-- wrote:

I read all the way through the stuff you wrote here and there's a big
missing piece that you don't seem to grasp. Those standards of measure
were initially arrived at on the street, not in labs or kingly courts
and they weren't necessarily universal, just useful to the time an
place. Balance beams of whatever sophistication were common more than
five millennia ago. Standards had to be created to deal with two major
issues - trade and did I grow enough food for us to survive the
winter. Value for value had to be established and the traders and
commercial forces behind them created all the weights. It has been
like a tower of babel throughout human history in the matter of
standards and, to a lesser extent, still is.

When the measure was to stay within a single culture, it could be as
quirky as they wanted it to be. When it became a matter of usage
between cultures, equivalence had to be established. And it was. And
there were thousands of standards. I'm going to try to give you a
benefit of doubt here and offer the notion that we may be using the
word "standards" to mean different things.

You obviously don't know the history of how we got here with our
measures, and you seem to think that standards are those things
preserved in Washington, dismissing what happens at the farmers'
markets. And apart from England. The world is a wider place than that.
And goes back a lot further than medieval England. And goes to many
places and cultures omitted from your considerations.

> ok - some clarification and background
>
> "Bob (this one)" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>-- wrote:
>>
> wrote in message
...
>>>
>>>>In rec.food.cooking, "Bob (this one)" > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Dry ounces are still volume measure, like fluid ounces.
>>>>
>>>>Does anyone know how it happened that "ounces" refers to either
>>>>weight or volume, depending on usage? Is there some nexis
>>>>between the two? All I can imagine is that one fluid ounce of
>>>>water at STP weighs one ounce. Is that it?
>>>
>>>as i understand -
>>>
>>>the old labs of the amateur scientists 400-500 years or so back
>>>needed a way to calibrate their instruments (tolerance was somewhat
>>> slack back then than now). Later, after merchants picked up those
>>> measures, they also needed an easy way to be checked.
>>>
>>>Water was commonly available, so weight and temperature scales were
>>> established and agreed upon using water-related parameters. If you
>>> had the container of the correct dimensions, call it one "pint",
>>>and you filled it with water, you had a lb weight. Calibration can
>>>be done.
>>>
>>>So the volume of a pint measure hanging on the wall of the lab
>>>defined the weight of one pound, and the volume of a pint.
>>>
>>>Volume meets weight.
>>
>>Um, no. Weight measures were standardized back then (and before) all
>>over the world, volumes weren't. Merchants came way before scientists.
>>
> First, who standardized them? There was no ISO or like organization. A
> standard is a device to assure common measure.

Exactly so. The merchants and traders standardized the units between
and amongst themselves. They had to in order to get and give equal
value. You mistake what was happening then with the world we live in
now. There was no governing body to establish and certify all the
measure units. (And if you look around, you'll find that even now that
we have them, people still use measures of common currency where they
live. So Brits still talk about their weight in "stones." And if you
wander around in rural China, the only metric measures you'll see are
in factories.) What had to happen was a form of commercial lingua
franca that permitted translations from standard to standard. So Arab
traders used their standards and Europeans theirs. But when they met,
there was a sort of meta-standard that let them translate from one to
the other.

You must understand that all measuring systems and all units are
agreed-upon constructs. Synthetic methods to establish parity. There's
no such thing as a "natural" measure, only a convenient to the times
and settings one.

Using a seed from the carob plant as the basis for gem valuation
wasn't decreed by royal authority, some street-trader noticed that the
seeds were small and, to the technology of the time, equal in weight.
So by mutual agreement, it became the standard. Later, it became
"official" when some body with political power designated so it.

Using a different seed to establish the weight of the "grain" as the
base unit for a measurement system is likewise a mutually-agreed-upon
construct.

> After the King left that business, the Royal Academy, formed of amateur
> scientists (were there any others back then), standardized measures.

Sorry, no. Kings didn't get into it in creating the units way back
when. They were created and implemented on the street. Those bodies
either formalized what was already going on or created new ones, or at
least attempted to simplify what was already in common usage. As when
Elizabeth I decreed that a mile was exactly 8 furlongs, enlarging the
mile from the Roman 5,000 feet to 5280 feet. It was an attempt to
"unify" two disparate systems. In reality, it eliminated the earlier one.

