Dear All:

You know I am becoming quite attached to the barley corn. It makes an excellent unit for teaching that the IFS system is very hard mathematics. Of the 20 questions in the exam the one that caused most errors included the barley corn, so now I can warn them about the issue. But it looks so simple the old one third.

For next years class I need a few real world examples of IFS problems any ideas for ones suitable for construction assignments.

I got the Wall Street Article, did anyone chase down the underlying reference to the US Pharmacopeias report Centre for Advance Patient safety.



John Nichols



User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/9.0.2509
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 11:57:34 +1100
Subject: [USMA:23901] Shoe sizes
From: Pat Naughtin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Dear All,

At our local 'Officeworks' store I found a copyright leaflet near the 'Copy
Centre' that used a drawing of a running shoe as its principle illustration.

A shoe was shown as a line drawing in plan and side elevation views. It was
the dimensions that attracted my interest.

The plan view showed the shoe to be 2800 long; the toe was 700; from the toe
to the top of the tongue was 1100; and from the top of the tongue to the
back of the shoe was 1000. There was no reference to any units on the
drawing at all.

My guess is that the units are tenths of millimetres (decimillimetres ?) as
a shoe could reasonably be 280 millimetres long.

It looks to me like the running shoe manufacturer is designing and making
their shoes in tenths of millimetres and then advertising them to the public
in the size numbers that we know are based on the lengths of barley grains.

It's an odd world!

Cheers,

Pat Naughtin CAMS
Geelong, Australia
John Nichols BE, Ph.D. (Newcastle), MIE (Aust), Chartered Professional Engineer
Assistant Professor
Texas A&M University
Department of Construction Science
Langford AC
Rm: A414 MD 3137
College Station, TX 77843-3137

Electronic mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Telephone: 979 845 6541
Facsimile: 979 862 1572
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