On Sun, 23 Dec 2001 00:30:18 -0500
Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> spewed into the bitstream:
> Jay Nugent wrote:
>
> > Greetings,
> >
> > On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, Lee wrote:
> >
> > > Jay Nugent wrote:
> > >
> > > >Snip
>
> > > > Too bad we blew it back in the late 70's, early 80's when we
were
> > > > *supposed* to move over to the metric system. Base-10 is FAR
better a
> > > > measurement scale than Base-the-kings-feet and other arbitrary
scales.
> > >
> > > Metric is just as arbitrary as a king's foot being 12 inches long
rather than 10 and
> > > 36 inches from tip of his nose to finger tips. In the universe
there's nothing more
> > > arbitrary than the circumference of the Earth or boiling and
freezing point of pure
> > > water at one standard Earth atmosphere.
> >
> > Yeah, but how do you start from scratch unless you happen to have
the
> > king's body laying around somewhere. At least with a *water*
standard,
> > your referance is available in abundance on the vast majority of the
> > planet. There was only ONE king and he's pretty rotted away by now so
we
> > can't really be sure that our measurement system is even in
calibration
> > anymore... ;-) We can recalibrate against a water standard at
anytime.
> >
> > --- Jay
>
> Actual we don't need to. The US bureau of Standards maintains a metal
standard for the
> inch, foot, yard in a temperature controled environment along with
metric and atomic
> standards for wave length standards. As far as pure water there is no
such thing in the
> universe. Any planet that has sufficient atmosphere pressure and te
mperature to
> maintain water in the liquid state also has gasepus impurities that end
up in the water
> effecting it's boilling and freezing points.
>
That's not all that affects the boiling and freezing points. I doubt
you'll find many other planets that have the same gravity as wee do (thus
the same psi at sea level, which also affects the measurement).
Ciao,
David A. Bandel
--
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
-- Nemesis Racing Team motto
Internet (H323) phone: 206.28.187.30
_______________________________________________
Linux-users mailing list
Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
