scott wrote:
> So the length of a support beam is measured as something like 475 
> inches? 

Honestly, I dunno. I haven't built anything requiring "support beams". :-)

> Do you have any idea how long something that is 475 inches 
> actually looks like?  Or do you have to convert roughly into feet/yards 
> first?

I would have to convert it in my head. 480 inches is about 40 feet, so I 
know what that looks like.  Yeah, it's math, but it's trivial math, on 
the order of reducing fractions to common denominators.

> Or like the example you gave earlier, if something is 50 thousand feet 
> away, do you know how far that is? Or do you have to do a rough 
> conversion to miles first?

Mentally, I'd do a rough conversion. For something like that, I'd say 
"50000 feet is about 10 miles" and I'd leave off the "280 feet per mile" 
I was missing.

> In metric it's far easier, you buy a piece of wood that is 1200x600x28, 

Right. And why do they sell it at 1200x600, rather than 1000x500? 
Because you can divide it in thirds and quarters. :-)

> you know straight away how big it is without needing to any sums in your 
> head. Ditto if something is 50 thousand metres away, I know it's going 
> to take me about 30 mins to get there straight away - no tricky 
> conversions needed.

Yeah. But again, unless you're actually doing science, I don't think it 
comes up all that often. I can't remember the last time outside an 
academic context (like this) where I needed to convert feet to miles. It 
might come up once every three or four years.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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