Hi Folks,
I didn't mean to hijack the tread, but since I seem to have done so, I might as well make a complete mess of it. SI is of course easy to manipulate, by being all base 10 units, but the Hubble telescope still had the primary mirror ground nearly perfectly to the wrong shape because people were involved. My wife was able to do British monetary calculations in her head, while dealing with guineas, pounds, shillings, pence, half-pence, and quarter-pence. Pounds were base 10, guineas were base 21, shillings were base 20, pence were base 12. Think about figuring the price of flour: I want 1 stone 1 pound of flour that is priced at 1 shilling 2 1/2 pence per pound. How much cash do I need? I have to wonder how such a complex system ever came into being, but such complexity is fairly common throughout history and around the world.
We cant agree which side of the road we should drive on. We can't agree which is the "One True God". We cant agree on how shoes are sized. We cant even agree how to speak a common language! I could converse fairly easily in Bejing, but had trouble ordering a beer in Hong Kong. I once wanted to buy an AWL in Cocoa Beach , Florida: I was handed a can of OIL! It seems the only thing we can agree on is that I am taller and better looking on the Web....
We do agree, right?
Thanks for the conversation.
TTFN,
Dennis
