2002-10-19 Upon reading this, one does not really know if the person "experiencing" such difficulties knows better and is just using this as a scare tactic to scare people who don't know about SI into thinking that SI is really hard. Thus, these other people become convinced that they need to oppose metrication, or else their lives would be hell. Or, they really don't know how to work strictly in SI. They think working in SI means doing it first in rational inches, then converting it over to SI and getting funny numbers.
I work in SI all of the time. When I convert FFU to SI, I always round the FFU converted inch to an exact whole number in millimetres. On a rare occasion, I will go to the nearest 0.5 mm. I don't need decimal parts of a millimetre as the original inch was never more accurate that 1/16 in (1.5 mm). By rounding to the nearest millimetre, I'm still more accurate than the original inch was anyway. Conversion is no longer an issue for me. Most of the old drawings for the products that I am responsible for, I upgraded to SI years ago. Only seldom now, do I come across a drawing that needs to be upgraded. Everything is now in SI and has been done so for a long time now. In response to Trevor's comment, what value is 13/24 inches? Twenty-fourths are not proper FFU fractions. Yes, Trevor may be one of the few who can do this in his head, but think of the time it took and he still didn't get it into a usable form. He would have to go back and recalculate the mess he came up with to put it in a form that appears on a scale. If I divide 67.625 inches on a calculator, I get 22.541666667 inches. That number is just as irrational as the 572.5833333 mm it comes out to be. So, how are inches superior? I tried for about 5 min with a calculator to get the 0.5416666667 into a usable inch format and could not. Han, You need to go back to that sight and show Trevor the folly of his ways and point out to him some of the problems with his method shown above. If he really has to divide something into thirds, why not start out with a 174 cm piece of something and divide it by 3 to get 58 cm. That would work perfect. John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Han Maenen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, 2002-10-19 08:02 Subject: [USMA:22793] Crazy anti-metric argument > Found this on the Conversions Forum on the Internet French Property (IFP) > site. > > http://www.infora.com/cgi-bin/infora.pl > > > Well, well, now the 'Imperialists' are blaming the metric system for the > trouble of converting from inches to centimeters and needing a calculator to > do it! Also, see the idiotic metric values involved. Obviously Trevor thinks > that THIS is the way the metric system is being used all the time! Yes, and > we also use rulers with 2.54 cm increments, I presume! > > > >For the use in drafting, which method is best? Why? > > (Trevor had divided an inch value by 3 and came to 1'10-13/24") > > Trevor stated: > "make it 1 ft 10 & 13/24 in - and I used NO paper (did it in my head) > > Now to do it in metric, I had to use a calculator!: > 67.625 in X 2.54 = 171.7675 cm / 3 = 57.255833 cm > (altho' I could have done the 'divide by 3' in my head!) > > Metric was quicker ONLY because I used a calculator." > > My answer: > > In the first place: I would round 171.7675 cm to 172 cm and then divide by > 3. This value was an exact conversion from Imperial to metric. > This had nothing to do with metric. The calculator was necessary because a > CONVERSION from Imperial to metric had to be made. Anything that uses metric > from the outset will never use figures like 171.7675 cm or 57.255833 cm > either. Claims that metric uses such crazy values are anti-metric > propaganda. Suppose it had been 100 cm; divided by 3 would have been 33.3 > cm. If you choose 120 cm, divide it by 3: 40 cm. I surely do not need a > calculator for that. > I far prefer the metric method; I reject British and USA units. A method, > metric or Imperial, may be best for any individual who is familiar with one > or the other. > > > > Han > Historian of Dutch Metrication, Nijmegen, The Netherlands >
