>Actually, the English System of measurement is simple to learn when you grow up with it. But who in their right mind would want to learn it given a choice? :)
>
>Tom
One thing is learning it - meaning, memorize that a foot has 12 inches, for instance. But even for those who now it, the calculations are quite involved.
For instance, how much is 5 times 1'7"? The calculation requires you to multiply calculate 5 times each part, convert the inches part into feet and inches (do a division with remainder), and add this to the feet you got previously.
Or, even more interesting: What surface does a square have, if each side is 2'7"?
With the metric system, all this is much simpler.
But apart from this simplicity, there is another, perhaps more serious issue - international standards. The fact that the U.S. clings to old-fashioned measures requires a lot of conversion to and fro.
Hilmar.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
