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Is Java Ranch measured in inches or centimetres?
 
Wanderer
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No.
 
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Now, I'm an American, born and bred. I measure my TV in inches, my women in feet, and my gas in gallons.
But let's face it:

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:


3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoons
2 tablespoon = 1 ounce
8 ounces = 1 cup
2 cups = 1 pint
2 pints = 1 quart
4 quarts = 1 gallon



also to add:
12 inches=1 foot
5--- feet = 1 mile


So thats, 3, 2, 8, 4, 12, and some number in the 5000's. How the hell can I be expected to remember all that? 2c=1p, 2p=1q, why can't 2q=1g? And the names are ambiguous. Is a teaspoon bigger than an ounce? Where do the pints and cups fit in again?

Metric just works smoother.
 
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JRY : You're talking about a problem the UK had.

The English system with billions and trillions seem perfectly logical to me. I guess the US wanted the first trillionaire to happen in this century, so they lowered the bar.

Bill Gates has only a few thousand million instead of a few million million.
The importance is placed on the lexis, ie words,nothing but words. Hence I agree with yu on "It's an unrelated linguistic difference between the US and UK." But the consequences, what about the consequences....

I know of some people who'll be relieved at the US method superceding the English method. In Trafalgar square at the foot of Nelson's column in a glass cubicle are two performance artists who are counting down from 1,000,000 BC to 1,000,000 AD. Well, they'll have to widen the range for any benefits to kick in.
[ August 11, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]
 
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What I really love about the metric system is how the different units are (roughly) linked, e.g. a kilogramme is roughly a litre of water which is roughly a cubic decimetre and so on. The water-weight conversion is especially useful, although obviously not exact.

Also the fact that its all based on base ten calculations makes it a lot easier to learn at an early age. Although this may have the disadvantage that kids may not learn their 12 and 16 times tables as much as they used to under the Imperial system, it does mean that kids can getter a good grasp of measurements much quicker. An example being: "A car travels at 5m/s. How many kilometres can it do in 1000 seconds?" This is a lot easier to work out than "A car travels at 5 feet/s. How many miles can it do in 1000 seconds?".

Maybe its not so confusing if you've grown up in a country which is entirely metric or Imperial. In the UK its still very confusing, and even though I grew up learning metric measurements, I've had to pick up a few Imperial ones for some areas of life. The strange thing about distances is that although I can fairly well estimate an inch and a mile, I have no idea how many inches are in a mile. It gets more confusing in the realm of weights, especially when listening to trans-Atlantic TV programmes. Its bad enough having two systems in the UK, of kilos and pounds/stones, but in the US there seems to be a third way of doing it in that people's weights are measured in pounds alone, without referring to stones. I can just about guess what 10 stone is, but I'm completely lost when it comes to 100 pounds.
 
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Originally posted by Joe King:
What I really love about the metric system is how the different units are (roughly) linked, e.g. a kilogramme is roughly a litre of water which is roughly a cubic decimetre and so on. The water-weight conversion is especially useful, although obviously not exact.



It's quite exact, it just depends on the state of the water (purity, temperature).
Water weighs 1 kilo per liter, which amount of water has a volume at triple point of 1 cubic decimeter.
For centuries this was the official definition, until more lasting measurements were introduced (first using platinum bars and now quantum physics).
And of course 1 cubic meter is 1000 liters (or 1 kiloliter, though any measure of more than hectoliters is rarely mentioned as such), which equates 1000 kilos of water.
 
Helen Thomas
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If anyone's wondering about how beneficial the performance artists were to the Square, it attracted 4,000 visitors per hour. Up by 200 per cent before they performed.

I think we should have retained our billion and trillion definitions.
Stand by for performing arts on lexis,idiolect and orthography.
That is words, speech and spelling to most.
[ August 11, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]
 
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I have no idea how many inches are in a mile.

Does the need come up very often? I have to admit that I can't think of a single real-life situation where I cared.

I can just about guess what 10 stone is, but I'm completely lost when it comes to 100 pounds.

