Re: Different Formats for Different Countries -- Variable Density B&W Film

In article <2006103100241243658-richardnews@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Richard Polhill  <richard.news@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On 2006-10-30 20:52:55 +0000, philip@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Philip Homburg) said:
>> Another strange thing is that money in the US is metric, whereas most
>> European countries had very long traditions with non-metric systems.
>
>I presume for "metric" you meant "decimal".
>
>Metric has nothing to do with the base, but more to do with the 
>standardisation around the density of water, which seems reasinable 
>enough, and the linking of most measurements to each other so that 1kg 
>water = 1l water.  Helpfully, the base-10 numbering system we use was 
>chosen instead of vulgar fractions.

No metric has everything to do with the base. The whole idea is to get rid
of all the weird factors in the inch/feet/yard/mile. Same story with 
weights.

Even worse, it was common that there would be different units for the
same quantity. In most countries, the power of internal combustion
engines is expressed in bhp, and electrical power is expressed in watt.
Fortunately, in countries that went metric a long time ago, that is just
a rare exception. (The calorie is another)

The fact that the mass of 1 l of water is about 1 kg is only moderately
useful in practice. But it is im****tant that the other units are derived
from that in a rational manner, instead of coming up with things like a
foot-pound of torque.


-- 
That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it
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by. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap to make.
	-- Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency