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The 39th Root of 92

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Re: The 39th Root of 92

#11

Post by rz2k »

MikeTLive wrote: post #8
MikeTLive wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The English system of measure is based on offsets to make retooling factories easily done in house. It's very similar to metric paper sizes. Look into the history it's actually quite logical.

Appelbaum: So the people blocking adoption of the metric system weren't backward-looking traditionalists, but cutting-edge industrialists? Mihm: That's correct. While the anti-metric forces included outright cranks, including people who believed that the inch was a God-given unit of measurement, the most sophisticated and powerful opponents of the metric system were anything but cranks. They were engineers who built…

The philosophy seems to be reversed with the ISO 216 paper size standards like A4.

Anyway, the main advantage of metric seems to be its universality between different markets, rather than the somewhat silly idea of ideal relationships such as water in one arbitrary form having a certain weight and volume replacing a system that was derived from a hundreds of years process resembling a genetic algorithm.

Re: The 39th Root of 92

#12

Post by empath75 »

ysleepy wrote: post #3

I continue to be baffled by the arcane units in the US. This uses a measure on the completely wrong abstraction level. An accidental production process now defines a wire unit instead the end result the consumer/engineer/technician wants to know (mm^2 or inch^2 oh no no it's pica^2 ?). There must be some sociological phenomenon going on that keeps the US from adopting modern units. Maybe can't admit a shortcoming and…

They took an existing system and standardized it with as few changes as possible. It's the equivalent of continuously updating the same code base instead of rewriting from scratch.

Re: The 39th Root of 92

#13

Post by sgk284 »

ysleepy wrote: post #3

I continue to be baffled by the arcane units in the US. This uses a measure on the completely wrong abstraction level. An accidental production process now defines a wire unit instead the end result the consumer/engineer/technician wants to know (mm^2 or inch^2 oh no no it's pica^2 ?). There must be some sociological phenomenon going on that keeps the US from adopting modern units. Maybe can't admit a shortcoming and…

Just like with software, backwards compatibility is a double-edged sword.

You can look at almost any land assignment, building or commercial sale ever in the history of the United States and be able to compare / modify / extend it without any conversions. If my great-great-grandfather claimed 160 acres from the Homestead Act, any documentation from that time is just as easily understood today without any conversions.

Differing units only become an issue when globalization factors in (which is a fairly recent phenomenon). Many fields in the states, such as the sciences, have indeed chosen interoperability over backwards-compatibility, but these decisions are done on a field-by-field basis.

I'm in the camp that it'd generally be better to just rip the band-aid off and switch everything, but in general I value interoperability over backwards compatibility with software too. That said, who am I to tell Microsoft that they shouldn't worry about Windows backwards-compatibility? Who am I to tell farmers that they should measure their land in hectares?

Re: The 39th Root of 92

#14

Post by ysleepy »

sgk284 wrote: post #13
ysleepy wrote: post #3

I continue to be baffled by the arcane units in the US. This uses a measure on the completely wrong abstraction level. An accidental production process now defines a wire unit instead the end result the consumer/engineer/technician wants to know (mm^2 or inch^2 oh no no it's pica^2 ?). There must be some sociological phenomenon going on that keeps the US from adopting modern units. Maybe can't admit a shortcoming and…

Just like with software, backwards compatibility is a double-edged sword. You can look at almost any land assignment, building or commercial sale ever in the history of the United States and be able to compare / modify / extend it without any conversions. If my great-great-grandfather claimed 160 acres from the Homestead Act, any documentation from that time is just as easily understood today without any conversions.…

Who says people should collectively forget what an inch is?

Every other country made unit conversions.

The people will use old units for some time to buy cheese at the counter and all is well.

Re: The 39th Root of 92

#15

Post by ysleepy »

MikeTLive wrote: post #8
MikeTLive wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The English system of measure is based on offsets to make retooling factories easily done in house. It's very similar to metric paper sizes. Look into the history it's actually quite logical.

Appelbaum: So the people blocking adoption of the metric system weren't backward-looking traditionalists, but cutting-edge industrialists? Mihm: That's correct. While the anti-metric forces included outright cranks, including people who believed that the inch was a God-given unit of measurement, the most sophisticated and powerful opponents of the metric system were anything but cranks. They were engineers who built…

Yeah the engineers love the process of calculating if that wire can carry the specified current. Because it's so industry friendly.

This is complete nonsense and sounds like musings of a desperate advocate.

If you want to believe something, you start to accept the lamest arguments.

Re: The 39th Root of 92

#16

Post by jonahx »

ysleepy wrote: post #3

I continue to be baffled by the arcane units in the US. This uses a measure on the completely wrong abstraction level. An accidental production process now defines a wire unit instead the end result the consumer/engineer/technician wants to know (mm^2 or inch^2 oh no no it's pica^2 ?). There must be some sociological phenomenon going on that keeps the US from adopting modern units. Maybe can't admit a shortcoming and…

> There must be some sociological phenomenon going on that keeps the US from adopting modern units. Maybe can't admit a shortcoming and fix it?

