Page:British Weights and Measures - Superior to the Metric, by James W. Evans.djvu/29

Rh and quarter continually exhibits itself in the sub-division of almost every base. The metric system does not afford the same facility, either for change of the adopted base, or for the continued binary sub-division, and any attempt to force it into use in shops and workmen's operations, would probably be felt as a needless grievance."

Mr. C. F. Howard has asserted his conviction that more than half of the people who are born into the world, and live to manhood, are quite unable to understand the decimals. "Take the sixteenths" (he says), "a child knows that an ounce is the sixteenth part of a pound, but it takes a highly trained intellect to realise that .0625 is the decimal of it."

The late Sir Geo. B. Airy, Astronomer Royal, speaking from a long and unique experience, which gives great weight to his opinion, was unhesitating in his protestations against the suggested change, and used no uncertain tones when he said: "If I had a new nation to create, with a new system of weights and measures, I would give them the binary scale throughout. That I conceive would be nearest to perfectionthe binary scale, with means to enable us to use decimal multiples or sub-multiples" He also stated: "For daily life, people understand sub-division by halves better than any other sub-division," and "the law is universal that a binary sub-division is easier than anything else."

Professor De Morgan claimed that "Binary sub-division must always be used by the common people