No, there is a reason your own country has more or less formally adopted metric system several times already, even if implentation has failed. Because it IS simpler.
Not for me to speculate why 140 years after its first formal adoption still isnt in common use... :mrgreen:
Which was why one of the Ariane rocket launches went BOOOM! Rather inconvenient really.
Not to mention wasteful.
Just as a little off-topic thing, CAN you really imagine "40ft" or a specific distance?
Test yourself in different situations/terrains/light conditions etc... Its quite amazing how much practise you need before you quit being more wrong than right when it comes to measuring distance "by eye".
Divide feet by 3/triple meters. Divide pounds by 2/double kg. Simplified.
Pounds are 0.495kg.
Probably not, but we could wish!
And there´s the reason for using metric, amply demonstrated... :mrgreen:
Except here, a "mil" is 10km.
Pretty much same here. It just doesnt matter enough most of the time.
Sorry for the thread-related necromancy, but while rereading the Experimental Philosophy chapter of A&A I couldn't help noticing that the values given on the Volume Conversion Chart for 1 cubic pace were greater than the values ascribed to three cubic feet by a factor of 10. This seems to contravene any of the suggested measurements...
Perhaps I'm merely being obtuse about the vernacular used in measuring solid volumes, but your arguments still don't quite make sense to me...
As I see it we either figure "3 cubic feet" to be measurements per side giving us a total of 3x3x3 = 27 cubic-feet, or we figure 3 be the final volume as given in feet cubed and then calculate the cube-root to determine the dimensions (about 1.44 feet per side). Either of these methods is fine in game (I prefer the latter, however), but the method should be applied to all of the entries on the table to keep things simple. Therefore, it would seem to me that, if 1 pace were indeed equivalent to 3 feet, then the volume of 3 cubic feet ought to be identical to 1 cubic pace (3 cubic feet).
The main problem here, of course, is that 1x1x1 = 1 and the cube route of 1 = 1. I'll happily accede your expertise on this matter, but still think it could be made clearer...
3 cubic feet is NOT the same as 3 cubic feet cubed.
3 cubic feet means you have 1+1+1 cubic feet. 3 cubic feet.
1 cubic pace means you have 333 cubic feet. 27 cubic feet.
No, thats either 27 cubic feet or 3 cubic feet CUBED again.
Considering that the first "method" is completely wrong i suggest most strongly that you make sure to use the 2nd only.
Eh, not a chance. 1 cubic pace equals 333 cubic feet, because 3 cubic feet is only one out of three dimensions of a cubic pace.
By your figuring, 1000 square meters equals 1 sqkm, when in reality its 1/1000th of it, because its only a single "line" of square meters along the edge of a sqkm.
Perhaps it's worth pointing out explicitly that "3 cubic feet" and "3 feet cubed" do not mean the same thing. If you want to describe a box shaped like a cube that has all of its sides at 11 inches long, that's great, but "11 cubic inches" is not that, it's something else. The volume of that cube would be 1331 cubic inches.
If you had a cubical box that was 1 yard on every side, how would you cut it up into cubes that were 1 foot on every side? You could slice it horizontally first into three flat boxes, each of which was 1 yard x 1 yard by 1 foot. Each of those three flat boxes could be sliced in three as well, yielding a total of nine jenga pieces which were 1 yard x 1 foot x 1 foot. Then each of those jenga pieces could be sliced in three as well, giving a grand total of 27 cubes each of which was 1 foot on every side. That's why 1 cubic yard equals 27 cubic feet. "3 cubic feet" would be the same as one of these jenga pieces.
"3 cubic feet cubed" doesn't make any sense, unless you're living in some nine-dimensional regio....
As the others have said, you are mistaking 3 cubic feet for 3 feet cubed.
You are quite right, that if we had a cube with a volume of 3 cubic feet, then that cube would have sides of length 1.44 feet.
However, a cubic pace is a cube with sides that each have a length of 1 pace (i.e. 3 feet). So the total volume of a cubic pace (in cubic feet) is 333 = 27 cubic feet.
This is nothing odd or unusual about ArM5. There is also nothing odd about these archaic units. This is just the way that volumes work.
For example, a milliliter is a cube that has sides of length 1 cm (so a volume of 111 = 1 cubic centimeter). If you have then have a cube that has sides of 10 cm, you have a volume equal to 101010 = 1000 cubic centimeters = 1000 milliliters = 1 litre.
(Why am I reminded of the classic scene in Airplane! where the one passenger is hysterical, and the other passengers are lining up to slap/etc. her into sobriety?) 8)
