You don't HAVE to - it's not like being stubborn is illegal or anything. As someone who has made the switch, it's both puzzling and frustrating that people willingly choose to make their lives more difficult. But hey, it's your life and your choice - nobody's about to take that away from you.
The French tried twice to change the way time is measured. They tried 10 hours per day, 100 minutes per hour, and 100 seconds per minute. They gave up when people found it too big a PITA. In the US we just feel the same way about the whole system.
Oh heck you're right! [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_time]Metric time - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] Well, I've heard it all now.
That was in 1794. If you want a bigger laugh, in the late 19th century the Indiana state legislature tried to change the value of Pi to an easier to handle number. The bill didn't pass, but only because there was a mathematician in the legislature that convinced them it wouldn't work.
You guys all get it real easy. Try growing up in Hong Kong which was a British colony with 95% Chinese population. We had to deal with the traditional Chinese "market" units of measurements, and the British Imperial units, then the Metric SI units were adapted in the seventies. For example, the traditional Chinese 斤 was roughly equivalent to 1.33 pounds, and a little bit more than 1/2 Kg. Now China (mainland) standardised it to be exactly 500g ~= 1.1 lbs. But elder people still are customed to the roughly 20 ounce Chinese 斤 (which is pronounced as "gun"). So if you hear people buying "gun"s of stuff in Hong Kong markets, don't be alarmed. Those "gun"s are obsolete, not illegal. They don't put people in jail for keep using old measuring units, or the whole city will become a huge jail.
And I'm sure more carrot and less stick would work here. Let people use pounds and ounces but have metric as the official measurement. This way everyone is happy and metric will slowly take over. Of course, the EU are a non elected bully boy and will carry on with their heavy handed approach.
No. I'm using Linux and an Open Source conversion program called ConvertAll. It's a great little application. I highly recommend it. The value I posed is actually closer than the one originally used in this thread, although there is a small amount of round off error. I was only working to eight decimal places. Tom
wait a minute..... 5/4ths of a gallon is 1.25 gallons. you take a gallon and divide it into 4ths, and you get .25 (25% of the gallon is 1/4th of a gallon). so you take the .25 and multiply it by 5 and you should get 1.25.
making citizens of a country learn a new measurement system is like forcing a new language on a population. leave my bushels, pecks, yards and miles alone.
Your math is correct, but unrelated to the conversion between Imperial Gallons and the U.S. Gallon. One Imperial Gallon is 4.54609 liter. One U.S. Gallon is 3.7854118 liter. Dividing, we get one Imperial Gallon is equal to 1.20095 U.S. Gallons. That's a bit lest than the 5/4 figure. Tom
I suspect that came from an approximation. There are a lot of common approximations, which are convenient if not perfect. Tom
This is exactly what happened here in Canada. Metric is official but everybody still uses Imperial. All supermarkets print the food labels in both pounds and kilos. Slowly people get used to both and have no problem conversing with either one.
