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From: celier@infomatch.com (celier)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada 9X Doc v5.99
Date: 31 Jan 1995 02:39:49 GMT
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Robert Dewar wrote:
>And Mats, if metric units are so wonderful, how come there are still
>60 minutes in an hour, even in Germany? I guess it's pretty hard to
>really bury those Babalonians!

Actually Robert, the sexagesimal stuff (60 minutes in an hour, 6 x 60
degrees
in one revolution, 60" in one degree) comes from the Sumerians. The
Babylonians inherited it from them, but they invented the digit zero.

The grade (100 grade in one right angle instead of 90 degrees) was an
attempt to be more "decimal" in angles but it failed miserably. It had
the advantage that one centigrade of latitude was exactly oe kilometre
(well, on the average).

Trying to get rid of the values of the degree, the hour or the minute
is as difficult as to get rid of the base 10, which in fact is not a
"rational" base.

The "rational" base should be 11 or 12: 11 if you want to minimize the
divisors of the base, 12 if you want to maximize them. 8 is too small
and 16 is too high. Of course, we will never change the number base 10.

Peter Hermann wrote:
> Serious question: how to convert miles <=> feet <=> inches ?

One inch = 25.4 mm (exactly)
One foot = 0.3048 m = 12 inches (exactly)
One yard = 0.9144 m = 3 feet (exactly)
One mile = 1609.344 m = 1760 yards (exactly)
One Nautical Mile = 1852 m (exactly) = 2025.3718285 yards