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Suppose, a litre of cola costs US$3.15. If you buy one third of a litre of cola, how much would you pay?
The above may seem like a rather basic question. Something that you would perhaps expect the vast majority of adults to be able to answer? Particularly if they are allowed to use a calculator.
Unfortunately, the reality is that a large number of adults across the world struggle with even such basic financial tasks (the correct answer is US$1.05, by the way).
[...] In many other countries, the situation is even worse. Four in every ten adults in places like England, Canada, Spain and the US can't make this straightforward calculation – even when they had a calculator to hand. Similarly, less than half of adults in places like Chile, Turkey and South Korea can get the right answer.
-- submitted from IRC
High number of adults unable to do basic mathematical tasks
(Score: 3, Informative) by canopic jug on Friday March 16 2018, @10:33AM (3 children)
It was Saint [newrepublic.com]Reagan [vanityfair.com] that did in general use of metrics in the US. Eventually the few companies still doing manufacturing inside the US had to switch anyway [us-metric.org] for cost reasons. So the situation is more of a hyrbid model with a few areas, such as road signs, where the old system remains in use for a while longer. I can see a lot of reasons why the US might go fully metric in the coming decades.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 17 2018, @12:08AM (2 children)
There's nothing worse than having to use both standard and metric in the same gadget-factory. Even worse than that is having a product line with different sizes and having one standard and the others metric. Even worse than that is using both standard and metric on each of a type of product. Don't laugh, the latter exists, albeit rarely.
(Score: 1) by canopic jug on Saturday March 17 2018, @06:25AM
That might explain the combination of metric and standard nuts I found on a car's starter motor when replacing it a long time ago.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @11:15AM
How about getting dimensionless drawings in?
Normally worked in mm (UK here), used to get customer drawings in with just numbers on them, then it's a game of contacting them to find out they're in cm, inches, feet...even had one where the customer said the length was 2 yards, and the width 4 cm....just as well I'm already bald.