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From: cipher@mmm.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Metric vs. English units
Message-ID: <1422@mmm.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-Sep-87 16:56:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmm.1422
Posted: Thu Sep  3 16:56:09 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Sep-87 13:40:29 EDT
References: <3471@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> <2047@zeus.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard)
Organization: Software & Electronics Resource Center/3M
Lines: 40
Xref: linus sci.space:2702 sci.space.shuttle:296

In article <314@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> lwall@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) writes:
>In article <375@attila.weitek.UUCP> mahar@attila.UUCP (Mike Mahar) writes:
>: An inch used to be defined as three barley corns laid end to end.  What with
>: recombinate DNA and superior plant hybreds the barley corns have gotten much
>: larger. I guess the NBS had to make some adjustments.

>Actually, the barley corns haven't gotten that much larger, it's just that
>the cumulative error over the years added up, and they had to schedule a
>leap centimeter last month.  Now that it's September the inch is back to
>it's normal length.

No, no, Larry!  The leap centimeter didn't make inches a different
length.  Each inch was still exactly 1 inch long (otherwise you'd come
up with formulas like "1 inch = .606 inch," which are clearly
paradoxical).  They just _seemed_ shorter, because last month you (and
anything else you might have cared to measure) were 65% bigger, by
government decree.  Incidentally, this means the month was also 65%
longer, though being bigger, you would not have noticed this.  The
reasons for this peculiar phenomenon are shrouded in the mists of
high-class physics, so I don't understand it, but a colleague, who has
a Ph.D. in the subject, assures me it is so.

Since the government had to re-tool everything for the new units on
August 1, and then switch back on September 1, I think it's a shame they
didn't take advantage of it to switch everything to metric, then we
wouldn't have this barley-corn problem any more.

The next leap centimeter is in February, 1993.  I urge you all to write
your representatives in congress and urge that instead of re-tooling
for the next leap centimeter, we just switch to metric, and have done
with it!

(Actually, the re-retooling is not yet complete, so don't be too
surprised if you find youself changing size unpredictably for the next
few weeks.)
-- 
						|	Andre Guirard
  "Open the door before you come in, Spike."	|	inhp4!mmm!cipher
  "Oh. Sorry, boss."				|	"Wake me up for
						|	 the good part."