An email from <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> dated 30/7/02 7:33 pm said: > Jefferson's system actually resembles the metric system in many ways. Its > biggest shortcoming is that Jefferson didn't hit on the idea of using > prefixes to create names for multiples of units. Consequently, his system > was burdened with a long list of names. For example, he divided his basic > distance unit, the foot (it was slightly shorter than the traditional foot) > into 10 inches. Each inch was divided into 10 lines, and each line into 10 > points. For larger distances, 10 feet equaled a decade, 100 feet was a rood, > 1000 feet a furlong, and there were 10 000 feet in a mile (making the > Jeffersonian mile about twice as long as the traditional mile). His basic > volume unit was the cubic foot, which he proposed to call a bushel (it was > about 3/4 the size of a traditional bushel). The basic weight unit was the > ounce, defined so that a bushel of water weighed 1000 ounces. (This is very > similar to the metric system, in which a liter of water weighs 1000 grams).
Er... Did I miss something here? One minute everyone's arguing about American politics and Nazis, the next thing I get is an introduction to Jefferson and his measuring system. Was this supposed to be off-list or did I miss something in the middle? -- Tim Mountford [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------ http://www.thehappyhouse.co.uk funkimedia solutions for the 21st century communiculture -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