> Since there were no lab service companies, they adopted the water
> standard. And all measures from time before that, no matter where the WORD
> came from be it sanskrit or latin, were changed to meet the standard.

That's been a constant process. Measures and their units have *always*
been in a state of flux. That water standard business isn't true,
though. In actual fact, an American pint doesn't weigh a pound. NOr
does an Imperial pint.

> The 15 ounces of a pound used from the 12 century was changed to 16
> ounces,
>
> http://www.lajzar.co.uk/unit/system/imp_brit.html

Do go find some history about the evolutions of what pounds were and
have become. This web site is about time of the British empire - 1844.
Hardly a long view of history, and confined to one country. And even
so, looking at the standardization of volume measure, it's based on
the weight of water.

"The British Imperial gallon was defined in 1824 to be the volume of
water which weighs 10 pounds at 62 deg F with a pressure of 30 inHg.
In 1963 it was defined to be the space occupied by 10 pounds of
distilled water of density 0.998859 g/ml weighed in air of density
0.001217 g/ml against weights of density 8.136 g/ml. The gallon is now
officially defined relative to SI units; the above value is exact."

It's based on weight.

> In our labs, we had to replicate all the old means of achieving a
> standard for measures.

We didn't do that at all. In modern times we changed a lot of them to
make them more consistently exact, but we didn't go weigh out 8 pounds
of barley or wheat to make a gallon, we gave it a volumetric measure
apart from any weight measures because we now have the technology to
make exact-volume vessels. Look at how the gallon was finally defined.
Nothing to do with "all the old means." And also note that the unit
"10" is the basic consideration.

>>If you read old recipes - I mean OLD - you'll find that volume
>>measures were given as "half an eggshell" and "a wineglass of..." and
>>"the size of a pigeon's egg."
>
> I do have two very old cookbooks- and they do measure as you said, However,
> first, an 18th century kitchen is not a lab, and second, they are measuring
> weights by using volume, as acceptable a method as measuring a force by
> using a mass.

I'm talking 5th century, not 18th. They measured weights by weight and
volume by widely varying variability. As for culinary measure, what's
actually being measured is ratios. How much flour to how much water to
how much salt to how much butter, etc. That's how professional recipes
are written, because finally that's what it's about. Commercial
recipes are stated in percents based off one ingredient.

The units for home use are arrived at by custom, not decree of a
government agency. So in the US, the vast preponderance of people cook
by volume for reasons I've already explained. Elsewhere, they use
weight for their particular reasons. But it's silly to say they're
measuring weights by volume. The converse is equally true and equally
false, that Germans, for example, are measuring volume by weight when
they use their kitchen scales.

>>Whereas weights were given in specific
>>units. Commerce demanded transferable units hence the tiny "carat"
>>which was the weight of an exceedingly small seed. Here's a document
>>from the 13th century that deals with weights...
>><http://www.sizes.com/library/Britain/ponderibus.htm>
>>
> which has little to do with standardizing measures for the required
> interchageability and science of an era that came 300 years later.

It has *everything* to do with it. That's where the bases come from -
custom.

But is that what you're talking about here; narrowing it down to this
one point? That modern standardization is happening because earlier
people were somehow stupid and we've now reached the pinnacle of
measurement wisdom?

I thought we were talking about what the actual measures were and are.
I don't think we're talking about the same things. It seems that
you're talking about global standards and I'm talking about ones used
by the people who need them. And who create them to suit the
conditions and situations where they are. And the sources of modern
measure. So the carat still is the unit that jewelers use, defined to
modern technological capacity.

In any event, do you think that modern standards just sprang from
Topsy's head with no historical roots? Why retain the names from
thousands of years before if they weren't evolutions of old, old, old
standards?

>>" the wine gallon is the space occupied by a quantity of wheat
>>weighing 8 pounds. This interpretation is made explicit in some of the
>>other manuscript versions. However, what we now call the wine gallon,
>>used time out of mind by the English excise before being legalized in
>>1707, and the basis of the U. S. gallon, contains 231 cubic inches.
>>That volume is as close to the volume of 8 liber mercatoriae of wine
>>as to the volume of 8 Troy pounds of wheat." Weights were
>>well-established, volumes were not.
>
>
> Weight NAMES were well established, but not the standard of that measure.

