Date:         Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:43:35 -0800
Reply-To:     John Bange <jbange@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         John Bange <jbange@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Metric this, metric that
In-Reply-To:  <BAY105-F1221133C7533A7DE9D8CC7A50B0@phx.gbl>
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On 1/31/06, Jeff Palmer <icecoldvw@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> How is 70 degrees Fahrenheit more user friendly or more 'appropriate' than
> 20 degrees Celsius?


It's not that "70" is better than "20", it's that the difference between 20C
and 21C is generally too coarse a gradiation in comparison to human ability
to sense temperature. Fahrenheit, more by luck than anything else, pretty
much exactly hits that sweet spot. Fairly mundane claim to fame, but hey,
most people leave mundane lives.

  I'm a big fan of tradition, but how can it get simpler
> than things that are based on/divisible by ten/100/1000 etc.


The other thing about most people's mundane lives is that we don't generally
deal with  things that vary by orders of magnitude. Physics calculations,
sure. Dividing 16 feet into three equal bits, not so much. It's much quicker
to get to 5'4" from 16' than it is to get to 166cm from 5m. It's just the
way the systems are constructed. Decimal systems like metric are optimized
for science and engineering, but feet and inches are optimized for figuring
out if two chairs and a sofa will fit against the wall.

--
John Bange
'90 Vanagon - "Geldsauger"