On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 12:52:07 +1000, Sean Alcorn - PIC Stuff wrote: > On Friday, Sep 12, 2003, at 15:19 Australia/Sydney, John Ferrell wrote= : > > > And to think, by now we could have metric clocks and metric calendar= s. > > Lets see, would a ten day week or ten day month be more "natural"? > > It's this type of thinking that explains why America will never go > metric. > It always amuses me that while America was quick to embrace a decimal > currency system - they steadfastly refuse to go metric. > > My father was educated in imperial currency and imperial measurements > and was the first to embrace the new system in Australia. We have 10 > fingers and 10 toes, he'd say! :-) That's the thing, the "Imperial" measurement system (it was never called= English) was much more practical, whereas the metric system is more "logical" when you grow up using decim= al counting. The only thing really in favour of decimal (if we hadn't any history and could pick a system from= scratch) is that we have 10 digits. It's even, but otherwise it doesn't divide by anything. > Can't imagine too many Americans pining for an imperial currency syste= m > such as Australia discarded 37 years ago! Pounds, Pence, Shillings, > Florrings and Guineas. 12 pence to a shilling and 20 shillings to a > pound. Now that made - er cents! :-) Well in Britain we decimalised the pound in 1971, and shillings and penc= e are actually much more useful except when you're using computers to calculate (I'm rather glad I got into com= puting just after decimalisation, but I saw other peoples' code that dealt with =A3sd and it was horrible!). = But if you want to divide up =A31 it's very much easier if there are 240 pence (20 shillings to the pound, 12 p= ence to the shilling). How do you split a decimal =A31 (or =A310 or =A31,000,000) into three? You can't! = 240 divides by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 30, 40, 60, 80, 120. 100 divides by 2, 5, 10, 20, 25 and 50= , and that's your lot. I believe there's a culture somewhere that counts on their fingers using their thu= mb against the fingers of the same hand, using top, middle, bottom of each finger, so you can count to 12 o= n one hand, then carry to the other hand in 12's, so with both hands you can count to 144. By just counting= digits, we only manage 10... Practically speaking, duodecimal is much more useful, if only we'd come = up with characters for 10 and 11! Weights and measures are also more practical in Imperial - 0.1" spacing = of component leads is a very useful size for hand-soldered stuff and for those across the pond it doesn't di= e out when you go metric - parts are nowadays specified as having 2.54mm spacing! :-) A pint of beer is jus= t the right amount as a drink, whereas a litre would be far too much. Incidentally, a mile originated as decim= al - it was a Roman measurement and it was 1,000 ("mille") marching paces (both feet). There are lots of ways to "go metric" and Britain has used all of them! = :-) Plumbing, for example, uses 15mm and 22mm pipes instead of 1/2" and 3/4" and the difference is minimal (I= mperial is the internal, metric the external measurement) and the smaller pipe is close enough that you can = use the same fittings. There are adaptors for the transition from 3/4" to 22mm when an existing system ne= eds to be modified or repaired and by careful design some fittings can use either size pipe. We still use pints for draught beer, and miles for distances and speed l= imits on roads. Wood dimensions are now in mm, with the actual numbers chosen to give the equivalent of the = old sizes, but show the finished sizes, so planed 2" x 2" has become 44 x 44mm, and you'd buy 1.8m, 2.1m,= 2.4m or 3m lengths (practically 6', 7', 8', 10'). I don't know if other European countries use 2.5m as they= don't have the 8' heritage - anyone know? Temperatures are now officially in Celsius, but they usually give= the Farenheit equivalent as well in weather forcasts: "...with a high of 20, that's 68 Farenheit...". Aviation is the best example of different units coexisting - in Britain = we use heights in feet, distances in nautical miles and speed in knots, visibility in km. And if you ditch, = depth is in fathoms, of course :-) We use Hectopascals (=3Dmillibars) for air pressure - I've never understood= why the USA uses inches of mercury, as I've never seen a Piper or Cesana fitted with a mercury barometer! :-) Anyway, that's probably more than enough for an OT posting... Cheers, Howard Winter St.Albans, England -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body