My poor textbooks! Welp, I guess there will be some great bargains next year.
International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
351–360 of 589 posts
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> irrational positions such as yours This is, frankly, insulting. You may disagree about the merits of blhack's arguments, but that doesn't make them illogical or unreasonable. It would be one thing if you said, "Here's why I think blhack has got it wrong, and why the arguments presented don't hold water." But you just tossed an insult without bothering to refute. Bad form.
I don’t think he got it wrong. I said he’s biased. I think you’re too.
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, good for usage you say. Ok, let's stick to "standard" imperial units. How many feet in a yard? Yards in a mile? What the hell is a quart? And since base 12 is great, what is 12 feet called? 144 feet? A 12th of an inch? Or, ounces: How many ounces in a gallon? A pound? And how many _kinds_ of ounces are there, anyways? Fun fact: The term “ounce” is of Latin origin from the word “uncia” which means “a twelfth part…
A pint is what British people drink in pubs while chastising the US for not adopting the metric system.
The metric pint?
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
There isn't anything more rational about demanding base 10 systems.
Last time I checked base 10 was quite common for pretty much everything but the imperial system.
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
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)
We could gradually redefine pound to be closer and closer to kilogram, say, over a century, so that people don't notice. ~
That sounds like it would require more coordination than just adopting the kilogram as the primary unit of measure in a short period of time.
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can just barely feel the difference of temperature of one degree Celsius. I really don't feel multiplying that by 1.8 will make a big difference in how good a scale it is for humans.
As an example, the common temperatures in NYC range from 0-100F. In celcius that's like -18 to +38. I'm a scientist and an engineer, and in those applications C is often better. But in daily life, Fahrenheit makes a ton of sense.
In Ecuador the temperature ranges from ~60 to ~90F, but I'm sure for them is a great relief to know people of New York have a temperature unit that perfectly matches their climate as neatly as going from 0 to 100.
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are actual benefits to some imperial units when working in small amounts. They can often be subdivided much more easily into amounts that are harder to handle (or at least require going to another order of magnitude to do accurately). For example, dividing a foot into thirds or fourths is trivial, but for a meter it requires either going two orders of magnitude (25/100ths for a quarter) or simply cannot perfect…
"It cannot perfectly represent the amount" you say, and then perfectly represent the amount. You represent a quarter as the fraction 25/100ths to show how impractical it is, instead of writing 1/4. Would it be so hard to build a ruler with thirds measured on it, so you don't need to try and guess 0.333333 from mm readings? Like http://teaching.monster.com/nfs/teaching/attachment_images/0... but made of metal
> "It cannot perfectly represent the amount" you say, and then perfectly represent the amount.
Actually, I said "It cannot perfectly represent the amount (1/3)", so I specifically game an example immediately after the statement of exactly what I was talking about, which you then ignored and used an example for a different item to represent erroneously. What's up with that?
> You represent a quarter as the fraction 25/100ths to show how impractical it is, instead of writing 1/4.
No, I represent a quarter as 25/100's to show how it would be accurately represented in metric. 1/4 meter is not pure metric, it's applying a non-metric modifuer to a metric amount. The metric representation of 1/4 meters is 25 centimeters, which is 25/100.
Let me lay it out side by side:
- 1 and 1/2 units Imperial: 1 foot 6 inches or 18 inches Metric: 1 meter 50 centimeters or 15 decimeters or 150 centimeters
- 1 and 1/3 units Imperial: 1 foot four inches or 16 inches Metric: 1 meter 33 centimetersa and 3 millimeters and... or 133.33... centimeters
- 1 and 1/4 units Imperial: 1 foot 3 inches or 15 inches. Metric: 1 meter 25 centimeters or 125 centimeters
That's not to say imperial units are good. They are hard to use for most things because they change across types of things measures, and counting in twelfths when needed is much more painful than in tenths.
But, if we were taught in a 12 base system we would be able to use it easily, and base 12 has more cases where it can be used easily than base 10. Everything else would be the same except than our sense of scale would be a little different and we would have an easier tome subdividing things in many cases.
Metric isn't an optimal system, it's just the optimal system for right now and the world we currently live in. But for a few historical turns of fate, it might have been very different.
> Would it be so hard to build a ruler with thirds measured on it, so you don't need to try and guess 0.333333 from mm readings? Like http://teaching.monster.com/nfs/teaching/attachment_images/0.... but made of metal
Then it's not metric. That's the point. We use these values anyway, yet you have to step outside the metric system to represent them easily. Adding extra marks that don't correspond to the regular intervals is confusing, so it's avoided. That's why most rulers in the united states show metric on one side and imperial on the other.[1]
1: http://cdn.dickblick.com/items/554/27/55427-1012-3ww-l.jpg
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wh…
It’s neither intelligent (as in based in some objective rationale) but subjective and capricious. It’s not relatable unless you’re also into the imperial system. And I’m not talking about politics: you will find the same people everywhere.
But I also find unlikely you support the metric system, at least other than for white knighting random strangers that you happen to agree with.
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, good for usage you say. Ok, let's stick to "standard" imperial units. How many feet in a yard? Yards in a mile? What the hell is a quart? And since base 12 is great, what is 12 feet called? 144 feet? A 12th of an inch? Or, ounces: How many ounces in a gallon? A pound? And how many _kinds_ of ounces are there, anyways? Fun fact: The term “ounce” is of Latin origin from the word “uncia” which means “a twelfth part…
A pint is what British people drink in pubs while chastising the US for not adopting the metric system.
568ml, as god intended. Not some 450ml abomination!
We don't really use pints for measuring anything else these days.
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are the redeamable qualities of metric units?
They're globally standard, decimal, and internally consistent. One never needs to wonder how many meters in a kilometer or how many grams in a kilogram. They have some human usable qualities as well; it's convenient that water freezes at 0°C and that a kilogram of water is also a liter.
Are they globally “standard?” China uses Mou to measure land area. A pyeong is used in Korea for housing floor area, the British use pints in the pub and stone when weighing themselves. The US uses feet and pounds. We use clocks that have 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours, weeks, months. If we want to be consistent, “minutes” should perhaps be 100 seconds, for instance. Horses are measured in “hands.”
“Global standard” isn’t necessarily an argument for “good.” Why aren’t imperial units the standard? Who actually decided that metric was the right answer?
And as a previous poster mentioned; why don’t we say a megameter or gigameter when talking about long distances? Because ultimately measurement units are really about human understanding, despite ostensibly being “scientific.” A foot as just as scientific as a meter. NASA went to the moon with imperial units and it worked out just fine. People and countries are entitled to their preferences. We don’t advocate English or Chinese to be the global standard language. Or that all countries use euros or dollars. Weights and measures can be perfectly accurate regardless of the units used; the idea that we should either create or adhere to a global standard is not unlike suggesting everyone speak the same language.