DIE.

YOU DIE.

MULTIPLES OF 10 ARE FOR HIPPIES!

I like metric.

It should all be in powers of 2,but labeled in powers of ten. So when you want 1024 grams of something, you'll only get 1000.

DRIZZT BASH

How long ago was it that Britain switched to metric?
I was really suprised, when on my holiday there last year (or the year before) the people'd often use metric units.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1998-073A

The Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999 is the infamous example of the confusion caused by insistence on imperial units (specifically, force being measured in 'pound force' and not Newtons).


Why change?

Why stick with a completely arbitrary and meaningless system? Just because Americans are too lazy to change to a far more efficient and workable system?

There's not even anything 'American' about it, so any 'patriotism' bull is meaningless. Imperial is old English units, many of which came from the French originally.

I'm sure there would be benefits to changing to metric; making calculations easier for shop workers, making sure there's no losses in international trade (both want to have nice round numbers on their products, by conversion there won't be), there won't be any need for foreign businesses to make imperial unit versions of products exclusively for trade with US (nor for US companies with metric verions outside).

But beyond that, metric simply makes sense. It's logical.

The only use of non-SI that is acceptable is degree Celsius instead of degree Kelvin. Celsius provides more workable numbers, and is the same scale. And even in physics you're often delaing with change in temperature so it doesn't make any difference whether you use Celsius or Kelvin.

And while you're at it, put the i in aluminium.

Don't change the spelling of words for crap your country didn't discover.

Rob, I hope you aren't talking about alumin(i)um...

I was.

Like I said, don't change the name of crap you didn't discover.

And don't pressure people to change the name of crap you didn't discover.

We haven't really. All the road signs are in miles, people tend to measure vehicle speed in miles per hour. Most people say their height in feet and their weight in stone (14 pounds in a stone).

Morthog, STFU

To clarify, I'm an American, and I've never even heard of 80% of those measurements much less use them, so why don't you do some freaking research before you shoot your mouth off next time?

Impractical? Tell me, why should we switch to measuring spee in kph? People know how fast mph is, not kph. So... er... yeah. It would be impractical. Same goes for measurements and things.

Wow, looks like we've nearly got a metric/imperial flamewar on our hands.

Obi-Wan: "Ah, good, a metric speedometer. No Imperial entanglements."

I like metric system, and that's it. Though metric doesn't sound as cool as Imperial.

I'm going to invent the rebel system. Its gonna have the nice feel of american units for common units like length, but to manipulate them you have to use a factor of 10 for conversions.

That's what I thought at first, too. But as I said, I was surprised how often people would use metric measurements, for example when they explained the way or similar things.
But then again, perhaps they did that because we were tourists.

..You haven't heard of it, therefor it doesn't exist?
Excellent research that. The definition of the 'mile' makes even less sense without the stuff inbetween.

The important thing isn't the names, but the completely arbitrary divisons.

I have something that is 25 centimetres long ¬¬
That's 0.25 metres. That's 0.00025 kilometres. That's 250 milimetres. I can tell you that without even thinking, it's just moving the numbers across some.

I had something that is 25 yards long. That's 75 feet. That's 900 inches. That's 0.0142 miles. Even if you remember that a yard is three feet and a mile is 1750 yards and a foot is 12 inches, you still have to do quite some calculation to get from one unit to the next.

You only 'know' how fast miles per hour is because you're used to it. That doesn't make it a good scale, I could say that one Mort is 27 Impis, one Impi is 7 tinnys, 4 tinnys is a FastGamerr, 90 FastGamerrs is a kyle90 and 42 kyle90s is a Freelancer and a Freelancer is defined by the size of my arse. That is now the Mortric system. Use it enough, and you'd sure get used to it. That doesn't make the Mortric system any good. The Imperial system makes just as much sense as the Mortric system. Makes sense, my arse.

What I was getting at is that people only use inches, feet, miles, pounds, gallons, and ounces, and to a lesser extent, yards. No one uses those weird ones.

Yeah, a base-10 system is pretty complicated

Acres are used fairly commonly. An acre is 1 furlong * 1 chain, so is 160 rods and 1/640 square miles.
Fathoms are used to measure depth of water.
I don't know what barleycorns or poppy seeds are used for. Perhaps tiny tiny lengths, when inches are too big. Like.. uh.. the length of a barleycorn. or a poppy seed.

Of course you know how fast it is because you learned how fast it is. If we switch to metric, you'll likely learn how fast various kph are, right? You act like knowledge of the English system was just plopped into your lap one day.

woot! I'm part of the Mortric system!

The main argument against metric I hear is changing all the road signs. But one poster said England hasn't, so I suppose it could be done. I'll remind everyone of one industry that slipped by, the soda industry with it's 1 liter and 2 liter bottles. To save money internationally.

I find Imperial to be consfusing at times, but fractions of an inch have been ingrained due to engineering. Most of it is done in Metric anyway. With Imperial, except for the basic lb., ft., in., mph, etc, it gets a little too wierd. What's heavier, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?

