As far as ease of expression goes, I have to concede to Bill on this point.
The kilosecond is easier to use. However most people do not have Bill's
'feel' for how long a kilosecond is in 'customary' time (16 minutes and 40
seconds).
M.F. Moon's post implied that s/he did not have this same 'feel' either, for
judging how long a kilosecond is without doing an actual calculation. As
such, my original post provided the specific information s/he asked for. In
that limited context, I stand by my first answer.
Linda D. Bergeron
----Original Message Follows----
From: Bill Hooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:36097] Re: How's metric faring at the winter Olympics?
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 16:25:42 -0500
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
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SImplification Begins With SI.
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