Stewart Stremler wrote:
Well, for that, doesn't metric have a plethora of different units?
250ml ~= 25cl ~= 2.5dl ~= .25l
One of the supposed advantages of the metric system[0] was that you could
pick your units and get an implied precision...
Absolutely. However, we don't use them that way. We use them like
Engineering notation (powers of 10^3) because adding 25cl and 3.7dl and
38ml is annoying. Whereas, we can do the addition much quicker if
things are already 250ml, 370ml, and 38ml. Ballpark magnitude estimates
are also quicker if everything follows engineering notation.
Quick: what's .375 doubled? Now what's 3/8 doubled? Which one did you
do faster?
Now, for engineering and manufacturing, I'm all about metric. But,
then, my precision is specified explicitly. Losing a spacecraft due to
the use of English units for thrust is outrageous.
-a
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