On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 4:17 PM, Michael Houghton <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
> Howdy!
>
> On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 7:01 PM, Bruce Johnson
> <xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:
>>
>> On Sep 15, 2014, at 3:36 PM, Cheng Tseng <xxxxxx@kennett.net> wrote:
>>
>>> ObTrva: I am still confused over how Traveller gets the displacement tons from the mass and vice versa, for a ship design.  I always thought that going to a pure mass system (A la David Weber's Honor Harrington.) might be less confusing.
>>
>> It might be, but since jump drive is volume-dependent, not mass-dependent it makes sense to size ships in volume. Why it isn’t in cubic meters is probably due to some un-nammed naval traditionalist during the Rule of Man shoehorning the term into use.
>>
> Even today, ships' tonnage is a volume, not a mass measurement. In some cases
> (Gross Tonnage), the conversion to cubic meters or the like has a
> factor that varies
> as the size of the vessel.
>
> A measurement ton, or freight ton is another volumetric measure, being
> 40 cubic feet.

Not to forget the Register Ton which 100 cubic feet or 2.83 m^3

--
Evyn