I looked and looked for a catagory to post this question.

If a coffee table measures in width 124cm, in depth 61cm, and in height 40cm, can anyone tell me how this is measured in inches?

I'm not familiar with cm measurements.

124 cm = 48.82 inches
61 cm = 24.02 inches
40 cm = 15.75 inches

Around 4 feet by 2 feet by 16 inches high. These are rounded off, of course, but should be close enough for what you need!

May I suggest as a resource: onlineconversion.com

That's a great site, Fuse!
I'm always trying to figure out temperatures and mileage.
For a while, bank signs had the temps in both Celsius and Fahrenheit, and roadway distance markers were in both miles and kilometers.
But I guess The Good Ol' Boys won out over The Powers That Be...

Thanks a million, Fuse. I'm glad I asked because 48 inches is bigger than I want. The rest is fine though. I'm trying to find a table online. Thanks for the link, too.

Risky things these inches. Here, to accommodate American bidders, major auction houses give dimensions in both inches (never feet) and centimetres (never metres). We would use metric normally.

Guess which idiot on AP once bought a picture, over the phone, at auction which was two and a half times the size in both height and width than he expected? Well, how was I to know the first figure in the catalogue was inches? I , innocently, went to fetch the picture in a taxi and hang it in an alcove. I ended up hiring a shipper with a truck but sort of saved some money; I didn't have to redecorate the dining room wall that year (the picture covered it nicely )

quote:

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Originally posted by FredPuli:
Risky things these inches. Here, to accommodate American bidders, major auction houses give dimensions in both inches (never feet) and centimetres (never metres). We would use metric normally.

Guess which idiot on AP once bought a picture, over the phone, at auction which was two and a half times the size in both height and width than he expected? Well, how was I to know the first figure in the catalogue was _inches_? I , innocently, went to fetch the picture in a _taxi_ and hang it in an alcove. I ended up hiring a shipper with a truck but sort of saved some money; I didn't have to redecorate the dining room wall that year (the picture covered it nicely )

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My all time favorite conversion error was by the flight engineer of an Air Canada flight who ordered 10,000 gallons of fuel in the US for his return flight to Canada.

Nearly home, the cockpit crew felt the fuel gauges were a little low, and decided to land early.

10,000 US gallons is not equal to 10,000 imperial gallons. Only 8,000, actually.

Alan Moore

Of course now that I've mentioned that one, a couple of other good ones come to mind. A recent Mars probe was lost because my employer's software failed to provide it's output in metric units (as required by their contract with NASA).

Some years before, in an aiming and sensing experiment, a satellite was going to look for a light shined upward at it through a telescope on Mauna Loa. Although everything seemed to be working normally, no light was detected. Only when all of the inputs were carefully analyzed was it realized that the telescope on Mauna Loa is 56,000 _feet_ above seal level. Not 56,000 nautical miles.

AM

Alan, just how big is that telescope? Mauna Loa is 13,680' (4,170m) above sea level.

Mauna Loa's height, when measured from its base to its summit, is 56,000 feet. The base, of course, is well below sea level!

DG's numbers are correct for the part above sea level.

Now, can someone explain to me why the difference between the two - 42,320 feet - exceeds the deepest known point in the ocean?

Encyclopedic resource for Mauna Loa

My guess(es)

Guess 1 - The mass of such a large mountain has depressed the sea floor about 25,000 feet. (I have read that Mauna Loa is actually just a bit taller than Everest, so I subtracted 31,000 feet from the 56,000 figure.) Fill from the ocean bed, carried by currents and 'rivers' at that depth, has brought the ocean floor level up to about what the rest of the area is, thus making the depth of the ocean there much less than the Marianas Trench (36,000 feet).

Guess 2 - Mauna Loa used steroids to gain that size, and the National Geographic Society disqualified it from the competition.

According to this site DG is correct. http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/maunaloa.html. The interesting part is that Mauna Loa is still growing. However, Mauna Kea is taller than Mauna Loa although not as massive (13,792 ft ASL). Also, there is no observatory on Mauna Loa that I am aware of (other than atmospheric) but there is one on Mauna Kea. http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/mko/maunakea.htm. I have been fortunate to be on the summit of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea her twin sister a couple of times. Together they make up the island of Hawai'i aka "The Big Island". One of the coolest things I ever got to do was snow ski on Mauna Kea and then water ski in Kona on the same day.

"According to this site DG is correct." - Kwll

So it was the steroids !

I think Mauna Loa is among Hawaii's largest consumers of Spam.

A Spam sacrifice? That's one I'm willing to make.

DG, I thought my pointing out that you were right about the steroids would be redundant.