Come on, Bill, be realistic! I live in a fully metric world, and the
spanners on my tool board are hanging in the
order:6-7-8-9-10-11-13-17-19 and so on. Never a problem to hang a tool
back on its proper place.
Since I'm working on my Healey I am continuously confronted with your 12
based system and it drives me mad. Can you VERY QUICKLY put the
following spanners on a table in the correct sequence:
23/64 - 1/8 - 7/32 - 1/2 - 5/16? Is 67/128 larger or smaller than 5/8?
No, Bill, even a lot of my British friends, who went metric a few
decades (sorry !) ago, now admit that the system based on 10 is much
easier to work with than their previous 12 based system.
And therefore, in my humble opinion, a decimal system is more 'logical'
than any other system
Decimal regards,
Jack Aeckerlin, The Netherlands (where we wear closed shoes nearly all
year round, so our toes can't help in counting!)
1964 BJ8 29432
William Moyer wrote:
>Folks,
>
>There's nothing more or less "logical" about any system of measurement.
>Logic is a thin reed to grasp in any event, but that's another
>discussion. There's nothing magic about either the base 10 or the
>choice of meters as a measurement. A base 12 is actually more flexible
>since 12 is evenly divisible by 2,3,4,and 6 whereas 10 is evenly
>divisible by only 2 and 5. The problem is people only have 10 fingers
>to help them count. Include your big toes and that problem is solved.
>The selection of the "meter" was made by a bunch of French scientists in
>the 1700's who determined that the standard of measurement should be a
>fraction of the meridian passing through Paris. Now there's a standard
>for you. Nothing subjective about that. Why not 10 times the length
>of Napoleon's favorite tool? And they got it wrong in the first place
>by 2mm.. And they got it wrong the second time as well. Imagine that.
>Now it's determined by a fraction of the speed of light. Got your light
>speed measurement device handy? Guess what, that's not a constant
>either.
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