Most of Europe adopted a decimal currency during the nineteenth century. Germany for example, adopted a decimal currency in 1871 when the German Empire (the second Reich) was founded by Bismark.
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tom Wade Sent: 14 April 2010 17:21 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:47122] RE: Decimal currency & Metrication > My own personal opinion is that currency and measures are so different > that I could never support LSD (or a return to it). Very few people would. My point is that once they've gotten used to metric units, very few people would want to go back to imperial either. > Unlike the everyday > usage of measures by ordinary people base-10 currency makes > computerisation of shopping, currency conversion, taxation, etc much > easier. But dealing with calculations in measurement is also made easier by metric units. Consider for example the hoops that carpet shops had to go through by measuring rooms in feet and inches, and then converting it to square yards to compute the price. So much easier if you use meters. > I would not think it would be seen as > Brussels interfering as most countries never even converted to a decimal > currency - it simply wasn't 'prequelled' if that makes sense. Not really. Before the Americans introduced decimal currency, pretty much all of Europe and most of the world had peculiar multiples of subunit to currency unit. It is only because the transition happened so long ago that decimal currency seems like it was always there (outside our two countries which were late joiners). The fact is that it is decimalization that is at the heart of both the currency reform and the metric system, and both demonstrate the superiority of a system in which unit relationships are in harmony with the base numbering system. Tom Wade
