John Hart wrote:
The Metric system is just as idiotic as the English. Metric measurement is good for people limited to thinking terms of ten, but it's hard for the eye to divide and a millstone around the neck of carpenters not using CNC. So What! Please keep the left wing political rants off the list!
Why is it harder for an eye to divide than imperial? Most of those who rant about the metric system are those who've never bothered to learn it. I was also opposed to it, when I first came across it in high school science classes, but having worked with it for many years, it's superiority is clear. In the old "imperial" measures, there are a few different ounces. An imperial gallon is larger than a U.S. but a U.S. ounce is larger than imperial. And a U.S. gallon is 128 oz, but imperial 160. Does that make sense??? It's also a lot easier to scale from, for example, centimetres to kilometres, than inches to miles. In metric, that's a simply multiplication by 10,000, but inches to miles is × 12 × 5280. Or do you prefer × 36 × 1760? Power of 10 conversions make is a heck of a lot easier to do mental calculations than multiplying all sorts of different numbers for the various units. Lessee now, it's 12 inches to a foot, but 3 feet to a yard and 1760 yards to a mile. Or 8 ounces to a cup and 4 cups to a quart. Or is that 5 cups to a quart? Yeah, that makes for real easy mental arithmetic.
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