Guido at Google

[Bengt Richter]

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 18:30:03 -0700 (MST), Jim Benson <jbenson at sextans.lowell.edu> wrote:

>On Thu, 22 Dec 2005, Bengt Richter wrote:
>
>> >> 
>> >> For Americans: 15 meters is roughly 50 feet.
>> >
>> >Google can do that too, of course. <wink>
>> >
>> >http://www.google.com/search?q=convert+15+meters+to+feet
>> >
>> >(49.2125984 feet to be more precise)
>> >
>> Actually that looks like it's based on the approximation
>> of 25.4 mm/inch, whereas I believe the legally defined US conversion
>> is 39.3700 inches/meter. They're close. British is 39.3701 for some reason.
>> At least according to my dusty 37th Edition Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (c) 1955.
>> Maybe things have changed since then ;-)
>> 
>
>Actually they did change...My 54th edition lists the change that
>as of July 1 1959, by definition, 1 inch is exactly 25.4 mm.
> 
So I found, which makes me happy, because I had been assuming 25.4
for a long time. (I'm not happy about saying "I believe the legally
defined conversion..." since I had only just tried to verify 25.4
and found that I was "wrong." I guess something told me to hedge with that "maybe" ;-)

FWIW, my first reference was my trusty old Random House American College Dictionary
(that I used in high school) dictionary, which also says 39.37 in/meter.
But it's copyrighted 1949. They used to make real reference books with good paper ;-)

Regards,
Bengt Richter