Re: [LEAPSECS] pedagogically barren?

From: William Thompson <thompson_at_orpheus.nascom.nasa.gov>
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 10:35:05 -0400

Markus Kuhn wrote:

        (stuff deleted)

> While the international inch is indeed linked to the meter by a
> reasonably round factor, and even shows up indirectly in a number of ISO
> standards (e.g., inch-based threads and pipes), this can clearly not be
> said for the US pound and the US gallon and units derived from these,
> which are still required by US federal law to be present on consumer
> packages. As long as it remains legal and even required in the US to
> price goods per gallon or pound (units completely unrelated to the inch!),

        (rest deleted)

According to the NIST website, a gallon is defined as exactly 231 cubic inches.
  I would say that was a long way from being completely unrelated to the inch.

While the pound is unrelated to the inch, it is defined as exactly 0.45359237
kilograms.

Neither is a nice round number, but there is a definite relationship.

William Thompson
Received on Wed Jun 04 2003 - 07:37:58 PDT