XPost: alt.usage.english   
   From: vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid   
      
   Le 20/09/2024 à 00:12, Christian Weisgerber a écrit :   
   >   
   > I'm sorry, I don't know where to post this.  I'm crossposting to   
   > alt.usage.english, because statute miles as a unit mostly afflict   
   > the English-speaking world.   
      
   Afflict? Sometimes I wonder how many more times I'm going to hear   
   Germans criticising how we do things.   
      
   > So you want to convert between miles and kilometers.  The conversion   
   > factor is... uh...  A 40-year-old calculator book provides a useful   
   > tip:  Unless you're designing a space probe, you can use ln(5).   
   >   
   > WHAT?   
   >   
   > Yes, the natural logrithm of 5 approximates the conversion factor   
   > between miles and kilometers; specifically one mile is about ln(5)   
   > kilometers.  It's accurate to four digits.   
   >   
   > If nothing else, it's faster to type on a calculator.   
   >   
   > I think that's hysterical.   
      
   I'm afraid I don't see the problem. Just assign 1.609344 to a memory   
   cell. That's what I do. A shortened version is fine for mental   
   arithmetic - better than ln(5) - and if one has forgotten 1.6... but has   
   a calculator, what's wrong with tapping 2.54 x 12 x 5,280 / 100,000?   
      
   Simples!   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)