> >>> To put things even worse, the pupils in a 9th grade public school 
> >>> here in Sweden does not know how many cm (centimeters) is a m 
> >>> (meter).
> 
> 1.    It doesn't matter, as a cm is a unit from the pit of hell and 
> has no place in an engineers toolbox ( notwithstanding the 
> fact that I use them frequently :-) ).
> 
> 2.    There is no such thing as a centimeter * in Sweden :-) 


Wot, no love for decimetre & decametre either?

Centimetres come in handy in Australia, they're used to sort out the DIYers
from the real trademen.  Take ye olde 3" pipe, it's been transmogrified into
a 75mm one.  Unless you're a DIYer, then it's a 7.5cm one.  Anyone asking
for a 7.5cm bit-o-pipe will tend to be treated a bit shabbily.

A lot of Americans think measurements in metric are done with decametres,
metres, decimetres, centimetres & millimetres, much like using chains,
yards, feet, inches and assorted fractions.  Ooh, too hard!

In Oz, you just do everything in millimetres, even metre doesn't get used
much by industry.

If you buy a piece of MDF (say 8'x4') then that's 2400x1200, pronounced
twenty four hundred by twelve hundred.  It's rarely called a 2.4x1.2 metre
piece.  You don't have an units conversion problem because there aren't any.
It's all in millimetres.

Ok, the 2400x1200 is usually 2440x1220, so it's called twenty four forty by
twelve twenty, quite easy.  Works for small stuff and big stuff, gets a bit
silly around 10 metres.  1mm accuracy at 10 metres?  Ha ha funny.

You'll sometimes see metres used for lengths, like 3.6m metal bars.

The only time metre is used is when something is exactly on the metre, so
you get nine fifty (950mm), 1 metre, ten fifty (1050mm) etc.

Come on America, it's just like money...

Tony

-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist