The metric system sucks
in [Math]
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From: Paul Ciszek on 4 Feb 2010 03:43 In article <Xns9D13CBECDB6FFgoddardbenetscapenet(a)74.209.136.81>, Bart Goddard <goddardbe(a)netscape.net> wrote: >Frogwatch <dbohara(a)mindspring.com> wrote in news:b743d9a3-3aeb-478e-a827- >94243899e421(a)u41g2000yqe.googlegroups.com: > >> This evening, I did a calculation of the amount of charge necessary to >> levitate a dust particle on thge moon. Using SI units, I could do all >> of it in my head because there is then no conversion of pounds of >> force to anything else or Volts/foot to some other units. The old >> english units are simply stupid and unnatural confusing > >It seems natural to want to divide units into halves, thirds and >fourths. It's not often that a person needs to levitate a >dust particle to the moon. But note that it takes more >mental effort to divide a meter into thirds than it does >a foot. What is the density of water in pounds per cubic foot? (Or should it be cubic inch--and really, since density is mass divided by volume, it should be slugs instead of pounds...) I could answer that question only by doing a conversion from the metric value of 1 gram per cubic centimeter. -- Please reply to: | "Evolution is a theory that accounts pciszek at panix dot com | for variety, not superiority." Autoreply has been disabled | -- Joan Pontius
From: Aatu Koskensilta on 4 Feb 2010 03:44 Ray Vickson <RGVickson(a)shaw.ca> writes: > No. The internet was invented and developed in Europe by the high- > energy Physics community (CERN). You're thinking of the web. The Internet is incontrovertibly of American origin. -- Aatu Koskensilta (aatu.koskensilta(a)uta.fi) "Wovon man nicht sprechan kann, dar�ber muss man schweigen" - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
From: Paul Ciszek on 4 Feb 2010 03:46 In article <Xns9D14467643F6Bgoddardbenetscapenet(a)74.209.136.95>, Bart Goddard <goddardbe(a)netscape.net> wrote: > >Most of my students are trying to learn Calculus or >Differential Equations from me. They chose Engineering >not because they know what it is (they don't) but >because they think they can earn more money doing it. > >I always manage to work the statement into a lecture: >Sure, you make twice as much as an engineer, but you >have to work 3 times the hours. I chose Physics because it seemed that there would be less stuff to remember--you can just derive everything from first principals. ;-) -- Please reply to: | "Evolution is a theory that accounts pciszek at panix dot com | for variety, not superiority." Autoreply has been disabled | -- Joan Pontius
From: Paul Ciszek on 4 Feb 2010 03:48 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... -- Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice." Autoreply is disabled |
From: Paul Ciszek on 4 Feb 2010 03:53
In article <slrnhmi48b.17cs.patrick(a)eris.io.com>, The Chief Instigator <patrick(a)io.com> wrote: >On Tue, 2 Feb 2010 17:44:47 -0800 (PST), Andrew Usher ><k_over_hbarc(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> On Feb 2, 6:47?pm, "Heidi Graw" <hg...(a)telus.net> wrote: >> >>>?Btw, my own husband prefers >>> the metric system. >> >> And why should his opinion matter, if he hasn't looked at it from the >> perspective I have? >> >> Andrew Usher > >I bothered to learn both systems before I was out of elementary school >(i.e., early 1960s), and I'd rather have "1.84 m" on my driver's license. >Aside from that, we'll be a little cooler than usual for early February >around here, around 14 C. (That's 57 F for the old-timers.) In one Poul Anderson story, I did a triple-take when he wrote "It was a hot day, reaching 25 degrees..." Oh, he's writing in metric--hey, wait a minute! In the same story, he pulled a similar trick with time units. A "girl" was said to be nine "years" old, and when she and the hero began getting serious, I had to go back and figure out what the orbital period of the planet was. -- Please reply to: | "Evolution is a theory that accounts pciszek at panix dot com | for variety, not superiority." Autoreply has been disabled | -- Joan Pontius |