David Owen wrote: >The metric system would catch on faster if its evangelists were more >sensitive to other traditions, and less unbending about deviations >from theoretical consistency.
I couldn't have said it better myself. I think all USMA members should engrave this on a plaque and post it in a place they will see often. My XML page has moved to http://ssp-web.lib.byu.edu/measurement/ and it now includes an option to specify significant figures. I can't guarantee that the site will always be up. I have a question about the hectare. According to NIST at http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/outside.html, the hectare is one of the "units outside the SI that are currently accepted for use with the SI, subject to further review" whose "continued use is not encouraged." The hectare seems to me to be a very useful unit. It seems more practical for some purposes than square kilometers and square meters for the same reason that the liter is more practical than cubic meters and cubic millimeters. I presume that a hectare is 100 "ares" and an "are" is 100 square meters. Is this correct? How is this unit pronounced? I have a calculator with a conversion chart that refers to "acre" rather than "are". Is this a typo? Carl
