Posted by Allan_Lang on September 05, 2003 at 15:42:28 from 202.61.171.25 user Allan_Lang.
In Reply to: Re: I thought you were metric in England posted by Laurence Monkhouse on September 04, 2003 at 19:57:46:
>All these enthusiasts for metrication seem to overlook how easy it is to get an answer that is ten times, or 100 times the correct one but still looks right.
That's my gripe with the french system. Noône really can translate the writtem metric numbers into the real world, so you get statements that an elephant is 30m tall. (nearly 100 feet! I doubt that)
And of course my favourire newspaper report on the Australian Army Attack helicopter requirement. The specification was that it should be armed with missiles with a mininum range of 3 nautical miles/6000 yards (the measurements actually used in the real world). Somebody in Defence PR translated that into 5489 metres (for the convenience of the metricated civilian world).
The matter might have ended there, except somebody did a second "Imperial ro Metric" conversion and "converted" 5489 m. to a very impressive 8824 Kilometres. Which figure Australia's national newspaper then published.