Units... Re: Awesome Quarter Shrinking Capacitors on EBAY

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Original poster: "Jim Lux" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net> 

If, by customary system, you're referring to inch/pound (as opposed to MFD,
cps, etc ... that being quite obsolete)....
For the same reason you use electrical plugs that have round, rectangular,
or square pins.Long tradition is why..


  Indeed, there is a substantial amount of machinery out there that has
graduations in inches. Standard hardware isn't even inches (6-32 screws have
32 threads/inch, but nothing else about them is a 6), lots of other
examples..
Partly it's because of inertia.. we're big, and we don't have to change, so
we don't.  If something were to force a change, I have no doubt that the
entire country could change over in a matter of a few (<5) years, amid much
grumbling and whining. I base this upon numerous experiences with people
going from here to somewhere metric and managing not to starve when buying
food by the kilo and beer by the liter, as well as figuring out shoe sizes,
clothing sizes, fixing their car, etc. When one goes down to buy screws or
nails, one doesn't care if they are metric or standard, one just buys ones
that are "about that big"..  It's not like a wood 2x4 is actually 2x4 inches

Japan uses customary units for some things rather than metric as a form of
protectionism.  Korea makes most things metric, so that insures that you'll
be buying more expensive Japanese made hardware, rather than Korean imports.

And of course, they still use Stones as a measure of weight in England,
although mostly for humans and livestock (e.g. my wife's cousin was
commenting that she had finally gotten down below 9 stone)

here's an interesting question.. when you buy magnet wire in Europe, is it
sold by mm diameter, micron diameter, square mm cross section (which is the
case for larger diameter wires), or "gauge" (like American Wire Gauge)..

And, there are also oddities in terms of types of materials... For instance,
bolt strengths... Grade 2, Grade 5, Grade 8, for instance... Presumably
there's some equivalent DIN or BS or IS or AS? I can't imagine whipping on
down to the local Ferreteria in rural Spain and looking for 50 GPa bolts...

Some traditions stay, some go.. Metric originated in the time of the French
Revolution... we kept the length and mass units, but abandoned the metric
clock and calendar..I guess a system originating in ancient Babylon just had
too much inertia.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 1:33 PM
Subject: Re: Awesome Quarter Shrinking Capacitors on EBAY