[time-nuts] Ultra low phase noise floor measurement system for RF devices.

[SAIDJACK at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/31/2007 18:14:01 Pacific Daylight Time,  
bruce.griffiths at xtra.co.nz writes:

Since  the average person in the rest of the world copes with the metric 
system  without any difficulty, the first reason would appear to be based 
on a  tacit assumption that average US citizen is less intelligent/less 
well  educated than the average citizen of every other  country.


Hi Bruce,
 
don't think it's related to intelligence, it's got more to do with  
dis-interest in my opinion. Once I tried to get a piece of metal cut here in the  US 
(at a time I was not that familiar with fractions of inches) and gave my  
measurements in mm to the shop foreman. He looked at me in disbelief, he had  never 
worked with SI units.
 
So then I had to learn about 'standard' measurements such as 3/16" etc -  
which I think are just so much more difficult to deal with...
 
They tried to bring the SI system here in the 70's and failed. Canada  
converted successfully.
 
In my opinion, there is only one single application where SI units don't  
work as well: that is in altitude assignments for aircraft, which are in feet in  
the western world.
 
That way the controllers get to stack aircraft in 100/500/1000 feet  
increments, which lend themselves more easily to communication  and relative altitudes 
(aircraft to aircraft separation) due to their  ca. 3:1 "improvement" in 
resolution over the meter... on another note it's also  nice that a foot is about 
a ns delay in Lightspeed.
 
bye,
Said



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