Dear Carleton and Jerry,
Thanks for these thoughts. It has been a while since we discussed back-
converting here. I'll look into it a bit more and maybe prepare a
short article for the metrication matters newsletter.
Cheers and thanks again,
Pat Naughtin
Geelong, Australia
On 2009/02/09, at 3:23 PM, Carleton MacDonald wrote:
I think we called that “back-converting” on this list before.
The error comes from rounding and works like this.
Bottle of soda is 700 ml = 23.66 oz = gets rounded to 24 oz
Then the 24 oz gets converted back to metric = 709 ml = gets rounded
to 710 ml.
Somehow the bottle got 10 ml bigger in the back-conversion.
Carleton
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Pat Naughtin
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2009 21:24
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:42959] RE: Aussie fires
On 2009/02/09, at 9:44 AM, Jeremiah MacGregor wrote:
Pat,
You must have missed my follow-up response to Martin. I agree with
your point. But if you consider that the metric is changed to
imperial, then rounded to make the imperial look user friendly and
then later reconverted to metric; the reconverted metric may be
different then the original figures. Hence the confusion as to
which units may be more correct, even though both can be wrong to a
degree.
Does this make sense?
Jerry
Dear Jerry,
I understand the point you are making. Perhaps my grandmother put it
rather well when she said:
'Oh, what a wicked web we weave, when first we practice to deceive'.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Geelong, Australia
From: Pat Naughtin <[email protected]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, February 8, 2009 3:28:51 PM
Subject: [USMA:42953] RE: Aussie fires
Dear Jerry,
All the original data was measured in metric units, recorded in
metric units, communicated in metric units, and then dumbed down by
the Yahoo journalist presumably because the journalist is catering
to those he or she regards as the retarded people in the UK and in
the USA who can't cope with 17th century progress. You might like to
listen to the streaming of the fire emergency radio radio station at http://www.abc.net.au/melbourne
for a few minutes where all official measuring is reported in
metric units - only.
Dear Martin and Harry,
Thanks for your thoughts. It will be a hard time for us as we
recover from this disaster.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Geelong, Australia
70 kilometres from the nearest fire
On 2009/02/09, at 3:55 AM, Jeremiah MacGregor wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090208/ap_on_re_au_an/as_australia_wildfires
The link from Yahoo puts the English units first and the metric
second. I think there are some conversion errors so I'm not sure
which is correct, the English or the metric.
Jerry
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
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