Re: Metric Time (was Re: Why not 13 months? (Was La Systeme Metrique))
Robert McGee (rmcgee@worldbank.org)
13 Oct 1995 22:15:23 GMT
In article <45ku2a$cha@hermes.cair.du.edu>, ruhl@phoebe.cair.du.edu (Robert A. Uhl) says:
>
>hogshead). They are _huge_. Quite as useful as the ridiculous
>megaliter (conveys no meaning; I bet that the volume of the ocean is
>told to schoolchildren in liters or perhaps kiloliters.
>
And you find, say, 3 million liters more meaningful (by which I presume
you mean easier to visualize) than 3 megaliters? You either have
a staggeringly large quantity of a familiar and readily apprehended unit,
or you have a small quantity of perceptually unmanageable units. In either
case I doubt that most people could really picture what such a volume
would look like.
rmcgee@worldbank.org | I wanted to get a World Bank MasterCard
rmcgee@clark.net | so I could charge hydroelectric dams
Washington, DC | and stuff.
| --P.J. O'Rourke
The opinions expressed here are mine and do not reflect the views
of the World Bank.
|