Olympic rifle stories didn’t measure up

Not knowing the details of Olympic shooting events, I was wondering about an Aug. 4 story on Eric Uptagrafft’s rifle competition.

The event apparently required him to “hit a 10.4-mm diameter target from 50 meters away …” But an Aug. 5 story on Amanda Furrer’s rifle competition describes how “she hit the 10.4-centimeter target …” 

  Reading those two stories, I thought of how my EWU students like to anchor their estimations of measurements to familiar objects.

For example, a typical button on a men’s dress shirt is about 12 mm in diameter, and a dime is more than 15 mm: Both objects are larger than the 10.4-mm diameter target described in Uptagrafft’s rifle competition. And a DVD is about 12 cm in diameter, larger than the 10.4-cm diameter target described in Furrer’s rifle competition. So, which makes more sense to use as a target from 50 meters away, 10.4 mm or 10.4 cm? 

  Rather than think of these events as having different-sized targets, I think instead that The Spokesman-Review can carefully consider the importance of units when reporting stories involving measurement.

Units matter.

 But thanks also for the continued Olympics coverage, especially on the Olympians with local connections.

Dan Canada

Cheney