Forum:Size and length

I went looking through the old comments on Talk:Covenant destroyer and noticed something that I initially thought was much rarer - users are constantly misunderstanding the meanings of "large" and "long". The world "large" refers to mass or, in a more traditional naval manner, "displacement" - that is, how much water in the sea is displaced by your ship (think about how sitting in a bath causes the water level to go up).

According to one comment, a destroyer encountered by the Iroquois during the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV was "a third again as massive". This does not mean that it is a third the length, it just has less mass. The Covenant destroyer article somehow concludes that the destroyer, therefore, must be 647 long, citing that passage as the source. The the length of the Iroquis is seven meters longer than one of the frigate classes, likely putting it at between 485 and 542 meters. Even if they mistook the destroyer as being a third the length they could not possibly have concluded that the thing was 647 meters long.

Another instance of this mistake occured between the Marathon and Halcyon-class articles. The Marathon is apparently larger than the Halcyon-class, which was taken to mean that the ship is much longer.

In Halo: The Fall of Reach on page 238 we read the following:
 * "The Pillar of Autumn is forty-three years old," Cortana said. "Halcyon-class ships were the smallest vessel ever to receive the cruiser designation. It is approximately one-third the tonnage of the Marathon-class cruiser currently in service."

Note that in the extract, "smallest" is used alongside a reference to tonnage. It is my belief that Cortana's usage of the word "smallest" was not in reference to the ship's length, but actually referring to a space-borne equivalent of Gross Register Tonnage.--  Fore  run  ner '' 07:38, 10 July 2011 (EDT)


 * I know that what I'm about to say is nitpicky, but isn't the term "A third again" mean that it is 4/3 the mass? As in, it is larger? Missing Mandible 14:09, 10 July 2011 (EDT)
 * MM is correct. Furthermore, I think we should be careful when looking at mass figures: The Iroquois is said to be 8000 tonnes in The Fall of Reach, and a modern, considerably smaller Nimitz-class aircraft carrier displaces 100,000 tonnes. I've read a calculation that suggests that, given its size, the Iroquois is less dense than air.--The All-knowing Sith&#39;ari 14:14, 10 July 2011 (EDT)