Did you not see the rather exact definitions there? They couldn't
define them any better than their technology permitted. So it's silly
to fault people in the 15th century for not being able to measure out
to four decimal places. Standards in common usage needed to be only as
precise as the demands placed on them. So the precision needed was
what was created. And no more than that. Now we want everything to be
more detailed and systematic because our society requires it. Machine
tools need enormous precision to create the mechanical and electronic
goods we need now. In an agrarian society, that precision wasn't
needed or useful. So different kinds of standards.

> further, there were 31.5 wine gallons in a barrel; 36 beer gallons in a
> barrel, 40 spirit gallons in a barrel, 42 gallons of petroleum in a barrel

But they were all measured in gallons, weren't they? That's the final
standard. Not all barrels need to be the same size, do they? Different
sizes for different applications. How much does a barrel of petroleum
hold? How about a barrel of paint? Barrel is trade-specific as a unit
of measure. It's a standard for each of the users. Different from each
other, but standard within the trade.

>>"A Chef of Fustian consisteth of Fourteen Ells. [A Chef of Sindon
>>containeth Ten Ells.]" Ells are yards.
>
> Sorry, you are wrong again - Ells vary from 27 inches (Flemish) to 45 inches
> (French)

Yes, I am technically wrong. Ells aren't yards. They emerge from the
same need for standards, though. Someone makes fabric and wants to
sell it. How much have they made? A standard that will be understood
by purchasers needs to exist. It doesn't have to be the same
worldwide, it just needs to suit the demands at hand. A local
standard. But if that weaver wants to sell far away, he'd better be
able to explain to those customers how much they're getting so they
understand it.

That's why Swahili was created. A synthetic language to use between
traders who didn't speak the same languages and didn't necessarily use
the same units of measure.

"ell
"a traditional unit of length used primarily for measuring cloth.
In the English system, one ell equals 20 nails, 45 inches, or 1.25
yards; in metric terms, an English ell equals exactly 1.143 meters.
The word comes from the Latin ulna, which originally meant the elbow
and is now the name of the bone on the outside of the forearm.
Unfortunately, the same word ulna was also used for the yard, creating
frequent confusion between the two units in medieval documents.
Probably the ell originated through a custom of measuring lengths of
cloth using two forearms, with the hands touching or overlapping. The
ell was used with a similar length in France (where it was called the
aune). In Scotland, the ell was practically the same as the yard,
being equal to 37 Scots inches or 37.2 English inches (94.5
centimeters). This Scottish length appears to reflect an old practice
of cloth merchants in giving an extra inch with each yard, to allow
for any irregular cutting at the ends of the piece. In eastern Europe,
the ell was a shorter distance: see next entry.

"elle
"a traditional unit of distance in German speaking countries. The
elle varied considerably, but it was always shorter than the English
ell or French aune. A typical value in northern Germany was exactly 2
fuss (German feet), which would be close to 24 inches or 60
centimeters. In the south, the elle was usually longer, about 2.5
fuss. In Vienna, the elle was eventually standardized at 30.68 inches
(77.93 centimeters). Although the German word elle is often translated
"yard" in English, this is not a very good equivalent.

>>Fustian is a fabric and they're
>>still measured by the yard in the US today.
>
> We measure all cloth in shops by the yard. By the meter elsewhere.

Uh, sure. That's why I said "in the US today" so there would be a
distinction like I've kept throughout this.

>>Old, old habits die hard.
>>
>>>The old easily-remembered-by-ordinary-uneducated-humans 3 by 4
>>>system in use at the time was not good enough for them, so someone
>>>wanted to change it to a more logical 8 based system.
>>>
>>>Divide the measure into 2x8 parts and call it an ounce, and if you
>>>are not too careful defining which measure it was, and either by
>>>design so we could remember it or by accident, we get 16 ounces
>>>and 16 ounces, weight and volume.
>>
>>This is unfortunately all fictional.
>
> Sorry, you are once again wrong.

No. Not about the division of "the measure into 2x8 parts." The ounce
predates the cup (whether imperial or US measure) which became a
convention much, much later.

> First, anyone with leadership traning for high stress environments knows
> the basic rule of three items for low level skills in humans. One of the
> basics, an absolute fundamental. And the rule of four.

