I never said you were stupid - I'm really impressed that Americans deal so
well with such complicated illogical systems of measurement. Of course, the
fact that you can't spell properly mitigates the awe I would otherwise hold
you in;-)
Seriously, why is metric better?
Because for each property that is measured in the metric system, there is
only one unit of measurement. The only thing that changes is the prefix
denoting the scale, and not even that if you use scientific notation.
eg. distance is in metres, whether micro, kilo etc. vs inches, feet, yards,
miles
eg. volume is in litres, vs pints, gallons
eg. mass in kilograms vs ounces, pounds, stones, tons (yeah OK, it should
really be grams to make complete sense).
The system is self-consistent both within and between different properties,
which cannot be said for imperial units. This makes it much simpler to
account for changes in scale in calculations involving a number of
properties, just cancel a few zeroes - I can easily tell you that 1x10-3
kilometres is one metre....how many inches is 1x10-3 miles?
Dylan
PS Right vs left hand drive is a completely different issue, and which is
better (for most people) would probably be best answered by some
experimental psychology of perception and reflex response. My guess would
be that women should drive on the right, and men on the left;-)
>Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 11:12:19 -0800
>From: "Charles Loeven" <cpl49@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: [OM] OT Metric system, was Better Flash recs ...
>
>==="It'll mess up my recipes", etc. The problem is either our own
>stubbornness
>or our stupidity!
>Metric is MUCH better!
>
>Brian P. Huber====
>
>
>Nope, not stubborn or stupid.
>It is how we do it.
>Should we all have our cars converted to
>right hand drive also?
>And throw away all our recipe and technical books?
>Are Australians stupid because they don't use our measures?
>How is metric "MUCH better" when we arrive at the same place
>in the same time no matter if we drive kilometers or miles?
>
>Charlie (I need to lose a stone or two) Loeven
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