On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 18:30:03 -0700 (MST), Jim Benson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Thu, 22 Dec 2005, Bengt Richter wrote: > >> >> >> >> For Americans: 15 meters is roughly 50 feet. >> > >> >Google can do that too, of course. <wink> >> > >> >http://www.google.com/search?q=convert+15+meters+to+feet >> > >> >(49.2125984 feet to be more precise) >> > >> Actually that looks like it's based on the approximation >> of 25.4 mm/inch, whereas I believe the legally defined US conversion >> is 39.3700 inches/meter. They're close. British is 39.3701 for some reason. >> At least according to my dusty 37th Edition Handbook of Chemistry and >> Physics (c) 1955. >> Maybe things have changed since then ;-) >> > >Actually they did change...My 54th edition lists the change that >as of July 1 1959, by definition, 1 inch is exactly 25.4 mm. > So I found, which makes me happy, because I had been assuming 25.4 for a long time. (I'm not happy about saying "I believe the legally defined conversion..." since I had only just tried to verify 25.4 and found that I was "wrong." I guess something told me to hedge with that "maybe" ;-) FWIW, my first reference was my trusty old Random House American College Dictionary (that I used in high school) dictionary, which also says 39.37 in/meter. But it's copyrighted 1949. They used to make real reference books with good paper ;-) Regards, Bengt Richter -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list