This is not trivial as you suggest Bill since people in the US are accustomed
to distance per fixed volume of fuel i.e. mpg or km/L. km and L are acceptable
units of SI. So why add 100 to the denominator when it's not necessary and
it's alien to US common practice?
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Hooper
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 5:25 PM
Subject: [USMA:40303] L/km vs. km/L
I find this bickering over the relative merits of measuring how a car uses
gasoline (L/km vs. km/L), is counterproductive, irrespective of whether 100 L
is used instead of 1 L.
BOTH are correct.
Both are useful,
EACH one being more useful than the other in certain considerations while
the other may be more useful in different situations.
All your arguments that "this one is better than that one" or vice-versa boil
down to nothing more than;
"The one I am familiar with is the best."
That statement should be expanded by saying,
"The one I am familiar with is the best ONLY BECAUSE I AM FAMILIAR WITH
IT."
The reason I find this kind of argument so disturbing is that it is the same
argument that metric opponents use to argue for keeping their old non-metric
units. They are "familiar" so people see them as being "better" (even when they
are not).
If we fail to see these two situation as being the same thing, then we can
never understand the rational of metric opponents. And if we can't do that, we
will never find ways to convince them that metric is better.
Let's turn our energies into finding ways to persuade people that familiar
things are NOT better just because they are familiar, and to consider the
advantages of using metric instead of the "familiar" old non-metric units.
Let's stop getting bogged down arguing whether L/km is better than km/L. The
arguments I have seen or no better than the argument that "feet are better than
metres because feet are more familiar".
Bill Hooper
1810 mm tall
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
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SImplification Begins With SI.
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