On Fri, 7 Oct 2005, Harold Hallikainen wrote:

> Do you, in the rest of the world, use centimeters much? I REALLY like
> keeping the metric prefix representing an exponent that is a power of 3.
> So, I'd say "1.83 meters under" or probably round to 2 meters (metres)
> under. So... how much do you use centi, deci, deka, etc. instead of just
> going with milli? In electronics, we don't use centiamps!

Usually the cm is reserved for 'popular' use, about wherever you would 
use inches people would use cm. E.g. timber and plank size, height of a 
desk from floor, size of a window etc, in general low precision 
carpentry and architectural stuff, packing boxes (cardboard) etc (the 
spec for packing boxes is actually in mm but you will get odd looks if 
you want one by mm in a shop). But it is never used for engineering 
purposes or specifications, nor for machining. Those are in meters or 
mm. F.ex. all screws and threads and drill bits are specified in mm. And 
we NEVER use fractions for anything measurable, excepting the quarter, 
the third and the half, in informal speech, usually in connection with 
food weights or liquids.

Peter
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