100 pounds was about what my daughter weighed when I stopped carrying her upstairs to bed when she fell asleep in the living room. 100 pounds is a little over 7 stone... about 45 kilograms.
[ August 11, 2004: Message edited by: Thomas Paul ]
 
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100 pounds is a little over 7 stone... about 45 kilograms.



Ok, Paul, since your correcting me on hanged/hung in the other thread, i feel the need to correct you on this statement...

saying 100 pounds is about 45 kilograms isn't really accurate. this is only an approximate truth on the surface of the Earth at sea level. that's like saying 1 cup of water is about 4 inches. Apples and oranges, man.

Pounds measure force; kilograms measure mass. something weighing 100lbs on the earth will NOT weigh "a little over 7 stone" on the moon, but WILL still be about 45 kg.

To be more correct, 100 lbs is about 444 Newtons. It takes about 14.6 kilograms to make 1 slug (the English unit of mass).
[ August 11, 2004: Message edited by: fred rosenberger ]
 
Thomas Paul
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Originally posted by fred rosenberger:
Pounds measure force; kilograms measure mass.

Sorry but thanks for playing. The measure of force is called the "pound force" or "poundals" and is abbreviated lbf. The standard pound that we use to measure mass is more formally called the "pounds avoirdupois" and is usually abreviated as lb. One kilogram is equal to 2.2046 pounds avoirdupois. It is confusing to have two different types of pounds, one for force and one for mass, but since they are equal on Earth, most people don't care. That is why the bathroom scale is fairly reliable for most humans as a measure of their mass. So pounds measure mass just like kilograms do.

But again, thanks for playing and we have lovely parting gifts.
 
fred rosenberger
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My physics professor lied to me!!!
(or i was asleep in class - i'll let you decide).

I concede the point in question.
 
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Jim Yingst:

For those who want to gripe about US use of metric

On the other hand, General Motors converted to metric a couple of decades ago, and claimed to save millions in engineering costs the first year. (Okay, millions isn't much for them, but it's still something.

I think it's good to have both. It's nice to have the mental exercise of constantly calculating conversions.
 
Helen Thomas
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Yes like in this work out for eigth-graders :

A new type of bicycle has a small front wheel and a larger back wheel. The
front wheel is 25 inches in diameter and the back wheel is 35 inches in
diameter. In one mile, how many more times will the front wheel turn than
the back wheel?

There are 12 inches in a foot and 5,280 feet in a mile.

If the front wheel is still 25� in diameter, what is the diameter of a back
wheel such that the front wheel will turn one-third less* than the back
wheel turns?
* Note: �one-third less� is not the same as �one-third of�.
 
Jim Yingst
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[Tom]: The measure of force is called the "pound force" or "poundals" and is abbreviated lbf. The standard pound that we use to measure mass is more formally called the "pounds avoirdupois" and is usually abreviated as lb.

Pounds avoirdupois are usually abbreviated lb, but in contexts where we're also talking about pounds force, it's common to refer to the mass unit as "pounds mass" or lbm (as opposed to lbf). Because plain old "pounds" is too vague at that point and just creates confusion. There's also the unit of "slug", which is an English mass unit equal to 32.2 lbm. Some schoolbooks will talk about slugs and pounds, and others will talk about lbm and lbf. However I've never met anyone in the real world who uses slugs as mass units.
 
Richard Hawkes
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Originally posted by Warren Dew:
General Motors converted to metric a couple of decades ago, and claimed to save millions in engineering costs the first year.

That's weird. It must have cost a small fortune to convert to metric across the board and they still saved millions in the first year?

Anyway I still don't get it. Are millimetres cheaper than eighths of an inch? Maybe there were favourable exchange rates in measurements between Europe and the US at that time. I think the current rates are now 2/8" per 9mm because of the iceberg index, so they should probably switch back to imperial measurements, where 1 car now equals about 1/2 mile (or eight metric day-tonnes).
 
Warren Dew
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Richard Hawkes:

That's weird. It must have cost a small fortune to convert to metric across the board and they still saved millions in the first year?

Anyway I still don't get it. Are millimetres cheaper than eighths of an inch?


That was back before CAD and spreadsheets; a lot of engineering calculations were still done by hand. My guess is that working with metric on calculators was a lot faster than adding fractions by hand.
 
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