what I forgot!

division is for many people much harder than multiplication!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ma Be" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2002 7:17 PM
Subject: [USMA:20658] Re: Benefit of L/100 km vs. km/L


> On Wed, 26 Jun 2002 12:57:06
>  Wizard of OS wrote:
> >one lil' example:
> >
> >I wanna go to hamburg from berlin. I know my car consumes 9 L/100 km on
> >highway. Hamburg is 250 km away what's my consumption?
> >
> >9 L x 2,5 = 22,5 L I dont need even a calculator
> >
> The above is indeed a good example, Wiz (well done!  :-)   ).
Nonetheless, such exercise would be just as easy with l/Mm.  In that case we
just calculate 25% of 90, or divide 90 by 4!!!  ;-)
>
> >ISN'T it ez?
> >when you use km/L it makes it completely impossive to do it without
> >calculator!!!
> >
> >11,11 km/L
> >250 km to go
> >
> >250/11,11
> >
> >some kinda impossible in mind to do
> >
> Well...  It wouldn't be that tough actually to do it, but you'd need some
skillful and creative trickery to get around it (which I usually try to when
faced with "uncooperative" numbers like the above).  For instance, I'd just
note that 11.11 is actually 1/9, so I'd just multiply the 25 figure by 9 to
come up with the exact same result (22.5).  Evidently I'm skipping the
decimal point worries here which to us who are used to it becomes sort of
irrelevant since we do have an idea of what order of magnitude the result
should come at...  ;-)
>
> Now, IMHO the real question to ask here is more a one of *application* or
usefulness.  I.e. what is important for ordinary drivers to know when it
comes to fuel consumption issues?  If one wants to estimate how much fuel
one would need when doing trips (as companies operating fleets of vehicles
would), fine, I guess it's fair to say that l/Mm could be more convenient
for that.  But if all one is engaged in (like the overwhelming majority of
us) is finding out how our car is doing when we "fill up" our tanks,
certainly the km/l figure would definitely come much more handy, no?
>
> >now you maybe see the convenience of 100 km
> >
> So, "convenience" here is somewhat subjective and dependent on the
*application* one is envisaging.  Therefore, that's why after much careful
thought and consideration I've decided to become a strong proponent of
publishing *both* of these figures, km/l AND l/Mm!  There certainly would be
usage for both of these numbers and by doing so *every spectrum of usage*
would be nicely covered!
>
> Comments?...
>
> Marcus
>
>
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