Metric on tape measures

[<me9]

It has. Napoleon did and it was used for a short time.

[The Medway Handyman]

That was a typo rather than an error, but it does make the point nicely.

[nightjar]

I suspect she was taught both cgs and mks, as I was, but it has more to do with what is common usage than official standards. The other day, a nurse was vaguely surprised that someone of my age did not need his weight converted from kg to stone and that I knew my height in cms.

Colin Bignell

[michael adams]

You seem to bore easily then.

Well on occasion so can I.

Bye bye.

michael adams

...

[Andy Champ]

I don't think that'll get you a date :)

I've never understood the use of mm in building. Since when was a house accurate to within an inch, never mind 1 mm?

Andy

[geoff]

In message , Frank Erskine writes

SI units work in powers of three

micrometre, millimetre, metre, kilometre etc

[geoff]

In message , nightjar writes

Yeah - german unit of weight the pfund, unit of measurement the zoll (=25.4mm)

[geoff]

In message , [e-mail] writes

He was only a short man

[Jules]

Only if you use French inches.

[The Medway Handyman]

Not impossible for 3'7" to be confused with 37" though.

[Owain]

Just measure everything in ft and write it down in metres.

"Yes miss we do live in a really big house"

Owain

[Dave Liquorice]

er, power of 3 = x^3 = x cubed at least that is how I'd read it...

The SI multplier increments are x * 10^3 (1000) or x * 10^-3 (0.001).

[geoff]

I did change "orders" to "powers" for some reason

Derren bloody Brown's fault ...

[Jethro]

"... so when we get the real thing, it'll look just like this ?"

[Jethro]

"...say what you will about drugs, they have taught Americas youth the metric system ...."

[Jules]

I just told him to measure in inches and gave him the conversion factor :-)

[The Medway Handyman]

I knew in advance you would blame him...

[nightjar]

The pfund is usually taken to be half a kilogramme. Most of Europe used variations on what we know as Imperial measure until they adopted the French system. Two different foot rules were found aboard the warship Vasa, one of

11 inches long, the other of 10 IIRC.

Colin Bignell

[John Rumm]

m or mm only really. cm is just a half baked unit to try and give you something of practical length you can visualise.

Although brought up in the era when both imperial and metric were common, and hence in theory can do both, I find I use different forms for different applications. For very precise work, or small measurements then mm. For intermediate lengths - say curtain lengths or similar, then I find I make fewer errors in inches (you don't tend to get the problems of being factors of 10 out in the small digits). Things like heights of people I can visualise in imperial far more easily - I know what 6'3" looks like - but not instinctively what 1905mm looks like - other than a bit under 2m. Metres I can visualise, but not yards without converting to feet! km seem alien as do kph. kg are fine (although not for body weight, where stones still rule).

[Andy Burns]

let alone L/100km