From: Andrew Usher on
On Feb 6, 9:46 am, nos...(a)nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote:

> Sure do. A resistance measured in ohms multiplied by a capacitance
> measured in Farads gives you an RC time constant in seconds. For
> the rail gun afficianados, the energy stored in a capacitor measured
> in Joules is one half the capacitance in Farads times the square of
> the voltage measured in Volts. Yes, the rail-gun fans I know do
> talk about energy in Joules. I have even used spot-welders where
> the intensity of the pulse was given in Joules.

Well, I guess you can. But just because you can calculate with
barbarous units doesn't make them superior - after all, you'd never
allow that for English units, would you?

> >They're only used by
> >convention (Section VII), which actually discredits metric.
>
> Just because you personally think you have discredited metric
> doesn't mean that metric is in fact discredited. How many legs
> does a dog have if you call its tail a leg?

Logic does not bend to your whims, sorry.

> >> I don't even know the
> >> names of any English/Imperial units for voltage, electrical charge,
> >> magnetic field strength, capacitance, or inductance.
>
> >There aren't any separate ones.
>
> Bingo! The English system has no proper units for doing any modern
> science.

Neither does the CGS system, in this sense, and yet scientists used,
and sometimes still use, CGS units.

Andrew Usher
From: Andrew Usher on
On Feb 6, 10:47 am, Mark Borgerson <mborger...(a)comcast.net> wrote:

> > One can still pace out long distances, like the Romans did, and 1,000
> > paces = 1 mile is pretty close.
>
> You must be counting two steps per pace, then.

Yes, of course. If you try to pace out a long distance, you'll see how
hard it is to count the other way.

> The old Roman pace was two steps or five Roman feet: 58.1 inches.
> 1000 of those gets you 0.92 miles.  If ~8% error is OK
> with you,  I guess you can call that a mile.

People are taller now. My own average pace is 64".

Andrew Usher
From: J. Clarke on
Andrew Usher wrote:
> On Feb 6, 7:01 am, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.use...(a)cox.net> wrote:
>
>>> Mixed units = feet and inches, pounds and ounces, etc.
>>
>>> Nothing to do with dimensional analysis.
>>
>> Then you've never done it. That's OK--I knew a PhD aeronautical
>> engineer who worked on the ME-262 who had never heard of it either.
>
> Of course I know what 'dimensional analysis' is. It's just not what I
> was talking about.

If you think feet and inches, pounds and ounces don't have anything to do
with it then you don't know what it is.

From: Michael Press on
In article <hke1l2$n19$8(a)reader2.panix.com>,
nospam(a)nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote:

> In article <Xns9D144609322B7goddardbenetscapenet(a)74.209.136.95>,
> Bart Goddard <goddardbe(a)netscape.net> wrote:
> >
> >Don't tell me what to do, whippersnapper. I cook a lot
> >and I brew a whopping amount of beer. And I gotta say
> >that beer made with metric units just doesn't taste as
> >good. Malt in pounds, water in gallons, hops in ounces...
> >the way God meant it to be!
>
> Philistine! What happened to hogsheads and gils? Pour me a dram
> of the good stuff, while you're at it...

Okay, but you will not be happy with it;
as it is 8 fluid dram to the fluid ounce.
Perhaps a gill would be more to your liking.

--
Michael Press
From: Michael Press on
In article <Xns9D169470F2CA7goddardbenetscapenet(a)74.209.136.89>,
Bart Goddard <goddardbe(a)netscape.net> wrote:

> jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv(a)aol> wrote in news:hkh7r45hcd(a)news3.newsguy.com:
>
> > Bob Myers wrote:
> >> I can't believe this is being seriously discussed in supposedly
> >> science-oriented newsgroups.
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > You are going to have to realize that there exist people who
> > don't know there are more than one measurement system and
> > that they are not the same.
>
> That isn't what this discussion is about. Rather, it's about
> the weakness of certain arguments. Metric and English systems
> have various strengths and weaknesses. "It's antiquated" or
> "it's hard to calculate density of water in" or "we use it
> and you should copy us" or "if you spend a zillion dollars
> now retooling, you'll make it all back in only 1.5 centuries"
> simply carry no weight.
>
> If there's a compelling reason for the US to switch to
> metric, I have yet to hear it. Presumably, if a compelling
> reason existed, we would have been so compelled, eh?
> Afterall, how much have the British really benefitted
> from Decimation? It's slightly easier to calculate
> change (which the cash register did for them anyway)
> but they've lost a certain amount of coolness

pound, shilling, pence, guinea, florin, half-crown,
farthing, sixpence, tuppence, halfpence, bob, quid.

I was sorry to see them go, and do not even live there.

--
Michael Press