Remember the Mars mission, which failed because one psrt of the engineering staff worked in inches the other in centimeters....
That cost us dearly!

Peter


>>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.