The punch-line is fairly well known, but illustrates the point. The answer is the Feathers, since the feathers' weight is measured in standard avoirdupois weight, which has 16 ounces to a pound. Gold's weight is measured in Troy weight where there are 12 ounces to the pound.

I'm better then you, because I'm the second-biggest unit in his system.
What I'm not sure about is this:
I'm 1/27 smaller than Mort, but I'm 105840 times bigger than his arse. Somehow I get the impression, that this system is not very well thought out, because I can't imagin an arse that's so small on someone that's supposed to be 27 times bigger than me.

The US was switching to metric in the eighties, but Reagan cut the funding. What a dick.

Exactly. Metric is useful for scientists in laboratories, doing theoretical work. However for practical, real-world work, imperial is far superior. There are three main reasons for this: proportionality, ergonomics, and cognative reducability.

Proportionality: as I said, Imperial is well-designed for practical use, the sort of on-the-fly calculations one would do without a calculator. For instance, most simple divisions of the foot result in whole numbers: one half of a foot is 6", one third is 4", one quarter is 3", one sixth is 2". Metric, on the other hand, with its base 10 system, has only two divisions that result in whole numbers: one half and one fifth. It makes calculations far more complex than they need to be.

Ergonomics: since Imperial measurements were developed by people who actually used them every day (rather than some theoretical scientist with too much time on his hands), they tend to be designed to match up closely with the proportions of the human body. The human mind is designed to measure its environment in relation to the scale of its own body, rather than some arbitrary standard based on the circumference of the Earth. For instance, in a text book, what do artists usually use to give an idea of the scale for a diagram of a dinosaur? A human figure.

With Imperial, you always have a rough system of measurement as near as the ends of your limbs. Metric has no such convenience.

Cognative Reducability: The human mind can only deal with so many numbers at once. There are a limited number of slots of memory (5-9, depending on the person, 7 is typical) that can be considered at any one time. This is why telephone numbers are usually 7 numbers. As an example, try copying down a long series of numbers (like a UPC or a video game serial number). How many numbers can you copy down at once without looking at it twice?

The advantage Imperial has here is that measurements tend to require fewer units of memory. Imperial: 6'1" and a half -- three units ("a half" taking up only one "slot" of memory). Metric: 186.7 cm -- five units (the decimal taking up one unit). Fewer units = easier to remember, especially when you're a craftsman making something and trying to remember six different measurements at once.

So yes, in the sciences, metric may be a useful tool. Numbers don't need to be ergonomic, since most of what you're dealing with is theoretical anyway. Your calculations are probably done on a calculator, so you don't have to worry much about cognative reducability. In the real world, though, imperial is a much more practical and useful system.

Of course, the perfect system would be ergonomic like Imperial, but with a base-12 number system. All the advantages of the above, but with the added ease of multiplication that is the metric system's only real benefit.

Beautiful. I'm showing this to my Chemistry teacher.

@Krig

Feet are well and good, but what about miles?
Half of 1km = 500m
Half of 1m = 2640 ft

Consider that example in terms of proportionality, and cognitive whatever. (And ergonomics is so ridiculous I'm not even going to talk about it. A human foot is pretty much 12" long... unless you're a woman... or a small man... or a large man... and I don't think you can really use your body to measure yards or miles... what part of the body is roughly an inch? Your other two arguments are intelligent, this is silly)

Also, comparing 6'1" and a half to 186.7cm serves your point, so let's compare a number with the same number of "units" in metric, 146.2 to it's imperial counterpart 4.79658793 feet.

And before you dismiss metric as merely usefull in theory, many PRACTICAL devices require precise measurements. I don't want the man building my pacemaker to decide the wire is "about 1/6th of an inch" I want a precise measurement, which will have as many digits as it takes.

In conclusion, imperial is superior for farmers, metric suits the real world.

Calculations are more complex with metric? Try calculating the number of square feet in a room when you have non integer numbers of feet or inches. With metric this can be done much easier along with any other calculations.

You like whole numbers?

10cm/4 is 250mm. How many inches is 1/4 of a mile?



Yes... rough guesses. Not accurate at all. And it only goes for distances. How about a pound? What part of your body weighs a pound?



186.7 is also incredibly more accurate than 6'1". How about 185cm? or 1.8m? Theres 2 digits with almost the same degree of accuracy. What about 5'11" that's 3 digits and less accurate than the same amount of digits in centimetres.

Oh and as you're calling the decimal point a unit then ' and " are units too and your whole arguement is flawed.

No they weren't. They were developed by English or French Kings who didn't have anything better to do.



Firstly, prove it. I can accept that makes sense, but that doesn't make it true.

Second, a 'foot' is a pretty huge foot. I don't have any body part that's an inch long. A yard is supposedly the distance from the tip of your nose to the end of your thumb; do you think your body has a natural sticking-out-thumb-and-poking-nose process by which to measure? I'm sure you can find something or rather that is approximately a metre long, like the length of your leg or something.

