2002-11-25 Isn't it funny how we are so conditioned to believe that all the cherished constants of physics are really conversions of some rational number in FFU? We back convert SI to FFU and see it is close to a rational FFU value and lo-and-behold, this is what that constant really is or was.
Next thing I'll be hearing is that the speed of light was originally suppose to be a rational 1000 ft/s (or is that fpsec ?), and g was originally exactly 32 ft/s^2. Any more? We won't be truly metricated until we stop looking back. Look what happened to Lot's wife when she looked back into the nuclear fire. She was consumed by it. That should be a lesson to all of those who look back to FFU. John No, the value of 760 mmHg was not converted from 30 inches, as far as I can tell. In fact, the standard value in inches is usually given as 29.92 inHg (back-converted from 760 mmHg). > > It looks a lot like the CGPM simply converted 760 mm of mercury (mmHg) to > 101 325 newtons per square metre (with a somewhat dubious precision of six > significant figures). > > In turn, it looks a lot like 760 millimetres of mercury was a casual > rounding of 30 inches of mercury to a metric measure > (30 inches x 25.4 mm/inch = 762 millimetres) >
