs!

>  The
>calibration procedure involved using a lot of soldiers and taking the
>average pace as the official pace.  In any measurement, the error is
>reduced by a factor of the square root of the number of inidividual
>measurements made -- 100 soldiers reduces the error to 10% of the
>error of using one soldier.  And Rome had plenty of soldiers to work
>into their average.

Many thanks for a serious answer to a facetious question.

ATB

-- 
Mike
Michael Hargreave Mawson, author of "Eyewitness in the Crimea"
http://www.greenhillbooks.com/booksheets/eyewitness_in_the_crimea.html

///  spitfires@autox.team.net mailing list
///  or try  http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>