I concur with your comments here, Joe. In fact, it is fairly common in
our ballistics experiment for students to measure a distance of travel
in the range 2 m to 3 m and omit the number of whole meters. For
example, the ballistics object might travel 2.742 m and a student might
record it as 0.742 m, subsequently making disasterous calculation
errors. Also, the students have been known to become confused with
millimeter values appearing every centimeter, which leads them to
interpret the millimeter hash marks incorrectly. This latter example of
course exemplifies the lack of experience our students have in using
metric scales.
Jim
"Joseph B. Reid" wrote:
....
> >I think that the European style of centimetre numbers at every centimetre
> >is easier to read and much less subject to error in reading than the
> >American style of millimetre numbers at each centimetre. Beyond 1 m the
> >American tape is especialy harder to read. The metre numbers are given in
> >small red characters every decimetre along with the 100 millimetre numbers.
> >So, in reading an American tape one has to refer to the preceding
> >decimetre to pick up the insignificant red metre number and the bold 100
> >millmetre number, and merge these two numbers with the millimetre number at
> >the preceding centimetre.
