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International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

npl.co.uk

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Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#271

Post by kderbyma »

ggm wrote: post #228

Never understood why the reference weight was one and not a maintained average over several or tens. This could have included aperiodic less used reference weights stored differently, different washing cycles &c. I know several bipm participant nations had clones but they were always understood to be daughter weights. Level surfaces (for instance) used to be made as triplets and never pairs: pairs can form lenses. No…

Decay would be exponentially greater with more weights. Causing a larger decrease over time.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#272

Post by Terr_ »

anamexis wrote: post #240
blhack wrote: 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.

While having a "wider spread" of "today's forecast" numbers is nice, that 32-degree offset is a huge negative ding against it.

I mean, there's a big important point where you start getting solid things falling on your head and slick icy roads and ruined fruit-plants, so it ought to be at more meaningful spot, like 0.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#273

Post by Terr_ »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #255
anamexis wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> The freezing and boiling points of water are also not particularly pragmatic points of reference.

I must strongly disagree.

The freezing point of water is an incredibly important and pragmatic point of reference for hundreds of millions of people around the world, who live in places where water can freeze (or thaw) on its own outdoors. Not just for transportation, but also its affect on biology in agriculture.

While the boiling point is (thankfully) not important for weather-reports... Cooking! What would you do if I said to "simmer" something? You aren't supposed to go high enough to reach the obvious boiling point, so how are you supposed to know when you're close enough if you can't remember the magic number?

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#274

Post by blhack »

mbroncano wrote: post #265
blhack wrote: 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…

Most probably because you grew up with it. I’m pretty sure you think the same about your religion, nation, race ... but be sure eveybody else in the world may think the same of their own. And they’d be right too. What I personally find disturbing is how irrational positions such as yours are commonly accepted in a supposedly advanced society. It leads to a pretty bumpy road, time and time again.

Well I actually grew up with the metric system. I'm also not the religion I was raised. I do love my nation, which is easy because I'm American and there is a lot to love.

Imperial units are just better for humans to use. I would love if somebody could give me a redeeming quality for metric, but so far nobody has.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#275

Post by blhack »

ape4 wrote: post #266
blhack wrote: 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…

I see you're not liking how many feet are in a mile (and many other silly things).

Well I also don't particularly care about how many feet are in a kilometer, since they are different units.

A mile is...a mile. A half a mile, a quarter of a mile, an eighth of a mile, etc. Yeah, there are 5280 feet in a mile. There are also 25.8 or something like that mm in a inch, some other arbitrary unit of conversion that we all have to memorize.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#276

Post by fengb »

mherdeg wrote: post #147
orblivion wrote: post #26

I guess the next redefinition will happen if and when there's detectable drift in "fundamental" constants?

The kilogram was the last one -- we're out of SI base units. This was the last one not defined based on some measurable universal constant, per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_base_unit and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redefinition_of_SI_base_units . The meter was originally an actual physical rod (you can see the prototype on display at the fascinating French Musée des Arts et Métiers). Now it's based on the speed…

Mole was just redefined as exactly 6.02214076e23 — the number of Si-28 atoms in a perfect 1 kg sphere. This was an intentionally check against the kibble balance measurement.

More info from an older Veritasium video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMByI4s-D-Y

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#277

Post by woodpanel »

mbroncano wrote: post #265
blhack wrote: 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…

Most probably because you grew up with it. I’m pretty sure you think the same about your religion, nation, race ... but be sure eveybody else in the world may think the same of their own. And they’d be right too. What I personally find disturbing is how irrational positions such as yours are commonly accepted in a supposedly advanced society. It leads to a pretty bumpy road, time and time again.

As a proponent of the metric system, I got to say the most disturbing thing is how an honest because openly subjective, intelligible and relatable statement (like the one OP gave) can be turned into something political and offensive. It it is the habit of doing this, that leads to a bumpy road ahead.

But since we‘re talking politics: it were the „progressive“ Bauhaus proponents like Corbusier, that proclaimed that what we build should use human scale as foundation of measurement. What OP said is exactly that.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#278

Post by akira2501 »

naikrovek wrote: post #238
blhack wrote: 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

I think both systems of units typical cases are dominated by human factors. Anecdotally, humans tend to use one of three scales for their preferred choice of measurement and they tend to be smaller-than-human, human, larger-than-human.

For example, the km. I see mm, m and km used quite often.. but the other bases are almost never used. A prime case for this is "what is the distance to the sun?" If you're going to round your answer then the most concise form is 150 Gm, yet most people will still say something like "150 million km" which is unnecessarily long and non-canonical, but is much more familiar to the human mind and makes comparisons to everyday experiences much simpler.

You can see this factor occur with just about every other metric base unit, even though the conveniently prefixed part of the system would be "better" for all technical definitions. Just as easily you could use imperial units and just overlay the metric prefix and scaling rules on top of them and it would be no more or less accurate or better than the metric system of units.

> Use them all you like. I won't.

I use whatever is convenient or common for the application.. if it gets complicated or I need a conversion, I use a unit-system aware language or environment to do my calculations. It really obviates the importance of the choice of unit and allows you to think about the fundamental problem more clearly along with many other benefits including conversion of units at any stage of calculation.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#279

Post by megablast »

blhack wrote: post #232
kibwen wrote: 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... )

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…

No matter what is suggested, no matter how much better the alternative, there will always be a group of contrary people. Look at flat earthers. Look at anti-vaxers.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#280

Post by Just_Smith »

blhack wrote: post #256
naikrovek wrote: post #238

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…

>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.…

Also, the statement that metric is more useful for measurement largely ignores the fact that Imperial has stuck around so long because of its usefulness in trade work.

It's definitely ONLY because of base12, but being base12 - imo - positions it far beyond metric for daily use. There's a reason why food items so commonly come by the dozen. Why would anyone prefer to build a house using a system that can't even accurately measure 1/3?

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