RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Re: metric system

[Alec Smyth <Asmyth@changepoint.com>]

Back in Argentina where I grew up, it was meters for scuba depth gauges and
airplane altimeters. In nautical matters however it was still knots and
nautical miles.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Buchner [mailto:buchner@wcta.net]
Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 11:42 AM
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Re: metric system


I see that Ray has already asked for this debate to end, so I won't put in
my comments on that whole thing -- but it does bring up a question that's
on-topic.

If I bought a submarine built in the UK, would its instruments be calibrated
in meters and, um, (would that be N/m^2 's?)?

That is, I see airplanes still measuring altitude in feet (and have been
told that this is still an aviation standard all over the world... true?), I
hear NASA using nautical miles during launches, and SCUBA divers still seem
to use feet. Is that just in the US, or this another of those cases where
distinct special-interest communities use their own traditional "standards"
regardless of the official system of the country they're in?