Posts by skirmish

Whopping supersonic-car rocket rattles idyllic Cornwall

Re: pandering

Up until the 16th century the mile was 5000 feet. That might seem more logical at first sight, until you get on your calculator and see how dividable 5280 is. It's a truly mathematical number!

Re: pandering

And who says we are officially metric? The fact remains that most of us use imperial - official or not, that is the reality (and a good reason I won't be going to the USA). Secondly, I can't see Britain (if it did invent the metric system??) placing the 10,000,000 quadrant from the equator to pole...through Paris!

12, 36, 5280...Just some well thought out bases from the imperial system...Not mathematical, indeed...

If you can't see twelve for instance as being rational, I suggest you get a primer book in maths.

Re: pandering

These are gauges from private companies and have nothing to do with US standard units (the only one I know is AWG). Here in the UK we have standard wire gauge which is, unless you're a complete moron, easy to use. Our none linear number and letter drill sizes come into their own for many specific jobs too. Metric and imperial is like comparing Esperanto to English. The former is so basic that it's often more difficult to use than the latter (though the latter does take longer to learn). I know which language I'd rather speak.

Anyway, go to the DSGB site (Dozonal Society of GB) should be of interest...You'll soon be seeing those toe counting measures and our archaic counting system in a different light. Base 10 isn't the best mathematically (and just think, the French nearly gave us the 100 degree right angle!..now that would have been interesting.)

Re: pandering

Maybe it's because we live in Britain where most of us use imperial, just as Rolls Royce do. Notice the nice round numbers are the ones bracketed off (these are obviously the original specifications so why aren't the SI conversions bracketed instead?). If you don't like it, go live in France where they use a system that is not based on mathematics but purely on the amount of fingers humans happen to have, merkin.