What is a kil'ometer?

[piperdbh]

And then there are cables (100 fathoms)

Weasel

Cables? Would that be cable forward or cable back? 100 fathoms is a mighty long cable, even on hose for monster calves. I wonder what size needles those 100 fathom cables should be knit on? And don't even think about trying to butter your needles. It makes the cat lick your legs.

[staticsan]

Go ask Michio Kaku...

I'm not sure I can believe I even got that obscure reference...

Michio Kaku on Wikipedia

Wade.

[staticsan]

What a fun thread!

Au is officially metric, which is supposed to mean everything. Road signs, petrol, temperature, the water meter, lengths of wood... unfortunately we deal with countries who still think in imperial. That's why computer monitors and car tyres (amongst other things!) are still in inches.

And some things take a long time to change. I am just old enough that I have trouble thinking of a person's height in centimetres. My younger sister can do it, but I can't. It has to be feet and inches. But volume has to be metric for me: cubic inches doesn't work, but litres and cubic centimetres do. Weight I can do sorta both: my kid I can estimate in kilograms, but my own weight is in stone and pounds (1 stone = 14 pounds; it's a Britishism).

And temperature I know in Celsius. I've only been forced to learn Farenheit because I have so many friends in the US on various fora, here included.

I've also had discussions with USians about the US's tardiness in going metric. Apparantly it keeps getting defeated in Congress because all those old congressmen and senators don't want to give up imperial measurements.

Wade.