On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 03:18:46 GMT, "Stephen B."
wrote:

"Doug Miller" wrote
In article , T
wrote:
In article ,
says...

I suppose you know a light year is NOT an amount of time.

Right, it's a distance and it is metric.

Half right. It *is* a distance. It is *not* a metric measure.

Last I knew, light traveled at approximately 3x10^8 m/sec.

A year is roughly 31,536,000 seconds. So light travels
9,460,800,000,000,000 m/year. Simplified, 9.5x10^15

That doesn't make a light-year a metric measure any more than the fact
that
light travels approximately 5.88x10^12 miles in a year makes a light-year
an
imperial measure.

I would say a light-year is an astronomical unit, and not a metric or
imperial unit.

For the willingly confused, there is another unit of distance called
an "astronomical unit".

Just like a dollar is not a Franc or a yen.



Some people would argue that the above is wrong, and would seem to
believe that saying "a dollar is not a peso" is proof of that :-)

BTW, apples aren't oranges, but both are fruit.
--
44 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"God was invented by man for a reason, that
reason is no longer applicable."