On Tuesday 21 December 2004 18:15, mike wilson wrote: > . As with most imperial > measurements and their applications it was designed by engineers based > on practical experience, not the mutterings of a committee based on the > wavelength of a particular colour of light. > > mike
so that would include the inch, which was fixed at three barleycorns' lengths, or the yard, fixed at the distance between Henry II's nose to his right thumb? Even living as I do in the USA, I'll take metric over imperial measures any day. Perhaps someday even this country will go to a hard metric system--the journey of a ten thousand li* begins with a single step, after all... =-Luigi *li= Chinese measurement of distance, equivalent to 644.7 metres, or about 436 Roman paces (under half a Roman mile)
