On 14/05/06 3:28 AM, "Michael Payne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I think what Pat is saying is use millimeters for technical drawings, > construction, manufacturing, etc. Because the millimeter, centimeter and > meter are easily interchangeable it's perfectly fine to use cm or m for > height or other personal things. But technically, if we use millimeters for > plans, there are no decimal places and the next multiple is the meter, then > the kilometer, etc. The NIST recommendation if I remember is to have a space > every 3 digits, so a boo can be 100 mm long, a house 18 000 mm long, a ship > 400 000 mm long, a bridge 1 000 000 mm long. With practice we can easily > read this as 10 cm, 18 m, 400 m or 1000 m (1 km). I've come across problems > with tape measures that are in cm, after 100 cm they start at 1 again, > whereas it should be 101 or preferably 1010 mm. This might be on a 5 or 10 m > tape measure. > > Mike Payne Dear Mike, In Australia we don't face this issue with tapes as millimetre only tapes are readily available and are used by most trades people. Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305 Belmont 3216 Geelong, Australia 61 3 5241 2008 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metricationmatters.com
