[USMA:36097] Re: How's metric faring at the winter Olympics?

[Bill Hooper]

m.f.moon asked: Can you tell me how much time is passed if I say the travel time from LA to SF is about 20 ks? to which Linda B. replied: 5 hours, 33 minutes and 20 seconds. I have an answer that I think is better than Linda's.  I'd say, "Yes, the time passed in 20 ks is 20 ks", which I understand because I have a feel for how big a kilosecond is. It sure is easier to express it in kiloseconds than it is to do it in "hours:minutes:seconds". It helps to know that there are 86.4 kiloseconds in a day, so that one could easily note that 20 kiloseconds is about a quarter of a day to get from LA to SF.  I'd guess you were driving rather than taking a plane. One could also answer the question by saying  that 20 ks is 20 000 seconds but that's silly because seconds are too small to be conveniently used to measure such large times; kiloseconds works better. Regards, Bill Hooper Fernandina Beach, Forida, USA ==========================    SImplification Begins With SI. ==========================