The material for that page was provided, as an Excel spreadsheet, by Dennis Brownridge. My role was to format it for readability (including several hours removing thousands of bytes of extraneous html code generated when one saves an Excel document as an html file).
On the subject of precision, though, look at the explanatory notes. Those items with an asterisk are exact conversions, so the conversion factor only goes to the number of places necessary. Bill Potts, CMS Roseville, CA http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On >Behalf Of Jim Elwell >Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 07:19 >To: U.S. Metric Association >Subject: [USMA:24876] RE: Definitions of US non-metric units > > >At 2/16/2003, 02:51 PM, Bill Potts wrote: >>Dennis Brownridge and I have anticipated that very need, Terry. >> >>Just go to http://metric1.org/nonsi.htm. >> >>Bill Potts, CMS >>Roseville, CA >>http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] > >Bill: > >As always, there is more to your website than I realized. I've bookmarked >this non-metric-unit conversion page for reference, and will be referring >my (captive) students to it. > >However, I'm puzzled by the widely varying precision in the conversion >factors. You say that precision is shown as "appropriate," but I can't see >why cubic foot deserves 8 significant digits while gallon gets only 4. >Fluid ounce gets 5, cup gets 3 (or 2). > >I would suggest two columns: "precise" (with maybe six digits for >everything) and "typical" (rounded as appropriate). That way I can have a >"cup" as 240 mL for typical use, or 236.59 mL if I want the more >precise value. > >Actually cup illustrates the problem: there are some listserver >members who >would suggest it should be rounded to 250 for typical use, not 240, but if >only the rounded value is shown, it makes it difficult for the user to >round as appropriate to their use. > > >Jim Elwell, CAMS >Electrical Engineer >Industrial manufacturing manager >Salt Lake City, Utah, USA >www.qsicorp.com