<LOL> I didn't dispute the business about groups of 3 or 4, just what
you're claiming about 16 ounces being some universal. Recall that I
agreed by citing that phone numbers are broken into groups of 3 and 4.

> Second, I could once again explain it,

But you haven't explained it, merely asserted it.

> but how about you tell us all why
> there are 16 ounces in a pound and 16 ounces in a pint when before about
> 1500 there were 15 ounces in pound?

Um, there are 20 ounces in an Imperial pint, not 16. The American pint
is 16 different-sized ounces than the English standard. You're
*assuming* a reason for the change based on incorrect values.

> If not made 16 from 15 by design, then
> was it just coincidence that they changed the ounces to 16 when they already
> had fluid ounces at 16 - that the body that was to standardize weights and
> measures used the same number 16 was just coincidence?

You're taking England to be the whole world. Not even close. There
were variant pounds in use then, as there are now. The English pint
came into common usage as the volume occupied by one pound of wheat or
1/8 of a gallon back when it was the volume of 8 pounds of wheat. With
the creation of the Imperial gallon, the pint became larger - from 16
to 20 ounces.

>>Ounces came from Latin, so did
>>librum for pound. That's why they're abbreviated "lb."
>
> The WORD came from latin. In the early centuries in England before
> standardization, there were 15 ounces in a pound.
> Did the romans have 15 ounces or 13 or how many in apound?

It's a little funny for you to be asking that question. For somebody
who's ostensibly been involved with standards and measures for 30
years as you claim, it would seem to be incumbent on you to know some
history of what you're working in. The Romans used neither a 15-ounce
pound or one of 13 ounces. Look it up, measure-master.

"1215 - reign of King John (lackland)
An agreement to have a national standard of weights and measures
was incorporated into the magna carta.

1266 - reign of Henry III
An act of this date established that a penny (money) should weigh
the same as 32 grains of wheat, twenty pennies to make one ounce, and
twelve ounces to the pound. Eight pounds was to be the weight of a
gallon of wine. You will notice the link between money and weight, and
that 240 pennies equals one pound.

1304 - reign of Edward I
This is where things got complicated. A statute declared that for
medicines a pound would be of 20 shillings, or 12 ounces. All other
things would be weighed with a pound containing 15 ounces - in all
cases an ounce being 20 pennies.

1532 - reign of Henry VIII
An act of this year laid down that butchers should sell meat by
haver du pois weight - from where we get avoirdupois."
<http://home.clara.net/brianp/history.html>

Here's a fun bit of info on the changes and evolutions in measures in
England, a bit of the continent and the US.
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A471476>

>>The language of the pharmacy is Latin. Look here for measures still in
>>use millennia later. And note that volume measures were merely the
>>volumes of known weights.
>
> <http://www.pharmaceutical-drug-manuf...al-glossary/ph
> armaceutical-abbreviations.html#Weights-measures>
>
> I did look, and I found no such information. The link you put up has
> absolutley nothing about measures coming from latin or Rome.

Um, do go back and see it again. The words come from the original
latin and do define volumes - by weight - all based on the "grain" as
the basic unit. Volumes were computed by the amount of space a
specific number of seeds would occupy. I assumed that you would know
the origins of at least some of them since you claim to be actively
involved in

> And their are only weights, not volumes.

Um I said that up above. Here, let me refresh your memory... "And note
that volume measures were merely the volumes of known weights." See
how much you can learn if you just read what's in front of you?

> And your link only has the abbreviations for frequency of dose in latin -
> which by way was the language of the church and was in use as a dead
> language in many sciences. Read your links more carefully next time.

Bite my entire ass. Ok? The basic unit of weight - the grain - comes
directly from the Romans. *Everything* after that was posited on that
standard.

>>"...The avoirdupois ounce, the unit commonly used in the United
>>States, is 1/16 pound or about 28.3495 grams.... The word ounce is
>>from the Latin uncia, meaning a 1/12 part, because the Roman pound was
>>divided into 12 ounces. The word "inch," meaning 1/12 foot, has the
>>same root. The symbol "oz" is from the old Italian word onza (now
>>spelled oncia) for an ounce."
>>
> the derivation of the word "meter" may well be greek, but it didn't mean the
> greeks defined the ISO meter

How splendidly irrelevant and smelling like a red herring. The fact is
that the Romans *did* define the pound. Now we're only talking about
ISO standards? Moving the goalposts a bit are we...?