Third, measuring stuff in terms of body size is completely useless. Body sizes vary hugely, as do the sizes of separate components thereof. The whole point of any measuring system is to establish a standard. So yeah, some very tall people might have feet that are a foot long and measuring stuff in terms of their foot might be useful for them. For anyone else, the 'foot' will be nowhere near the size of their foot, so they won't gain any of the benefits of body-size-measuring method. The 'foot' will be just as awkard to use as any other length.

If your pace maker was designed and built by an american company, it was most likely that most of it's components were machined to within .0001 of an inch.

This is all.

Thus making how many numbers you can hold in your head, in practical applications, irrelevant.
This is all.

Well heres the thing, those numbers stay in my head, for about ten seconds, as I would be running through the print and checking regular dimensions, and then critical dimensions.

Apples to oranges kids.


And really, it doesn't matter what the hell measurement system it's in, you have to do one dimension at a time when you're measuring crap that small. And guess what? You always measure twice.


Though when you get into decimals, especially in a machine shop, Imperial units just make more sense.

And besides, Metric standard calipers (IE, not a dial or digital caliper) SUCK.

Imperial standard calipers are much easier to read.

That's not what your girlfriend says. :p

The metric system is just so much better. I'm terribly at math, but I find the metric system is so much easier! (I mean, multiples of 10 are teh secks :p)

@ Mikus

The mile is a bit of an odd duck, it's based on the old Roman mile of 1000 double paces (from left foot to left foot, or 5 feet), which was roughly 5000 feet. The English standardised this to 5280, based on 80 surveyor's chains of 66 feet each.

However, take another common fraction: 1/3. Mile: 1760 feet. Kilometre: 333.333333 (repeating) metres. Or how about sixths? Mile: 880. Kilometre: 166.6666666666 etc.

Regarding ergonomics: no, not everyone's foot is exactly 12" long. You're missing the point: ergonomics are about having a "feel" for how big something is. It's much easier to say "well, that board's about two of my feet long" than it is to say "well, that board's about 60 centimetres long". From there you can measure more accurately if you need to, but if you're not doing anything that precise, you won't need to.



I should have been more specific: Imperial measurements take up fewer "memory units" when dealing with commonly used fractions such as those I elaborated on under "proportionality". My example probably wasn't the most appropriate (I was using my own height), here's a better one: 2 and a third feet, or 2'4". In metric, that's an ungodly amount of decimal places. When you start using more exotic fractions, you're going to get into a pile of decimal places in whatever system you use, and the whole "cognative reducability" thing becomes moot anyway. Like Rob said, with something as precise as a pacemaker, you're going to be measuring everything sixty times anyway, no matter what system you use. Metric has no advantage here, the two systems are the same. Imperial's advantage lies in the area of common fractions.

@JKWhoSaysNi: How exactly does Metric have an advantage when dealing with non-integers? Is 144.5 inches more difficult to calculate with than 144.5 centimetres?



Yup, looks like you've hit upon the sole advantage of the metric system. Now, how many milimetres is 1/3 of 10 centimetres again? And, quick, without using a ruler, how long is 10 centimetres?

I'm not sure. What part of my body weighs a kilogram? Imperial isn't ergonomic in all respects (for instance, the mile isn't particularly ergonomic), but many parts of it are. On the other hand, no part of metric is ergonomic (except temperature; Celsius is superior to Farenheit, I admit).


The symbols for foot and inch aren't units anymore than the symbols for centimetre and milimetre are. That is to say, you could process them as mental units if you wanted ("185cm" rather than "185"), but they're not necessary for calculation. On the other hand, the decimal point is vital to calculation, since if you don't include it, you get the wrong number. You might be able to make a case for the foot symbol, using it as the division point between the feet and inches numbers ("six-foot-one").

@Mort:

No, actually, the English or French kings merely standardised a set of already existing measurements, to facilitate fair trade. The measurements themselves were naturally occuring ones used by the peasantry and labourers.



1: Yes, it's a big foot, but close enough for estimations and anything where you don't need to be accurate. If you want to be accurate, you're going to use a tape measure anyway. 2: Your thumb is 1 inch wide. 3: A yard is roughly 1 pace, the nose-to-thumb thing was the standardisation of Henry I (his nose to the tip of his thumb).

Again, the whole ergonomics thing is only useful for estimations. If you're going to get precise enough to where you're worrying about the differences between different sizes of people, you're going to be using a tape measure anyway, regardless of the system you're using.

Imperial isn't perfect, of course. It's just a more natural system than metric.

As I said, a base 12 number system would be much more efficient. Too bad it'd be impossible to implement in this world of 10-fingered people.

SI units suck. I found this out in physics.

I mean, pascals? Lumens? Newtons? WTF is a Newton?

This is just a related post, btw.

(and yes, I do know what a Newton is, really)

You'd rather use foot-pounds? What kind of crackbaby uses a foot-pound? It sounds like part of some stupid toe-magnet live forever crap.