Built like a Mercedes (?)

The EPA is completely full of shit FYI, just look at there mileage ratings.

 

What was sold in the US as a "fifth" of liquor was 1/5 of a US
gallon: 4/5 of a US quart. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._customary_units

 

I could probably only cope with a nipperkin of Scotch (or bourbon...) at
this
stage.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

 

Well too bad you didn't use that time to learn anything about your
neighbor. There are 3785.6 mL in a US gallon, not 3000. What you
refer to as a fifth is a 750mL bottle, as they no longer make fifths,
which used to be, oh my gosh, a fifth of a gallon. A fifth of 3785.6
is 757.12 mL, so a 750mL bottle is pretty close to what a fifth used
to be.

*************************
Dave

 

NOBODY mentioned liters or so stop trying to start an arguement.. An
AMERICAN gallon is 4/5 of a UK or Canadian gallon - also known as an
imperial or crown gallon. In other words, it takes 5 yankee quarts to
make an imperial gallon. That's all I said - and since they don't make
a "fifth" any more, it doesn't matter how close it is to 750ml.

 

No, as a matter of fact you said a fifth of liquor was a quart.
There have now been two people who have pointed out you were wrong; in
my case with a cite. The graceful thing to do would be to admit your
error. The argumentative thing to do would be to pretend Wikipedia
(my source) isn't, by and large, accurate, in which case I would
immediately challenge you to find a more authoritative source that
agreed with you. Let's just skip that step, and please either find a
source that agrees with you, or admit your error.

 

It makes perfect sense Max, it's supply and demand. You want it, they have
it, and your gonna pay for it. Now they can justify their higher price by
claiming that the sudden increase in demand has pushed their ability to
provide it along with gasoline which is of course to a point completely
accurate but in a free enterprise system...

 

I don't buy liquor, and particularly not in the states. I may be wrong
about the "fifth" but not about the relationship between american and
imperial measure.

 

Up here in Canada you didn't buy a "fifth" you bought a
"twenty-sixer". Might have been "short" by .6 oz, and actually been a
"fifth"

 

Mentioning ml or litres may help you get to the right ratio as you don't
seem to have noticed that the exact relationship has already been pointed
out:

1 US gallon = 0.833 (rounded) imperial gallon
1 imperial gallon = 1.201 (rounded) US gallon

This not exactly 4/5.

Or 3.7854 l v 4.54609 = 0.833 (rounded).

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

 

I have noted a lack of use of the decimal SI system here [in this forum at
least] while fractions, which are now seldom used in Europe, are.
Up until recently the SI system was taught as a secondary system in the USA
or so I have been led to believe, even though it is the universal language
of scientists everywhere. Am I right?

Huw

 

Disused railway lines have a potential if not opened up for buses ;-)

Huw

 

Varies somewhat by industry, and it's a *very* mixed bag even within a
given industry. For example: Automotive manufacturing top tiers - all
drawing dimensions are in SI by edict. Yet on the street, it's still
miles per hour, gallons, etc., and aftermarket sway bars are listed in
inch dimensions (i.e., in aftermarket listings, a Ø25 mm sway bar will
be referred to as a 1" sway bar - which causes a lot of confusion since
1" = 25.4 mm and there might be an option for a Ø25 mm and a Ø26 mm sway
bar for the same vehicle).

In military hardware that I deal with, it's 98% SAE (or as is commonly
said "inch dimensions"), though I get the distinct impression that
geographical distances are typically given in km's.

15 and 20 years ago when I worked in aerospace, I would put together
presentations to be made to NASA for space station and shuttle add-on
proposals. We would get direction from our management almost every week
to change our viewgraphs to either SI or "inch" from the other system
that we had used the week before, then a week later, the direction would
come down to change it back. It would flip-flop back and forth
constantly like that. I proposed using dual units (i.e., '1"/(25.4 mm)'
or '25.4 mm/(1")') in all our presentations so we didn't have to keep
changing them. NASA wouldn't allow that - had to be whatever they said
that week. I got so that I automatically kept two versions of all
viewgraphs I generated in my computer - one in each system. That way I
was always ready. Some years later, my wife and were in the car and
heard on the radio news that the Mars lander had crashed into the planet
because they had mixed up the two systems in some calculations. I about
wrecked the car laughing, and my wife got it too because she had heard
me talk about my dual-viewgraph system.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

She can't be wrong, she once lived near the US, so she knows more than
you or I ever could.

*************************
Dave

 

In the US the metric system is basically relegated to science - it is
seen as a "french"ystem, and the yanks hate the french.

 

funny last i checked i was in the U.S.A. and we use the metric (si) sytem
excusively in my work. our rulers dont even have english markings.
and no i dont work in a lab.

--
-Chris
05 CTD
99 Durango

http://www.SecureIX.com ***

 

Depends *totally* on what industry you are in (see examples in my
earlier post). BTW - I work in a lab, and English units are used almost
exclusively (due to primary customer exclusive use of English units).

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

(on metric)

The thing is, there just isn't a compelling reason to change in the
US. When I read about the state of affairs in Europe, pre-metric,
where a country the size of France would have dozens of
slightly-differing units, my mind boggles. The important thing about
the metric system in Europe wasn't that it was decimal, it was that it
was a continent-wide standard.

In the US, the difference between a litre divided into cc's vs. a
quart divided into ounces (when 99 out of a 100 people know neither
that there are 32 ounces to a quart nor that there are 1000 cc's in a
litre) just doesn't matter all that much.

And, incidentally, last time I was in England I found many more mile
markers than kilometre markers, too.

 

I am surprised you found a single kilometre marker. I haven't seen one and I
live here.
Although the UK is 'fully' metricated we still keep to miles and we still
call 50kg a hundredweight.
Fuel is priced and sold by the litre yet fuel consumption is almost
universally quoted as 'miles per gallon'.
I went through school up until eight years old being taught Imperial and
then changed to metric yet even today's youngsters use miles and miles per
gallon. Time we changed I think.

Huw

 

Exactly! It's because the official legal measure of distance is still the
mile. (Don't ask!)

Joe P must have been in Eire, where they ran both mile and km signs for
years (surprise, surprise....<grin>). Only recently is everthing in km.

In some Continental countries there is still an 'idiomatic' pound (500 g)
and so people might speak about a half pound, meaning 250 g. There are (or
were) also superseded monetary units such as the French sou, 5 centimes
(this may have gone with the arrival of the euro.). None of these have any
legal status.

There is some merit to Joe's point about having a single unit in an economic
region, reducing pressure on US to change, but I think it is not a strong
case. 'Europe' changed to fairly uniform metric measure in the 19th century
when Napoleon occupied large chunks of it. This long preceded the
antecedents of the EU (Treaty of Rome 1957).

And, how do we define a 'sufficient' region for standardisation? How about
the globe? There imperial measure is hardly found. Just legal in mainly
(only?) the USA and understood in a few other places. (The mile in the UK
being one of those exceptions.)

There have been many arguments about the merits of the duodecimal system v
decimal (and metric) and, while the duodecimal sytem does have a number of
advantages, decimal/metric wins out for the vast majority of people.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
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