>>and...
>>
>>"fluid ounce:
>>
>>"A traditional unit of liquid volume, called the fluid ounce to avoid
>>confusion with the weight ounce. In the U. S. customary system there
>>are 16 fluid ounces in a pint, so each fluid ounce represents
>>1.804,687 cubic inches or 29.573,531 milliliters. In the British
>>imperial system there are 20 fluid ounces in an imperial pint, so each
>>fluid ounce represents about 1.733,871 cubic inches or 28.413,063
>>milliliters. A fluid ounce of water weighs just a bit more than one
>>ounce avoirdupois."
>><http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20000717.html>
>>
>>Base 8 is a rare system with 10 being the most common, then 7, 12, 24,
>>60, and 365 for measuring time.
>
> Apparently you are not technically trained. base 10 is less common than
> binary or octal. The binary method, the basis of all computers, was used by
> Russian peasants for hundreds of years. It is the math of dna.

Bullshit. Any math is the math of DNA. In fact, you could more
reasonably say that base 4 is the math of DNA.

> Octal is the basis for nearly all programming,
> The other numbers you claim are bases are almost unheard of as bases. The
> numbers you cite are used in the context of base 10 - a base 10 "12" is 12
> units. A base 7 "12" is 8 units.
>
>>Nothing is commonly base 8. These
>>units are a triumph of human resistance to change, not some superior
>>calculational creation.
>>
>>The cup being 8 ounces is a coincidence of convenience.
>>
> So it is your learned position that all the measures noted are happenstance
> and mere convenience.

Aside from this shittiness of that statement, it does appear that I'm
more learned about measures and standards than you are, despite your
claims of many decades of experience with them. You're sadly ignorant
about common conventions, history and sources of modern measure.

> -That they are all of the same 8 and its multiples are coincidence,

<LOL> They are divisions of a whole divided in half many times because
halving is something that can be done by eye and doesn't require
anything more sophisticated than that two people agree that it's a
fair division. So a gallon can be divided in half, then in half again
then in half again and, voila a pint. The value applied to the
original gallon is arbitrary; that is it has no natural reason for
being exactly what it is, as is the case with *all* measurement.

> -that the universal standard for lab calibration being the nexis is just
> coincidence
> -that the steam/water measurement units that simplify calculation to an
> eighth of that required by metrics are just coincidence
> - that when the Academy coordinated all these measurements to a standard,
> it was done willy- nilly and without coordination - so it is all just
> happenstance

Still caught up in only the formalized standards, aren't you? Still
trying to make the ones endorsed by "official" groups the only ones?

Don't be silly. The citations you just offered are merely the latest
in the ongoing saga of defining and formalizing measurements and
values. They're the newest, not the end of the line.

>>>------------------- Similar for the metric system, except someone
>>>in France decided that one millionth of the distance from the
>>>equator to the pole was better than using the weight of water in a
>>>measured container that those evil English were using.
>>>
>>>They then set the nexis at 1ml liquid = 1gram mass = 1 cubic
>>>centimeter volume when using water, so instruments could also be
>>>calibrated easily in the metric system.
>>
>>The laws of physics set those relationships, not some committee.
>
> No, you are once again wrong. Laws of physics are phenomena that merely
> exist, they do not establish nexi.

Pay careful attention. I cc of water weighs a gram because it does.
The organizing committees merely posited a definition based on what
already existed. It weighed (and massed) what it did, so they named
that weight and mass a gram. It was a matter of *creating* convenience.

> On the other hand, humans wanting to be able to establish an easy
> standard to calibrate instruments when unable to send the device out to a
> calibration lab then must calibrate by using a common medium, and they NEED
> a common point.

You seem to be stuck in a lab. Come out to the real world and see what
the vast majority of people do. They don't live in your world of such
pecksniffian precision. They live in a sea of human scale measures.

> If you had basic technical physics, if you had ever done any of the
> calibration labs which perform these tasks as part of the basic physics
> courses, then you would know that you would pass the course after you
> understood that the three basic western measurement standards were all
> designed. western science is not based on happy coincidence.