There's a sociological phenomenon at play here all right... a deeply pathological form of envy that Freud called "denial of USA-number-one-ness."

Re: The 39th Root of 92

#17

Post by pacaro »

ysleepy wrote: post #3

I continue to be baffled by the arcane units in the US. This uses a measure on the completely wrong abstraction level. An accidental production process now defines a wire unit instead the end result the consumer/engineer/technician wants to know (mm^2 or inch^2 oh no no it's pica^2 ?). There must be some sociological phenomenon going on that keeps the US from adopting modern units. Maybe can't admit a shortcoming and…

The thing that always gets me about this is how incomplete it is (at least in most people's experience)

What is the unit of mass smaller than an Ounce? Some people know that this is a Grain (7,000 in a pound, which means the awfully convenient division of 437.5 per oz - assuming avoirdupois of course)

What if anything is smaller than an inch? Power of two fractions until 1/64 then "thous" - 15.625 thous in 1/64" - although I do like how biblical (KJV) it looks to be writing "thou"

Re: The 39th Root of 92

#18

Post by kevhito »

ysleepy wrote: post #3

I continue to be baffled by the arcane units in the US. This uses a measure on the completely wrong abstraction level. An accidental production process now defines a wire unit instead the end result the consumer/engineer/technician wants to know (mm^2 or inch^2 oh no no it's pica^2 ?). There must be some sociological phenomenon going on that keeps the US from adopting modern units. Maybe can't admit a shortcoming and…

If you have never wired a house for electrical, then sure, the units seem arbitrary. But if you do, then the units seem very comfortable. 12ga for most typical 20a circuits, 14ga for light, 10ga or thicker for some heavy-duty circuits.

Hey boss, we seem to be all out of 3.31mm^2 romex, all I got left is 2.08mm^2. And why did you mention cross-sectional area? Why not radius? or diameter? Or better yet, circumference? I'll take awg12 and awg14 please.

Re: The 39th Root of 92

#19

Post by dragontamer »

pacaro wrote: post #17
ysleepy wrote: post #3

I continue to be baffled by the arcane units in the US. This uses a measure on the completely wrong abstraction level. An accidental production process now defines a wire unit instead the end result the consumer/engineer/technician wants to know (mm^2 or inch^2 oh no no it's pica^2 ?). There must be some sociological phenomenon going on that keeps the US from adopting modern units. Maybe can't admit a shortcoming and…

The thing that always gets me about this is how incomplete it is (at least in most people's experience) What is the unit of mass smaller than an Ounce? Some people know that this is a Grain (7,000 in a pound, which means the awfully convenient division of 437.5 per oz - assuming avoirdupois of course) What if anything is smaller than an inch? Power of two fractions until 1/64 then "thous" - 15.625 thous in 1/64" - al…

> What if anything is smaller than an inch?

Then we use Pica and Points. You know, like 12-point font. Which is 1/6th of an inch tall. 72-points to an inch, 12-points to a pica.

Get with the program man!

Re: The 39th Root of 92

#20

Post by HCIdivision17 »

kevhito wrote: post #18
ysleepy wrote: post #3

I continue to be baffled by the arcane units in the US. This uses a measure on the completely wrong abstraction level. An accidental production process now defines a wire unit instead the end result the consumer/engineer/technician wants to know (mm^2 or inch^2 oh no no it's pica^2 ?). There must be some sociological phenomenon going on that keeps the US from adopting modern units. Maybe can't admit a shortcoming and…

If you have never wired a house for electrical, then sure, the units seem arbitrary. But if you do, then the units seem very comfortable. 12ga for most typical 20a circuits, 14ga for light, 10ga or thicker for some heavy-duty circuits. Hey boss, we seem to be all out of 3.31mm^2 romex, all I got left is 2.08mm^2. And why did you mention cross-sectional area? Why not radius? or diameter? Or better yet, circumference?…

That's the trick. In a sense, the units follow the application, and hence English units always feel a bit natural. They have a tendency to have integer multiples and simple fractions.

And when I say natural, I don't mean elegant. They often tend to be thoroughly arbitrary. But they match the needs, which is usually reasonably pragmatic. For example, 360 degrees is ideal for simple in-head directional geometry, but radians are by far simpler in algebra or very precise measurements (because Pi can often be neatly factored out).

Once you start using enough decimal points, all units are lousy. I remember using angstroms in astronomy because it fit better into the optics theory and the distances are already absurd it didn't matter. So you may as well use the units that are convenient, and just get good swapping.

(PS: glass sheets are sold by the square foot, but in thicknesses measured in millimeters. Turns out to be pretty convenient that way.)

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