481–490 of 589 posts
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The new definition of mole is exactly that - it's just 6.02214076×10^23 items of whatever, and no longer depends on kilogram.
That's not a base unit, or a unit of any kind. What's it doing in a list of SI base units?
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But which day? Such a second would probably work for everyday purposes (just like to most of us a second is 1/86400 of a day) but it would be woefully inadequate as a universal fundamental unit of time. And defining the second in terms of something like "the length of the solar day at Greenwich meridian on Jan 1 2020" prevents anyone from ever reproducing the exact value based on their own measurements, which is one…
This is especially true when you have things like large earthquakes[0] changing the rotational speed of the earth slightly. [0]: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/japanquake/earth2...
But an even bigger issue is that the sidereal day (one 360° rotation of Earth as measured against distant stars) is not 24 hours but roughly four minutes less. And the length of the solar day also varies over the year due to the slight eccentricity of Earth’s orbit—days near perihelion are slightly longer than near aphelion. And then there are the higher-order effects caused by gravitational interaction with other planets...
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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 understand, that you know the metric system, and, judging by your reasoning for your love for the imperial system, I understand, that you know what you are talking about (better than me). So, please, do not understand my comment as wanting to advise you! It's just, that I found this (on the web, one day) to express so much the way I (having grown up with the metric system) feel about it: "In metric, one milliliter…
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Because adding 7/16ths of an inch to 7/8ths of a mile and getting an answer in inches isn't easy for a human. Adding 1cm to 982m and getting an answer in centimeters is dead easy for a human. THAT'S why human intuition about measurement doesn't mean a damn thing. Using metric means using the system optimized for humans. Period.
Do people in metric-using countries commonly need to know what 982m + 1cm is? It never seems to come up here in the US...
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... )
It's easy to understand construction and cooking concepts in imperial? But you just used a decimal based currency to buy the materials for the said uses, and could easily add up the costs of those materials in your head instead of staring blankly at the cashier who was trying to add 77 shillings and 23 half-crowns.
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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're right - imperial is far superior for precise building or manufacturing work. Take drill bits, for example. Obviously it's much easier to figure out that 11/32" is less than 3/8". Or is it more? No, I'm pretty sure I was right the first time. The metric ones with their 5.5mm, 6mm, 6.5mm sequencing are just too complicated to work with, in comparison. And half a millimeter isn't very precise - it's much bigger t…
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I understand, that you know the metric system, and, judging by your reasoning for your love for the imperial system, I understand, that you know what you are talking about (better than me). So, please, do not understand my comment as wanting to advise you! It's just, that I found this (on the web, one day) to express so much the way I (having grown up with the metric system) feel about it: "In metric, one milliliter…
Actually, assuming room temperature is 60° and you’re at sea level, it’d take 1,216 BTUs to bring a gallon of water to a boil. A BTU is the amount of heat (which is energy) required to heat one pound of water one Fahrenheit degree; a pound of water is a pint; there are 8 pints in a gallon (2 pints in a quart, 2 quarts in a pottle, 2 pottles in a gallon). So, 8 * (212-60) = 1,216.
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Recipes in cups are one thing I cannot understand, I do have a scale, I can measure everything with that
"Recipes in cups are one thing I cannot understand" ?? You drink out of cups every day; this is what humans, even you understand. 'A scale' is inapplicable while you're buying food or reading labels. Why use a scale when everyone knows what a cup and teaspoon are? They are human measurements. But it doesn't matter what you use, what matters is what people understand, and they don't understand grams and millilitres. I…
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It just doesn't have the same ring to it. "He won't move an inch," or "He won't move a centimeter." "She won't quit until she's six feet under," or "She won't quit until she's two meters under." "I'll go the whole nine yards," or "I'll go the whole nine meters." "You can see for miles and miles," or "You can see for kilometers and kilometers."
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...
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Because adding 7/16ths of an inch to 7/8ths of a mile and getting an answer in inches isn't easy for a human. Adding 1cm to 982m and getting an answer in centimeters is dead easy for a human. THAT'S why human intuition about measurement doesn't mean a damn thing. Using metric means using the system optimized for humans. Period.
Your absolutism is a bit silly. I don't think the Imperial system is good for anything beyond construction or cooking, but there's a reason it excels those areas. And it's exactly because it's more usable by humans in certain contexts (like construction or cooking). 1/3 of a meter should not be an irrational number - how is that "optimized for humans"? A scalable system that shares the divisibility of the foot would…