Dear Mike, Thanks for this. It reminds me of a story* I heard in the seventies about a some builders in France. They had been brought up building with metres and centimetres and they separated them with a decimal marker (a comma or virgule in their case). When they needed greater precision � say for an architrave � they simply popped in another decimal marker.
Using your example of 1234�mm, this would become 1,23,4 for the builders in France. In Australia, this would be 1.23.4, and it would be read as 1 metre 23 centimetres and 4 millimetres. I still admire the judgement of the Australian Metric Conversion Board, who made the decision to use millimetres � only. * I believe that this story came from the the consultative process that went on before the Construction Industry Committee made their decision on which units to use for construction in Australia. Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia on 2002-12-25 17.16, Mike Joy at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Pat wrote:- > > The Australian experience is that metric transition can be done in less > than > a year if you use millimetres � and in about fifty years � if you use > centimetres. > > ***************** > > So true, Pat. I watched some builders build my extension 5 months ago, two > extra storeys on our house, and saw how easy it was for them to measure > lengths of wood, etc, and cut them accurately every time to the nearest mm. > > They were working from plans 1:100 and had no problem with that. No > mistakes at all. > > There's no question that it's easier to measure and cut a length of wood, > say, 1234 mm long as it's easier to remember than 'one two three POINT > four' cm long, and then try and work that out on your tape which is in mm > anyway. Bound to lead to errors and hence wastage. > > Another main reason mm is used is because it's easier to have two units to > work with than three, i.e.. mm and m, rather than mm, cm and m. > > Costings were accurate as calculations were done in mm and then rounded up > as necessary. > > Folk who insist on using centimeters and Centigrade are usually those who > live in the past and are not the practical type. > > Regards > > Mike > Perth, Australia >
