"Julia Thompson" wrote
> On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Charlie Bell wrote:
>
> > Motion: This Charlie proposes that everyone should just get on with
whatever
> > means of measurement they're most comfortable with...
> >
> > Charlie
> > Who is 6' tall, weighs 90 kgs, and farts in whatever units the beans
> > were measured in.
>
> Uh, the beans would probably be measured in a unit of weight to begin
> with, and wouldn't farts be more logically measured in terms of volume?
>
> (And how many stone is 90 kg?)
>
90 kg is close enough 198lb or 14 stone 2 lb.
Why did the US abandon stones?
Measuring weight in pounds alone is like measuring height in inches;
it misses the point of the imperial system.
The imperial system provides units of sizes convenient for every
purpose, so you need only ever work with small numbers more easily
manipulated by the average human mind, and also making calculations
using roman numerals much simpler. It's lousy when people need to
do unit conversions but when it comes to giving people easy to remember
numbers for their vital statistics it is brilliant, if you use the right
unit.
