Why still miles?
in [UK Drivers]
|
From: Adrian on 21 Jul 2010 03:02 "Mortimer" <me(a)privacy.net> gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying: > Even though our cack-handed units, where the relationship between one > and another is an obscure number, never base 10, makes calculation a > nightmare, and even though there isn't an easy relationship between > linear and cubic units (277.something cubic inches in a gallon). Surely that depends on whose gallon?
From: Mortimer on 21 Jul 2010 04:11 "Adrian" <toomany2cvs(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:8ankcaF23uU5(a)mid.individual.net... > "Mortimer" <me(a)privacy.net> gurgled happily, sounding much like they were > saying: > >> Even though our cack-handed units, where the relationship between one >> and another is an obscure number, never base 10, makes calculation a >> nightmare, and even though there isn't an easy relationship between >> linear and cubic units (277.something cubic inches in a gallon). > > Surely that depends on whose gallon? Precisely - I was forgetting about the US for a moment! 231 in that case. Any measurement system where the same unit name means different things to different people is fundamentally flawed and it open to misunderstanding.
From: Man at B&Q on 21 Jul 2010 04:32 On Jul 20, 8:27 pm, "Knight of the Road" <nos...(a)nospam.com> wrote: > "Scott M" <no_one(a)no_where.net> wrote in message > > news:i24o31$r2p$2(a)speranza.aioe.org... > > >> I have heard (don't have a citation) that carpenters in Germany use > >> Imperial measurements rather than metric because it is more suited to > >> division. > > > I'd love to believe that's true. But the point is valid. People's heights > > is a good example of this - what use is being 1.46m when you can be > > multiples on an inch which is ideal for idle differentiation. > > A quick Google has suggested that the wind pipes on musical organs > throughout Europe are still denoted in Imperial measurements because the > musical scale is divisible by 8 and metric isn't as readily suited to this. > The comment about German carpenters using Imperial measurements was > something I heard on Radio 4 many years ago and I don't know if it is true, > but have no doubt to disbelieve the speaker. > > A mile is a far better measurement of length, a thousand paces of a Roman > soldier, something we can all visualise. A metre is an artificially > contrived measurement, one ten-millionth of the distance between the equator > and the North Pole. Wrong. The metre is now defined in terms of the speed of light. MBQ
From: Mike Barnes on 21 Jul 2010 03:52 Mortimer <me(a)privacy.net>: >"alan.holmes" <alan.holmes27(a)somewhere.net> wrote in message news:zDo1o >.316649$NW.163870(a)hurricane... >> >> Why not, we have had miles for hundreds of years why the hell would >>we want to give then up? >> >> We should not have abandoned any of our traditional measurements at all! > >Even though our cack-handed units, where the relationship between one >and another is an obscure number, never base 10, makes calculation a >nightmare, and even though there isn't an easy relationship between >linear and cubic units (277.something cubic inches in a gallon). > >The imperial system has all the faults of a system that has evolved and >has had bits cobbled onto it piecemeal, with arcane units which are >used only in one particular trade, and where units of the same name (eg >ounce) have different values in different trades. The SI system, in >contrast, was designed rather than evolving and so has sensible >relationships between linear, area, volume and mass (assuming that you >are measuring the mass of a unit volume of water, the commonest liquid >on the planet). > >For me, those considerations outweigh the disadvantages (and I'll >freely admit that they are disadvantages) of some units not being >human-sized and base 10 not allowing integer division into 3 or 4 equal >parts. I quite agree. It's also relevant that, like it or not (and I do like it, as it happens) the world has decided to standardise on metric measures. It's madness for the UK not to join in. I regard early abandonment of Imperial units as a gift to the young. -- Mike Barnes
From: Man at B&Q on 21 Jul 2010 04:38
On Jul 20, 1:42 pm, "Mortimer" <m...(a)privacy.net> wrote: > "Man at B&Q" <manatba...(a)hotmail.com> wrote in messagenews:6b019b56-d212-411f-8daa-29bc19de4b73(a)f6g2000yqa.googlegroups.com... > On Jul 19, 8:56 pm, "Mortimer" <m...(a)privacy.net> wrote: > > > "Graham Harrison" <edward.harris...(a)remove.btinternet.com> wrote in > > message > > >news:ksadnf00LtcDPNnRnZ2dnUVZ8rGdnZ2d(a)bt.com... > > > > Good God man, you'll want to get rid of the (monetary) Pound next. > > > No. The pound is now correctly divided into 100 pence. It was a different > > matter when it was divided into 240 pence ie 20 shillings each of 12 > > pence: > > I'm glad we got rid of that. > > It was much easier to split a restaurant bill. > > £10 bill. Dividing into two, four or five is trivially easy in either case. Well, yes, when you choose a trivial example the answer will be trivial. > Dividing into three is £3.33 What about the remainder? > or £3 2s 6d. Wrong! > And to arrive at the latter you > have to divide 240 by 3, giving 30d, then do 30 div 12 (=2) and 30 mod 12 > (=6). Eh? £10 in £sd is divided by 3 is £3 remainder £1. The £1 remainder is 20s or 240d which is trivial to divide by 3 giving 80d or 6/8. Hence the anser is £3/6/8 and no remainder. MBQ |