Do try to understand the difference between engineering and science.
Science gathers information, often without any sense of its
application, and maybe engineering uses it. Engineering is an
application of practical principles derived from experience.
Engineering is a discipline of approximations. Murphy's Law came from
engineers, not scientists. I had a big sign over my desk at
Westinghouse that said, "Measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk,
cut with a hatchet..." Not original, but exactly what the real world
demands.

> And if you were on any of the committees that establish standards (I have
> been on a US national standards committee for over 30 years), you would know
> we integrate the standards all the time, but we don't publish explanations
> of what parts we do or do not integrate.

This makes no sense. It would be interesting to know exactly what
standards you're busily integrating. And why you seem not to know
where they originally came from.

> But
>
>>it is why the basic unit was so designated. It's no longer that
>>distance measure, but something hopelessly out of the hands of
>>amateurs. It was redefined in 1983 as the distance traveled by light
>>in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
>>
> determined by measuring the original platinum iridium bar

Which was made to reflect the calculated value of a meter.

>>>------------ humans remember 3s and 4s groups more readily than any
>>>other values
>>
>>Hence phone numbers. But how about postal codes...?
>
> check the names for the acronym for zip code and ask yourself if the
> creators considered human parameters.

Jeeezus. Slow down. I just agreed with you. We can remember groups of
3 or 4 more easily and quickly. But we can also remember longer
strings of numbers when they become important to us.

> The common pop-conception that ten is basic to human is often accepted
> without consideration by those who do not have to lead, but merely follow
> and hold onto a technical touchstone. There is no one sytem that is better
> than another for all things - thus mankind has many systems of numbers.

Sure they do. But ease of utility has made base 10 far and away the
most common. Look at metric, look at currencies, look at
classification systems from libraries to factory inventory.

As for it's being "basic to human," I don't thinks anyone has said
that. Merely that it's easier to calculate with it.

>>>sets of 8 is the most natural when using octal or counting when
>>>your thumbs are used as the next digit (why octal for the
>>>uneducated? count to eight twice using your fingers as the ones and
>>> use the thumbs as the next-place-holder eights, and you get two
>>>thumbs worth, i.e., 16 - you can count to sixteen on your hands
>>>without remembering in octal, while the evil enemy the french with
>>>their new-fangled metrics can only count to ten before they have to
>>> scratch a mark in the dirt to go higher)
>>
>>Primitive people don't use anything like that. They work off base 10
>>for the most part as the numbers of commerce and trade and make
>>multiples of 10 by secondary gestures. Count all the fingers - that's
>>10, then count them again and tap the wrist - that's 20. Then count
>>them again and tap halfway up the forearm - that's 30, and so forth.
>>I've seen that in widely separated cultures.
>>
> seen it in any cultures not already influenced by western culture?
> You cannot have.

<LOL> Right. You must have that ability to read minds - what's it
called - mental neuropathy. Yeah, that's it.

I'm typing slowly here. Base 10 is the most commonly used numerication
system because it's more readily useful than any other one.

> And if you will note, I said that the change was to 8 by human design, done
> by those who felt they had the answer to ills by moving from the old 3-4 to
> a new 8 system. I know well firsthand of the politics of the move to change
> to metrics, and it was not for improved efficiency for the US.

You're merely guessing. So you're saying that in the 15th century,
people knew about the 3-4 business and consciously decided to start
using 8 as a common factor? I'd like to see a source for that. I flat
out disbelieve it. What does counting on your fingers have to do with
liquid measure?

>>>the original metric had (and some still do have) 100 degrees in a
>>>circle, 100 degrees between water boiling and freezing,
>>
>>I've never seen anything even remotely like this.
>
> And thus it must not exist, and so all information about it or its
> derivation is false?

No, sludgewit. It means I've never seen anything like that. It means I
can't speak to it.

> FYI, The "degrees" of 100 "degrees" in a circle are called gradians. All HP
> engineeering calculators that I have seen have it.
>
> FYI, Celsius and centigrade (and Kelvin) thermometers are calibrated by
> making 100 gradations between boiling water and an ice water solution (they
> are .01 degree apart.

