RE: Wheel shafts.

["Steve Tyng" <stevet-at-stcharlesmd.com>]

Björn wrote:

>btw is inch the smallest unit in your system?

Yes, the inch is the smallest base measurement.  Anything smaller is a division of 
it.  You can express lengths smaller two ways.  The english measurement were the 
inch is continually halved -- 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, 1/128 for example. 
 Or in decimal inches like .735 of an inch.

I admit that a measurement system divisible by ten is a good thing.  My problem is 
the meter.  To me its not a friendly length like the english foot (12 inches).  The 
foot anybody can relate to.  You can go anywhere in the world and ask every 
uneducated person you can find how long a foot is and all your answers will be more 
or less the same.  You can't say the same for the meter.  What's a meter?  Some 
length they came up with by dividing a quadrant of the Earth by 10 million.  
Nowadays its how far light travels in a vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second.  How does 
something like that relate to the way humans perceive the world?

"Gee Johnny, your growing up fast, your one-ten-millionth of an Earth quadrant tall 
today!"

"Mommy, what's an Earth?"

People see things in a human scale, not a planetary one.  They should have taken the 
foot and divided it by ten and called the result inches.

Steve 'How big is your Foot' Tyng