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From: Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de>
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: OT: Converting miles/km
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2024 23:12:52 -0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <slrnvepbvk.tfc.naddy@lorvorc.mips.inka.de>
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I'm sorry, I don't know where to post this.  I'm crossposting to
alt.usage.english, because statute miles as a unit mostly afflict
the English-speaking world.

So you want to convert between miles and kilometers.  The conversion
factor is... uh...  A 40-year-old calculator book provides a useful
tip:  Unless you're designing a space probe, you can use ln(5).

WHAT?

Yes, the natural logrithm of 5 approximates the conversion factor
between miles and kilometers; specifically one mile is about ln(5)
kilometers.  It's accurate to four digits.

If nothing else, it's faster to type on a calculator.

I think that's hysterical.

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de