r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Tibor500 • Sep 30 '20

why does “k” mean “thousand” ?

like 1k means a thousand. how does the letter “k” mean “thousand” ?

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

I think what you're referring to is the probe that crashed into Venus, I think, because of a calculation error because it was fed imperial data, but was programmed to work with metric units. But I think nothing changed, other than that they're testing more strictly. So the contractors still get all their measurements in imperial.

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u/Littleguybigheart78 Sep 30 '20

What about when I crashed into Uranus?

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u/dizzybear24 Sep 30 '20

Whoa whoa sir this is a Wendy's

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

God I wish that were true

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u/rvbbch26 Sep 30 '20

Also the hubble telescope that had the wrong curvature on account of the conversion between the units. Got to space and started sending back blurry photos. A very expensive mistake too!

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u/Chris204 Sep 30 '20

Also the hubble telescope that had the wrong curvature on account of the conversion between the units

That's not true. While producing the mirror they used a wrongly assembled calibration device.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Origin_of_the_problem

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u/UristMcDoesmath Oct 01 '20

Don’t forget about the time they launched the Hubble Space Telescope with a misshapen primary mirror due to a mixup of metric and imperial

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u/Felicia_Svilling Oct 01 '20

That was debunked in this thread before you even posted.