Don't worry, Steve. The important thing is that noone has come up with a binary fraction converter yet. *That* is a relief... On the other hand I still don't like seeing decimalizations of ifp units. To me that poses as a bigger threat to the acceptance of SI in the US than many other things, especially considering that the rest of the world could probably "accept/tolerate" them more than if they came in the usual crappy fractional way...
Marcus On Mon, 11 Feb 2002 19:41:43 Stephen Davis wrote: >As you have said, Marcus, I have probably misunderstood you!! > >I thought you were referring to fractions like 1/2, which, obviously, would convert >to 0.5 decimally!! > >That is why I said if I keyed in a fraction such as 11/20, the conversion would be >0.55!! > >Please forgive my obvious ignorance!! > >Regards, > >Steve. >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Ma Be" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 7:19 PM >Subject: [USMA:18143] Re: Weather reports during the Olympics > > >> On Mon, 11 Feb 2002 18:35:50 >> Stephen Davis wrote: >> >I see your point, Marcus, but surely a TV company (they certainly don't do so over >here, to my knowledge) would not bother converting metric to binary fractions >anyway!! >> > >> Perhaps not. However, "the man on the street in the US" is much more familiar with >binary fractions than some 2.55-in value! BTW, it worries me quite a bit that we >seem to be seeing more and more decimal inches and feet out there! Evidently this is >the sort of thing I have been witnessing in the aerospace industry, but never thought >it would become so prevalent elsewhere. >> >> I just wished Americans complained more about this bastardization of their own >system. Oh, well... Wishful thinking, I guess... :-S >> >> >Surely the decimal equivalent would suffice?? >> > >> Please, see above. >> >> >Incidentally, unless I have missed your point by a couple of km, 0.55mm converted >to a binary fraction would be 11/20, wouldn't it?? >> > >> Yes, I'm afraid you did miss my point. I was always talking about *binary* >fractions (2^-n), 11/20 would not qualify for that. >> >> >Also, I happen to own a Casio fx-83WA scientific calculator that converts decimals >to binary fractions and back again, so it obviously can be done!! :) >> > >> ? Are you saying that if you keyed in 0.55 in your calculator it would give the >conversion to 9/16? Or would it be 35/64?... On what basis would this conversion >be, what level of accuracy? How can it tell when to convert it to a 16th, a 32nd, a >64th, etc? Just curious... >> >> Marcus >> >> >> Is your boss reading your email? ....Probably >> Keep your messages private by using Lycos Mail. >> Sign up today at http://mail.lycos.com >> > Is your boss reading your email? ....Probably Keep your messages private by using Lycos Mail. Sign up today at http://mail.lycos.com
