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A comment on Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America. Parent comment

Re:Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in Ame... by jbuzbee on Saturday August 09, 2014 @10:55AM (#8156998)
But the freeze/boil numbers are arbitrary as well only being true at sea-level. Where I live in Colorado, we're 1 mile (cough, 1.6 km) above sea level meaning those formulas are meaningless.
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Re:Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in Ame... by RVuRnvbM2e on Saturday August 09, 2014 @11:16AM (#8157050)
They aren't meaningless. Water boils at 95 C at your altitude - effectively the same temperature for all "common" usages. E.g. you'd still better not stick your hand into boiling water.

A <5% error for the zone that >99% of humans inhabit seems pretty practical to me. The freezing point is effectively identical.

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Re:Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in Ame... by xxs on Sunday August 10, 2014 @03:26AM (#8159111)
iirc, water boils at 95C is around 5000m altitude, no one lives normally there - even La Paz is less than 4000.
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