Does HP matter?

[LD1]

Which is easier to work? 100 centimeter plus minus 1 centimeter or 3' 3" 1/2" plus minus 2/5"? (uff!)

It has to do with everything else around. Odds are, here in the states, it wouldnt be 3'3-1/2". It would be something more like 40" + or - 1/2".

So what is easier 40" +- 1/2" or 101.6 cm +- 1.27cm??

So it all depends on what you are working with. Here, everything is sized in ft, in, yds, etc. In other places, things are M, mm, cm, etc.

If I have an 8' board, and needed it cut into 4 equal peices, it makes no sense to me to convert to metric measurments first. Likewise, if I buy a 10 meter piece of rope, and want 4 equal lengths, it dont make sense to convert to feet first. I can use either measuring system just as easy as the other. I often choose whatever will result in fewer decimal places. :thumbsup:

 

[nomad]

Right, it has to do with everythings around. But, with the world becoming smaller and smaller, using local units like British units or other local units, we people doing works in this global village who use mostly SI system are having problems. For example, there was a quotation request about a steel pipe cap which I needed to get quotations from different parts of the world. It was 12" pipe cap. Even though inch is used more worldwide in pipe dimensions, there were problems cause manufacturers had to manufacture caps according to inch or metric and this is causing two different toolings, etc and this is resulting in more labor, more cost and availability problem. SI is not a local unit system, but, System International. I can see why Britain is still using their local system over international system which has been in life for 3 centuries. Their imperial character that sees themselves over internationality, global world. If it were a cultural thing, I'd understand, but, this is math, technology. Anyway.

Maybe, I expressed difficulty in use of ft-lb system wrongly. I meant difficulty is in use of fractional numbers, such as 3/8, 5/16, etc instead of 9.5, 7.8, etc.. When it is 1/2", it is ok, easier than 0.5 as we can say "half" too.. but, for other fractions, inch users are dividing a number by, say, 16 and then multiplying by 5 in their minds to get 5/16, that's, 2 operations while SI users don't need to do that as they quickly understand what amount 7.8 is.