Re: Millihelen: a measurment previously unknown to me.
They seem to be lacking one classic (humorous and dirty) unit of thickness the RCH...that I learned about as a young puke working in a machine shop (hint a fine body hair that is finer on red heads).
It was funny to see the "smoot" unit of length. Back in the '60s when I lived in Boston and worked in Cambridge I would walk across the Harvard bridge often and saw the original length measurement painted on the walkway. Apparently the bridge is 364.4 Smoots long.
JR
Humor is indeed in the eye of the beholder. (Much like the fore mentioned beauty. Which to me makes the millihelen particularly funny.)
I would think the RCH was left off only because it is vulgar, and not humorous. To each his own. Maybe you should add it into the Wiki page.
(Has anyone here ever done a Wiki update/page/or correction?)
Hadn't heard of Smoot, but approve. All or most measurements do have a basis of arbitrary nature.
When visiting Paris one of the best museums we went to was Musée des Arts et Métiers.
Musée des Arts et Métiers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And the top floor was dedicated to weights and measures. And how they each started, and then had to be intertwined.
I was surprised there was not more about photography, as the French had a lot to do with the start of that, but was pleasantly surprised at the early sound measurements that were represented.
And no mention of the millihelen there either. The French of all people should have the female beauty quotient appraised.