"Marcel Kuijper" <zoepetier_nothing_here@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:yqaga3pax4vo$.4o2xctzyq4zg$.dlg@40tude.net...
>
> /BEGIN RANT/
>
> Can people please stop using the Imperial System??
>
> I was reading an article of the Airliners.net forum on another near miss
> mid-air collision during a perpendicular take-off at JFK.
>
> One guy said :"They spoke of 500 feet seperation."
>
> Another guy replied :"I heard it was more like half a mile."
>
> Now here, with the metric system, when someone says "half a kilometer",
> everyone else knows it's 500 meters, because 1 kilometer is 1000 meters.
> It's a nice round number.
>
> Metric System
> ----------------------
> 10 millimeters = 1 centimeter
> 100 centimeters = 1 meter
> 1000 meters = 1 kilometer
>
>
> Imperial System
> ------------------------
> 100 inches = 8.33 feet
> 1000 inches = 27 yards
> 1 mile = 5.280 feet
> 1 mile = 1.760 yards
>
> Half a mile = 880 yards or 2.640 feet.
>
> I'm sorry, but this system just makes no sense.
> Where's the logic?
>
> Or is my vision towards the Imperial System just slightly skewed?
> Cos it's giving me a headache everytime.
>
> I'm just glad Google provides a simple way to convert one to the other.
>
> /END RANT/
>
> --
>
> Marcel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (HC153VE)
>
> "Some wars last for decades. Others last for three periods."
I seem to recall most Imperial length measures were defined by the length of
body parts in the dim and distant past.
1 inch equated to the width of a thumb.
1 foot probably equated to the length of a foot and dates from around or
before 2575BC.
1 yard was supposedly invented by Henry I as being the distance between the
tip of his nose and the end of his thumb.
1 Hand (measure for the height of a horse) was the width of a hand.
I just don't understand how we come to have 437 ½ (437.499) grains in an
ounce.
Where on earth did that come from?
Which type of grain is it based on?
Thankfully I have never ever seen grains used in connection with anything.
Andrew B (Cheshire, England)
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
(Lord Kelvin, president Royal Society, 1895.)
