>
> This discussion of the unit systems brings me to a different question. If an
> advanced, alien culture were to study us, for measuring liquids, which do you
> think that alien culture would consider the superior system? I think they
> would consider the imperial system superior. Not for the source of the
> units, but for the structuring of it. The imperial system, with it's ounces,
> cups, pints, quarts, half-gallons, gallons, etc. uses a binary system of
> units (1cup = 8 (2^3) ounces, 1 pint = 2 cups, 1 quart = 2 pints, 1
> half-gallon = 2 quarts, 1gallon = 2 half-gallons). I agree that the other
> metric systems are better thought through than most of the imperial systems,
> I think our measuring systems really need to be made into binary system, and
> there is little point in forcing everyone to metric (base 10 being so
> arbitrary), if converting metric to binary *then* adopting that would be far
> superior.
>
> Michael Harney
But what about 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon? Or all those
awful volume units for beer? (What's a keg, 33 gallons or something?)
The English system uses essentially random factors. You just found a
sequence where they were all powers of 2.
Note that people (at least those who can do some basic math)
don't actually USE all the possible units in the metric system. The
ones that are used tend to be a factor of 1000 apart. (Except for
centimeters, which are probably used because millimeters are just a
bit too small for daily use.)
As for switching to binary, we would have to switch to a
binary number system FIRST, and then change the units. (Maybe we
could just change all the 1000s to 1024s, and no one would notice.)
---David
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
