At 23 08 05, 08:53 PM, Remek Kocz wrote: >Since that time, I noticed that the use of the mil in the consumer >life is really limited to the thincknesses of very thin materials, >such as paper, aluminum foil, garbage bags, or plastic wrap. >Considering the Americans' distinct familiarity with the millimeter, >it's reasonable to speculate, that we quite honestly could do without >the mil. But, of course, this brings up the question, of how >widespread is the mil in industry?
The mil (1/1000th of an inch) is widespread in many industries that still use colloquial measurements. Go to a large industrial trade show (IMTS, NMW, etc.) and you will see essentially all of the machining equipment runs in metric or colloquial units, and in the latter small dimensions are measured in mils. There is really no substitute for it, so we can expect it to be around as long as there are non-metric activities. Jim
