drbitboy
Lifetime Supporting Member
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Here in the UK we are no better, 50 years after decimalisation the mechanical industry still use imperial especially in pipe sizes.
Great stories, but if I had done that I would have said it's on me, if I never checked what a "gallon" of water would weigh with that calculator - "a pint's a pound the world around."
"No better?" Units do not matter; communication matters irrespective of the units chosen. And it was a Mars mission, not Hubble, where the communication failure over units occurred.
Sorry, nothing personal, But this pushed a button as it is one of my rant-topics: unit conversion involves the second-most fundamental, and easiest operation of technical work i.e. multiplying by one, followed by the most fundamental and important operations i.e. thinking about the result. I'm not saying anyone is a bad person for making a mistake: those things happen and I've done more than my share. If anything, parky showed superb insight and skill there in challenging an assumption (it's an imperial gallon) and moving on to the right answer. But I disagree that it can be blamed on the unit system used.