> > always linear because they measured expansion in two dimensions.
>
>>>100 parts
>>>to a time and geometry minute,
>>
>>Military minute. Time-study minute. But not common currency.
>>
> The use of 100 resisted because the ten was not a natural number and did not
> work.

"Natural number." Right. So 12 eggs is a more "natural" number. Or 7
days. Or 60 minutes. Or 6 bottles of beer.

>> > 10 increments in everything. works
>>
>>>ok in theory, and quite well in many applications, but in geometry,
>>>in time, in most water-based applications such as steam
>>>calculations which were devised to be simple by using "specific"
>>>parameters, forces (several measures), pressures (there are
>>>probably six or seven metric measures that can drive the engineer
>>>nuts), and rapid mental calculation of small digital amounts, the
>>>British 3-4 and octal length-force-second system and the 60
>>>multiple time, temperature, and geometry units beats the original
>>>metric length-meter-mass hands down.
>>
>>Sorry. No. If that were the case, all those engineers I worked with at
>>Westinghouse would still be using those units. The simple fact of the
>>matter is that functioning in 10s and multiples and divisibles of tens
>>is simpler for any sort of computation you want to consider.
>
> computer - (all binary)

Binary is easier for *machines* to use - a circuit is either open or
closed. For people living in the real world, decimal is easier.

> and never even close to simpler for steam power calculations.

Don't be silly. Watts is a perfectly fine defining value for
calculations of power. It's like saying there's a "natural" way to
calculate how much water a pump moves. We stick with horsepower or
joules or calories as definitions because of the sheer perversity of
humans who don't want to change a familiar unit. There are many such
units in currency all over the world. The convenient ones survive. The
other fall by the wayside, no matter what the committees say.

> the europeans to this day can't even use the right measure for weight - they
> use the unit for mass as weight.

<LOL> Jeez. Where they're interchangeable and so defined, like in
earth's gravity well, it's six of one; half a dozen of another. Um,
that's base 12.

>>These numbering systems are holdovers from earlier times and remain
>>conventions mostly because we're familiar with them.
>
> If ten is so simple, why were those unnatural systems like the sexagesimal
> of the baylonianian empire, the binary of the Russians, the septal of
> Univac, and 3-4 of Europe, the egyptian system, and all the other
> non-decimal systems, developed? Because they liked unnatural? One cultures
> natural is another cultures awkward.

Not really, it's because that genius who would develop the concept of
zero hadn't come along yet. That lack was one of the major problems
with that Babylonian system. Ten is a simple system base as evidenced
by the legal, if not customary, adoption of the metric system by
virtually every country on earth. History, old fellow, history.

There is no "natural."

>>Getting people to
>>change is an interesting exercise. My grandparents were born in Italy
>>in the late 1800's. The spoke of both "kili" and "libri" when talking
>>about weight measures. "Gallone" was the standard liquid measure,
>>except they also said that "quatro litri fa un gallone." "Four liters
>>make a gallon."
>
> again a four from a native measure system

Nah. It was to create a compromise between different standards. The
American gallon is four quarts; they're just fitting the familiar
("litri") into the new, to them, system. Relative measures, close
enough for daily living.

>>>All those odd measure - chains, barrels, tons, are standards for
>>>specific purpose that were used by both countries in international
>>>commerce are blamed on the british system.
>>
>>Every culture has had unique measures that suited the needs they
>>filled. No one blamed measures on anyone else, they merely used their
>>own. And still do except for commerce that crosses borders, and even
>>then many still do. You can still buy koku of rice in Japan.
>>
>>>As I understand, one of
>>>the french kings had all of France surveyed in great part to scrap
>>>the old and get the new measure in place
>>
>>That would be Napoleon. And he had all the houses in France uniquely
>>numbered. That's where the cosmetic company called "The house of 4711"
>>got its name.
>>
> no, it was well before napoleon. An early Louis.
>
>>>or so the story goes
>>
>>Um, sure. Soon to be a major motion picture.
>
> actually, it was in a documentary on maps.
>
>>Pastorio
>
> bottom line - all that you get to see is not all that occurs.

FOITN. You're trying to make the world history of measurements what
happened in England. And you're trying to make your experience into a
universal. And you're trying to say that your definitions are the only
ones.

Mirror, mirror on the wall....

Pastorio