POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : imperial vs metric : Re: imperial vs metric Server Time
3 Sep 2024 19:20:47 EDT (-0400)
  Re: imperial vs metric  
From: Francois Labreque
Date: 24 Aug 2010 08:37:37
Message: <4c73bd11$1@news.povray.org>
scott a écrit :
>> Imperial measurements are generally based on humans, so it's pretty 
>> convenient for everyday usage.
> 
> So long as you don't need to convert between units or do any 
> calculations. Buying carpet was one example, another is when you tell me 
> you weigh X pounds and I usually deal with stones, I have no clue 
> whether that's a lot! Or if you measure someones height with a tape 
> measure marked in inches, what's that in feet? Or if you are following a 
> recipe that calls for 10 oz of flour and you want to make 4x the 
> quantity for a party, how much flour do you weigh out if your scale is 
> in pounds and ounces?  These calculations may seem relatively simple if 
> you're good at mental arithmetic, but people who aren't struggle (all of 
> the ones above I've witnessed at least once).
> 
>> Metric has the advantage that you don't get into weird problems with 
>> units when you do science.
> 
> Yes, it's very odd looking through an imperial science text book where 
> every formula has some bizarre constant like 537.4 in it!
> 
> 

Is it really any weirder than 273.15?

Likewise, I don't think 9.81 is a more convenient constant than 32.2!

My biggest beef with the imperial units is that I usually screw up the 
16th and 32nds marks on my measuring tape and end up cutting my planks 
just a little too short.  It is much harder to mix up the cm and mm lines.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }


Post a reply to this message

Copyright 2003-2023 Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.