At 10:39 PM 5/12/2002, Marshall wrote: >On this one, you're just flat-out wrong. Sorry, but you are. > >Metric is far easier to work with than English measure. Agree with reservations. Staying within one type of measurement, length for example -- it's the decimal part that makes it easy, not the size of the unit. The inch happens to be a very convenient unit for machine work, much more convenient than the mm. Lathes work conveniently to about .001" (a "thou") accuracy, grinding machines to about .0001(a "tenth"). This is coincidence, but a convenient one. The mm is either too large or too small to fit in conveniently.
>The English system of weight, distance, energy measure - and a host of other >catagories - are all inconsistent and it's just pure lunacy to use them when >there's a much better alternative. And then there are things like the nautical mile which were invented specifically to make calculation easy -- it's one minute of longitude at the equator, hence in practical terms one minute of latitude everywhere. It's also very close to 2,000 yards which is nice in English usage. What would make it easier would be to base it on one-hundredth of a degree instead of one-sixtieth...but shifting to meters would make things much harder. If we change the way we measure arcs, the nautical mile would have to follow. david
-- David Beierl - Providence, RI http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/ '84 Westy "Dutiful Passage" '85 GL "Poor Relation" |
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