Edwards air show B-1 speed record attempt

From: Andreas Parsch a
the size of the items.

snip

And so what? The OP said metric units had "usability
problems (like similar sounding names for various units)". Neither
"meter" nor "millimeter" sound similar to other non-distance metric units.

Andreas

Milliliter and millimeter perhaps?

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

B2431 wrote:

And so what? The OP said metric units had "usability
problems (like similar sounding names for various units)". Neither
"meter" nor "millimeter" sound similar to other non-distance metric units.


Milliliter and millimeter perhaps?


"liter" and "meter" do indeed sound similar. However, from the context
it should be fairly easy to guess if the speaker means a distance or a
volume. And BTW, I'm not too familiar with English units, but maybe
there are also two similar sounding names of units. As long as units
with similar names are used for different kinds of measurements, the
risk of confusion should be negligible.

As for the identical prefixes, I already said why this is actually an
advantage.

Andreas

B2431 wrote:

From: Andreas Parsch a
Neither "meter" nor "millimeter" sound similar to other non-distance metric units.

Milliliter and millimeter perhaps?



Ok, now I noticed my stupid typo. Of course I wanted to say "Neither
'meter' nor 'millimeter' sound similar to other metric units _for
distance_". Sorry!

Andreas

Regnirps wrote:

"PosterBoy" Wrote:


"Regnirps" wrote in message
Oh, crap! The table uses that French system with the km/hour I can never

make

sense of!

-- Charlie Springer


I think you mean that nearly universal system with the km/hour. Try: anip


My 1952 Unabridged Dictionairy calls it "The French System" as it was for the
previous 100 years, and as a physicist I find it convenient for mental
calculations, but for every day hunam scale use it sucks.




I happen to be a physicist myself and use the same system both in work
and in daily life (which admittedly consists mainly out of working).
I've never had any problems with it. In fact, using the same system for
everything is very convenient, since it allows me to relate what I do as
a physicist to things in my daily life. Other than that, it's all
rather arbitrary. What the does it matter whether your length is 2 m or
6 feet and 7 inches?

It was
developed for scientific ellites. I'm sure you know that the units larger than
one use Latin prefixes and those smaller use Greek, something easily noticed by
a classically educated scientist of the 1880's. But for Mr. Goodwrench today?
An 8 mm bolt in grade 8.8 comes in three standard thread pitches and you say
"point seven oh" or "8mm with one point two five mm pitch" instead of "one
quarter twenty four". Fooey. Have you ever tried to shout French measurements
to someone in a noisy constructiuon environment? You can wind up with a doorway
three inches high.


Only if the guy on the recieving end is a bone-head.


It was officialy adopted by the US more than a hundred years ago. Do you think
it hasn't caught on because people are stuborn or because it has usability
problems (like similar sounding names for various units)?


It hasn't caught on because people like to stick to what they know.
That's all.
I have an English friend (a physicist as well) who does pretty much
everything in SI, but if you ask for his weight he answers in `stone'
and has to think hard about how many kilogrammes that is. By the way,
I'm well aware of the fact that kg is the unit of mass, whilst your
weight should technically be expressed in Newtons.
If like me, you've grown up in a country that uses SI, it's very
natural. No problem whatsoever.

Would you try to make
everybody drive cars they don't like for 150 years? A km is what, the distance
from pole to equator divided by 15,000? What's a nautical mile?


Do you call the distance from the pole to the equator a human measure?
That hardly seems relevant when taking a trip to the supermarket or when
talking about how much gas your car burns when taking a trip to your
relatives.
It just depends on what you're used to.



-- Charlie Springer



Regards,
Ralph Savelsberg

B2431 wrote:

From: Andreas Parsch a
the size of the items.


snip

And so what? The OP said metric units had "usability
problems (like similar sounding names for various units)". Neither
"meter" nor "millimeter" sound similar to other non-distance metric units.

Andreas


Milliliter and millimeter perhaps?

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired



Yes, they sound vaguely similar, but I fail to see why that would be a
problem. If any builder would be told to build a doorway of 2200
milliliters tall, I'm sure he'd know that that doesn't make a whole lot
of sense.

Regards,

Ralph Savelsberg

Andreas Parsch wrote:
I'm not too familiar with English units, but maybe there are also two
similar sounding names of units.

"There are only 18 ounces of cottage cheese in a 24 ounce tub".

Andreas Parsch wrote in
:

It wouldn't have happened if they had used proper (i.e. _metric_
;-) ) units consistently.

If things were undocumented, as they were in that case, not so.

One set of programmers could have a routine using mks units, and
another could feed it data in cgs units.

The real problem with metric is that they didn't pick the units right.
They should have made a smaller meter. If a meter were what we call a
decimeter now, than a liter would be a cubic meter and a liter of water
would mass a gram, and there would be less need for all this mucking
about with cgs and mks units; everything would be mgs.

--
Jim Battista
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.

"Andreas Parsch" wrote in message
...
John Keeney wrote:

"Andreas Parsch" wrote in message
...

Not any easier than with U.S. or Imperial units. BTW, a few years
there was this unfortuante incident involving a multi-million $ NASA
space probe and incompetent usage of U.S. units of distance ;-) ...


Naw, it was because some idiot provided some of the terms in
metric instead of proper units.


It wouldn't have happened if they had used proper (i.e. _metric_ ;-) )
units consistently.

Where outside NASA's fantasy and Russia is altitude in aerospace in units
other than feet? I think the fault lies with NASA.

"Pat Norton" wrote in message
...
John Keeney wrote:
it was because some idiot provided some of the terms in
metric instead of proper units.

Lockheed Martin Astronautics failed to provide metric units as
specified by NASA.

The official investigation report says:
"The MCO MIB [Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap Investigation Board] has
determined that the root cause for the loss of the MCO spacecraft was
the failure to use metric units in the coding of a ground software
file, "Small Forces," used in trajectory models. Specifically,
thruster performance data in English units instead of metric units was
used in the software application code titled SM_FORCES (smallforces).
The output from the SM_FORCES application code as required by a MSOP
Project Software Interface Specification (SIS) was to be in metric
units of Newton-seconds (N-s). Instead, the data was reported in
English units of pound-seconds (lbf-s). The Angular Momentum
Desaturation (AMD) file contained the output data from the SM_FORCES
software. The SIS, which was not followed, defines both the format and
units of the AMD file generated by ground-based computers."
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codeq/...mib_report.pdf

How could this be the root cause?

Was there no simulation?

"Jim Battista" wrote in message
.. .
Andreas Parsch wrote in
:

It wouldn't have happened if they had used proper (i.e. _metric_
;-) ) units consistently.

If things were undocumented, as they were in that case, not so.

One set of programmers could have a routine using mks units, and
another could feed it data in cgs units.


Nobody should be using either.

For at least 20 years the standard unit set has been SI

The real problem with metric is that they didn't pick the units right.
They should have made a smaller meter. If a meter were what we call a
decimeter now, than a liter would be a cubic meter and a liter of water
would mass a gram, and there would be less need for all this mucking
about with cgs and mks units; everything would be mgs.


Eh What ?

The SI system is simplicity itself

A cu metre of water masses 1 Kg - simple

Now the non SI units are the bloody nightmare with
pint , gallon and barrel meaning different things in
the UK and USA

I considerably myself seriously short changed with
the 16oz US pint , especially when its beer

Keith