Hi Leonard,

I've started thinking about what you've been saying on the other board and on this one about you trying to modify the imperial system in such a way that the main constants in nature would be powers of ten.
That's fine by me: the more logical the world gets the better !

BUT, then again, WHY DO YOU FOCUS ON THE IMPERIAL SYSTEM ?

You say that the mile is the ideal starting point for your modifications. No problem so far. But WHY do you want to keep the OTHER imperial units too ?
GET RID OF THEM ! Start with the mile, divide it into 1,000 equal parts and call it whatever you like. Get rid of the talent and look for something that can be related to the mile using POWERS OF TEN (after all, you "are" the advocate of the powers of 10).

Only when you start thinking up such kind of system you'd be consistent with your "powers of 10 approach".

Cheers.

Leonard recognises that decimal is often unsuited to man's task (just as it quite often *is*)

However, it turns out that certain key Imperial units are powers of ten in his planckian and others system, therefore you have an easy interface- binary and duodecimal numbers for the required tasks, and decimal for the scientisty and engineering types.

In any case, his system is mainly decimal, and metric is decimal in a bad way. I greatly prefer the following to metric:

1000 paces/rods= 1 mile
1 pace/rod= 60 inches, 5 feet
1 foot= 12 inches
1 inch= 100 points

or even pure decimal 10 inches to a foot, than metric, which is, quite frankly, pathetic.

Also, you do know that Imperial is used decimally when required, right? thous, chains and links, decimal pounds etc. Sorry to talk down to you, but you in particular do not seem to get this basic point, and that is that man is not decimal by his nature (and don't give me that figer cop again), and that sometimes numbers other than powers of ten are useful. Also, that decimal is not inherent to metric alone.

Hello Bryan, Conrad,

I think Bryan said nearly all that nds saying by way
of response (except "figer cop" means "finger cop")
so take his as the real response and I will just add
random footnotes----was up late last night and am still sleepy.

Don't understand Conrad saying "get rid of talent" since it IS what relates to mile by powers of ten

any system where the main constants of nature (c, hbar,G) take on values which are powers of ten
(instead of the garbage values they have in metric)
MUST have the mile in it and MUST have the talent.
this is just a mathematical fact. (or their places must be taken by some decimal multiple called something else, like a tenth of a mile with a different name, but let's not mess around, you know what I mean)

And you know what I mean about the 48 pound talent can be CALLED
something different---whatever you like Conrad---but a mass unit of 48 pounds has to be in the system.

I don't care how mile and talent are divided up. the subdivisions can be decimal or dozenal or some mix, or they can be binary (with 8s and 16s)

what I care about is that the main constants of nature be clean powers of ten---they are what are used all the time in relating to nature and the metric garbage is alienating and insulting and unworthy of full humanity.

So I want mile, talent, and reduced minute so that

minute = exactly 1/1600 day
speed of light = exactly ten million mile a minute
hbar = exactly 10^-40 ocquemile minute
G = 1.00 cubicmile/squareminute per 10^15 talents

You give me these three things (mile, minute, talent) and you can divide them up anyway you please and name the pieces anything you want and I will be happy. But those things must be in the system because otherwise
the constants do not work out to be powers of ten.

Bryan I must admit I find the system you
just sketched out very congenial. somewhat
Jeffersonian flavor---dividing mile into 1000
pieces to be called whatever (rod is a good word
for a 5 foot thing although has some possibility
of confusion with the longer, surveyors, rod).
don't wish to interfere and express such preferences
too strongly however since all that matters to me
basically is having the mile (and talent) there in the first place---beyond that, people should have whatever subdivisions
work best for them. (actually also like your
dozenal schemes for subdividng mile)

My Decimal scheme above, of course, was but the Roman scheme but without the frills (for example, perches, Stadiums and so on). All I did was add the 1/100th inch "point" and change the pace to the "rod". I prefer "rod", however. For landsurveys, could we not, in this scheme, use an area of, say, 100ftx100ft as a rood, and 4 of these as the "acre" unit?

As you know, I quite like that kind of pseudo-Roman system, barring one thing- the lack of yard. Oh damnit, how I love the yard. Anything that does away with that is simply too horrible a prospect for me to consider outside of the realms of pure fantasy :)


I personally like how the Imperial system often allows some clean decimal division, anyway. eg. 1/100 of a pound, is 70 grains, 1/10 of a mile is 176yds, 1/10 of an ounce avoir is 43 3/4 grains, 1/100 of an ounce apoth is 4.8gr and so on.