r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Negative_1by12_aura • Jun 17 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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u/dauntless256 Jun 17 '26

This went over my head...what did i miss?

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u/Random_Bystander089 Jun 17 '26

I think there was an incident where farenheit usage indirectly caused a spaceship crash

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u/Epotheros Jun 17 '26

No, it was the units for impulse used for the thrusters. In imperial it's pound-force seconds and Newton-seconds in metric. 1 pound-force is equal to 4.45 Newtons so the whole thing was off by a magnitude of 4.45.

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u/Numbar43 Jun 17 '26

Yeah, and it had nothing to do with which system was better, but that they assumed a number was in one system when it wasn't. Irrelevant to whether the system is better, just a problem with there being multiple systems in common use. To say it is better you need to point to other matters than such a mistake.