The point that I was making is that those who are nimble with figures prefer metric units those who are not are probably not actually using those figures.
Here in the United Kingdom we have a unit of measure the stone (described as barbaric by a former Spanish colleague of mine). Although many people are very loud about using it, I believe that very few Brits could find the average of the following figures 8 st 4 lbs 10 st 12 lbs 9 st 11 lbs 13 st 6 lbs The usual answer is Why would you want to find the average? From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Hooper Sent: 08 July 2012 02:12 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:51757] Re: crazy Olde English measurements On Jul 6 , at 11:22 AM, Martin Vlietstra wrote: Those of us who are nimble with numbers will quickly spot that 850 feet is less than ¼ mile a mile is 5280 feet, so a ¼ mile is greater than 1000 feet, which in turn is greater than 850 feet. Not everyone is so nimble with units. I doubt whether many people could figure it out* (and even fewer would know the rule that shorter distances are alway shown in feet, never in miles, and longer distances are shown in miles, never in feet). However, you really missed my point so I must not have expressed myself well. Since I was writing to metric proponents, I just assumed that you would understand that I meant that it would be SO much easier in metric regardless of how "nimble with numbers" one is. Using SI, the one distance would be about 250 m and the other would be 0.4 km.* Now it is easy to see which is nearer, either by recognizing 250 m as being 0.25 km and comparing 0.4 km with 0.25 km, or by recognizing that 0.4 km is 400 m and comparing 250 m with 400 m. Regards, Bill * Of course, in a metric country they would probably use 400 m instead of 0.4 km in the first place, making it even easier.
