You could try to get to those who placed that sign on Goat Island and ask them
to make it 75 00 gallons / 300 000 litres per second.
Overly precise conversions are also a weapon of the anti-metric brigade. They
appear again and again in those 'funny' anti-metric articles. In the beginning
of the twentieth century (I think it was 1904) a metric bill was before the
British Parliament. Lloyd Gorge scuppered the bill with this statement: "Do you
expect the British working man to go into a pub and ask for 0.568 litres of
beer?". This balderdash, spouted by an innumerate and ignorant politician, was
enough to delay British metrication for more than 100 years and counting.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Saxton
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Monday, 2008, June 23 4:07
Subject: [USMA:41195] Re: Precise approximation: an Oxymoron
Reminds me of the sign on Goat Island which gives the flow over Niagara falls
as 75000 gallons or 283906 liters per second.
Bill Hooper wrote:
"Astronomy" is a fine magazine with a clear policy of reporting metric
equivalents to most measurements that are given in non-metric terms. In a
recent issue, however, (2008 July, pg 20), I was struck by the curious
statement that an observer was "at an elevation of nearly 5000 feet (1,524
meters)." I was annoyed by the overly preciseness of the metric value. I wrote
a letter to teir ediotor, praising teir use of metric but expressing
disappointment at the overly precise value of this particular converted value.
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