Metric Land

http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Metrication/metric_land.htm ^ | 7 October 1999 | Joan Pontius

[Fiji Hill]

If the metric system catches on in this country, football will become 30.5 centimeter ball.

[RSteyn]

I think in both systems. It is not hard.

I even think in furlongs.

[Fiji Hill]

Converting from Fahrenheit to centigrade requires a complex formula, while converting from kilometers to miles is relatively easy--10 kilometers equals six miles.

[Old Professer]

Every now and then I read something that makes me wish I had written it; boy, is this ever one of those times.

We live in a circular world and pretend to think in a linear fashion.

[Old Professer]

Because we got so fat that most of us can't see our feet?

[Verginius Rufus]

Celsius has nothing to do with the French Revolution--the Swede Anders Celsius invented his system in 1742 and died in 1744, before Robespierre or Marie Antoinette were even born.

I believe the original idea was that one kilometer was 1/10,000 of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. Why a measurement taken on earth (and very hard to do accurately) should be the norm for the universe escapes me.

[Petronski]

Fahrenheit measurements are highly intuitive for weather because they cover the vast bulk of experience in temperate climates. Here in Pennsylvania, we rarely get below zero (setting aside "wind chill") nor rarely above a hundred. Everyone immediately knows what the thirties or the eighties or the fifties feel like.

All of that experiential knowledge is lost when the range tops out at about 40, but veers into the negative in winter. Feh.

[El Conservador]

Nope...

C = (F-32)/1.8

Conversely

F = (C*1.8)+32

Or, as a fast reference:

0 C = 32 F
5 C = 41 F
10 C = 50 F
15 C = 59 F
20 C = 68 F
...and so on.

P.S: 1 mi = 1,609.344 m = 1.609344 km

[Gordongekko909]

Heh, Louisianians consider the sixties to be cold. Upper seventies is juuuuust right.

[Old Professer]

Squaring the circle?

[Petronski]

That's complex, in that most people can't do it in their head.

Compare that conversion to the mi/km conversion, which is a question roughly of multiplying by six: km*.6=mi and mi+mi*.6=km

[Old Professer]

I've devised a way of getting two equal parts of a line and one part that is equal to X-2pi where X=9 using only a compass and straightedge.

If you average the angle of intersection the average is practically the same as trisecting the line.

[Professional Engineer]

The metric system. The French gift to mankind.

That's probably the biggest reason it's still not universal

[ThomasThomas]

Base ten numeral systems at least make sense historically. Count your fingers to see why we count in base ten.

I had a wood shop teacher that was pushing base 9.

[Gordongekko909]

I wonder if Bubbah would push base 11 if he were a math teacher?

O_O

[FreedomCalls]

A rectangular plot of land is 6 2/3 furlongs wide and 512 rods long. How many such areas would it take to equal the area of 15 square nautical miles? Ah, the English system!

Ah, but one man and one horse-drawn plow can till one acre of land in one day. So smarty pants, how long and how much manpower and horsepower does it take to cultivate one hectare of metric land, hmmmm?

;-)

[Vectorian]

'The Metric System: Proof that what comes from Europe, is stupid!'

So all the founding fathers were stupid then? Discuss. :D

[bkepley]

--The metric system is apparently too nuanced for this author.

Or humor is too nuanced for you. I thought it was pretty funny.

[Paladin2]

My comment was actually a poke at the French. Some nuances are more subtle than others. ;-)

[captain_dave]

there are 60 groats in a sovereign