Tuesday, 20 November, 2001
A Gram of Water = "A Drop"?
Grrrr...journalists. In a segment on NPR today talking about how many calories are in your average Thanksgiving meal, the reporter defined a calorie as "the amount of energy required to heat one gram of water (about a droplet) one degree Celsius." Huh? A droplet? That's some heavy water. A gram of water is more like a thimble full. You don't see thimbles very often these days. What is the modern equivalent of yesteryear's "a thimble full"?