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International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

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Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#251
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understanding mass in molar terms is necessary to do a lot of chemistry correctly. The mole is effectively a count of the number of molecules kicking about, although the count is large enough that terms like "quadrillion" don't cut it. (One mole is about 600 sextillion molecules). Knowing how many molecules are around lets you actually compute how much stuff can react in a given chemical environment, and other aspect…

trying to use kg instead of moles when calculating a chemical reaction would be like trying to set up a speed dating event by taking the weights of all the men and women instead of matching them up pairwise. Sometimes it is much easier to calculate based on scalar quantity than it is to calculate based on mass.

The argument there is that avogadro's constant is just an arbitrary number and mol is not an unit, but weird case of SI prefix.

On the other hand it is fundamental-ish constant, because it is defined as arbitrarily scaled result of inherently uncertain measurement. And the new definition of kilogram had significantly increased the attainable certainity of such measurement (to the extent that it is uncertain due to practical issues, not by definition). The other proposed replicable definition of kilogram (ie. mass of Si monocrystal wih particular geometry) would fix the definition of mole as some known and defined number, but would be significantly harder to replicate (because it would define how to produce an artifact in contrast to how to directly measure the mass as the ratified definition does)

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#252
post #188

See, the US wasn't being stubborn in not adopting metric, it was just waiting patiently for it to progress from beta to 1.0. :) (Fun fact: all the US customary units have been officially defined in terms of their metric counterparts since 1893: https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pml/wmd/m... )

Now can we redefine 1 pound to equal 1 kg? (the opposite of https://xkcd.com/2073 )

Can you imagine the confusion? Having the same word mean a different amount of something would cause a lot of misunderstanding. Saying "This car weighs 2200 poundsm" have two different meanings depending on the year you said it sounds awful.

The new metric definitions work because they don't change the actual amount, they just change the way the amount is defined. (Natural constant vs reference weight)

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#253
post #225
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you are not joking... in metric countries we still say the same sentences you say, with miles and inches. That doesn't mean we use the olde units to actually measure something...

Well, then you are welcome for us keeping the more poetic units alive and meaningful.

Sorry, but no. They are just our old units that stuck in everyday language. They are probably not even closer to yours than yours are to antique Egypt ones, given that they were not internationally standardized and merely referenced the same body parts.

And we have expressions including other old units that you don't have (lieu, arpent, toise, etc.).

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#254
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are definitely (and thankfully) not the norm. Imperial units are awful. They're more ... human, maybe, in that a foot is about one human foot long, and that an inch is about one human thumb width, and how 0F feels "pretty cold" and 100F feels "pretty hot", and to me the charm of imperial units begins and ends right there. Those are literally the only redeemable qualities about imperial units, and they have nothin…

What are the redeamable qualities of metric units?

Frankly, while mathematically speaking 12 is a great base, people don't think in twelves - you can quickly perform arithmetic and our entire education system of math relies on base 10. Kind of hard to suddenly add two fingers to everyone. Additionally, base 12, would not act like 12 does in base 10, thus if base 12 is your key point of reference, a foot should be 10 in base 12 for inches.....

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#255
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of the weird people that actually really likes imperial units. For instance: 1 foot -- base 12. This is a superior base to 10. It can be easily divided into 4ths, 3rd, and 2nds. Base 10 can only easily be divided into 2nds. 1 inch -- an easily identifiable unit of measure for smallish things. About the width of my thumb. A pretty good unit. For low precision, inches become 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/6, 1/64, etc. Each…

For most things, I think metric makes more sense, but I fully agree about temperatures. Fahrenheit is a superior scale for humans.

Co-signed! The freezing and boiling points of water are also not particularly pragmatic points of reference. I don't think "I need to lower this to 0°", I think "I need to put this in the freezer".

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#256
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of the weird people that actually really likes imperial units. For instance: 1 foot -- base 12. This is a superior base to 10. It can be easily divided into 4ths, 3rd, and 2nds. Base 10 can only easily be divided into 2nds. 1 inch -- an easily identifiable unit of measure for smallish things. About the width of my thumb. A pretty good unit. For low precision, inches become 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/6, 1/64, etc. Each…

You are definitely (and thankfully) not the norm. Imperial units are awful. They're more ... human, maybe, in that a foot is about one human foot long, and that an inch is about one human thumb width, and how 0F feels "pretty cold" and 100F feels "pretty hot", and to me the charm of imperial units begins and ends right there. Those are literally the only redeemable qualities about imperial units, and they have nothin…

>They're more ... human, maybe, in that a foot is about one human foot long, and that an inch is about one human thumb width, and how 0F feels "pretty cold" and 100F feels "pretty hot", and to me the charm of imperial units begins and ends right there.

As far as we know, humans are the only thing in the universe that care about any of this stuff. A computer couldn't care less if you are using 1 foot or 0.3048 meters.

Why not optimize for humans, the things actually using these things? Optimizing for the computer just seems...silly. It seems like something somebody from the 1970s would have thought was a futuristic idea.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#258
post #236

The US didn't adopt the metric system because it was considered blasphemous since the French used it. I'm not joking. We got screwed by a bunch of demagogues.

The US officially adopted the metric system in 1975 with the Metric Conversion Act.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#259
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the redeamable qualities of metric units?

It’s based on the decimal system, which we happen to use in our primary numerical system as well?

We use the decimal system for imperial units too. Thousands of an inch, millionths of an inch, etc.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#260
post #237

Recently I have been thinking about if any of our units makes sense in cosmic perspective. Let's take speed of light for example. It's approximately 300000 km/s. But then what is a second? It's 1/60 of a minute which is 1/60 of an hour which is 1/24 of a day(and so it goes) and all those numbers are arbitrary. A day doesn't make any sense outside our planet anyway, I doubt that there is another celestial body in the…

The definition of a second isn't based on the Earth's motion, but some natural phenomena like you recommended. "The second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom." [1] [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-does-one-arri...

Of course, that definition was made to make our current definition of the second continue to work.
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