Who would have thought that people would find measurement so funny?
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Sheppey
A measure of distance equal to about 7/8 of a mile, defined as the closest distance at which sheep remain picturesque.
The Sheppey is the creation of Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, included in The Meaning of Liff, their dictionary of objects for which no name exists. [3] It is named after the Isle of Sheppey in the UK.Beauty: Helen
Helen of Troy (from the Iliad) is widely known as "the face that launched a thousand ships." Thus, 1 millihelen is the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship.
According to The Rebel Angels, a novel by Robertson Davies, this system was invented by Cambridge mathematician W.A.H. Rushton. However, the term was possibly first suggested by Isaac Asimov.[6] The obvious reference is Marlowe's line from the play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships...?" [7]
Negative values have also been observed—these, of course, are measured by the number of ships sunk or the number of clocks stopped. An alternative interpretation of 1 negative Helen is the amount of negative beauty (i.e. ugliness) that can launch one thousand ships the other way.
Since the original quotation was "Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium", a more accurate definition of the millihelen might be the amount of beauty required to launch a single ship and ignite a wastebasket.
David Lance Goines has written a humorous article[8] describing various Helen-units. It has a chart with the fire-lighting and ship-launching capability for different powers of "Helens". For example, a Picohelen (ph) (10^-12 helens) indicates the amount of beauty that can "Barbecue a couple of Steaks & Toss an Inner Tube Into the Pool".
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