On Wed, 4 Jun 2003, William Thompson wrote:
Markus Kuhn wrote:
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While the international inch is indeed linked to the meter by a reasonably round factor, and even shows up indirectly in a number of ISO standards (e.g., inch-based threads and pipes), this can clearly not be said for the US pound and the US gallon and units derived from these, which are still required by US federal law to be present on consumer packages. As long as it remains legal and even required in the US to price goods per gallon or pound (units completely unrelated to the inch!),
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According to the NIST website, a gallon is defined as exactly 231 cubic inches. I would say that was a long way from being completely unrelated to the inch.
While the pound is unrelated to the inch, it is defined as exactly 0.45359237 kilograms.
Neither is a nice round number, but there is a definite relationship.
William Thompson
Well would you Americans consider stopping calling them English Units? It makes me cringe every time the Mars Climate Observer crash is blamed on `English Units'. We call the British equivalent Imperial Units, implying a definite historical context. And teach our kids SI units.
Pete.
You didn't hear me calling them English Units. I'm surrounding by too many Brits to do that anymore. Actually, the phrase I like is Flintstone Units, which I think I first heard on this mailing list. :-)
William Thompson
