Hi Phil Mostly this just follows Steves approach - but I would list
1) Orwells example - if you want an English pint in England on a busy night near closing time then its definitely best to say 'a pint please' 2) If you want to understand how the European central bank today is trying to get control of European financial affairs then I guess you would figure it in Euros - but if you wanted to compare it with similar circumstance in the 14th century then florins (@ 3.54g gold) is best. In the 12th century best work in sterlings (@1.46g silver) 3) SI may be the 'most satisfactory general system around today' - but that does not make it 'best' - counting in binary, duodecimal and sexagesimal bases all have their genuine advantages over base 10 - (for those who have stopped counting on their fingers anyhow). 4) The philosophical reply on 3) is that since the set of human utterances is not a metric space*, this concept of 'best' is not part of any well formed formula (if you follow Quine anyhow - as best I understand it) rob PS you are wondering why I wrote this - then its cause I am doing my annual accounts today and anything has to be better than sticking at that......... PPS * 'metric' as in pure mathematics of course > Hmm > > I wonder, can you give an example where metric isn't the best system to use? > > Phil Hall > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Behalf Of Stephen Humphreys > > Sent: 28 February 2005 10:13 > > To: U.S. Metric Association > > Subject: [USMA:32300] RE: Gaining ground > > > > > > Science and medicine (including dentristry) are predominantly metric. I > > don't think anyone would argue with that as metric is the best > > system to use > > in that particular aspect/application. > > >
