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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

#551

Post by hexane360 »

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".

Good thing Fahrenheit's got pragmatic points of reference, like. . . the freezing point of brine water and almost the body temperature of human [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#History

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#552

Post by Millennium »

The main problem with imperial units is that it isn't a system. It's a hodgepodge of pieces of different historical systems, many of which made a lot of sense in their original context, but the context has been stripped from them and they've been mashed together with completely unrelated systems. A base-12 system would actually have some advantages, but very few of the imperial units are actually defined in terms of base-12, so it doesn't qualify.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#553

Post by stavros »

stephen_g wrote: post #424
jameshart wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

These are problems you actually pretty much never have in actual precision manufacturing in metric... Most general machining is done to a tolerance of +/- 0.1 - what does half a millimetre have to do with anything? As for building, that's mostly just rounded to the millimetre, centimetres aren't usually ever used.

The gp was being sarcastic.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#554

Post by amyjess »

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…

Thank you.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks this way.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#555

Post by moogly »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #493
ygra wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My cupboard has cups in all kinds of sizes. Which one is the right one to use as a measurement? And for baking there's quite a big difference if my cups are 150 ml or 350 ml, especially when paired with counted ingredients like eggs. That's the problem with cups.

All of your regular coffee cups are exactly 250ml. Regular people use them for basic baking all the time, like making pancakes. 'Cups' are still better measures than ml because even you, in your self-acclaimed ignorance have a sense of how much a cup is whereas people do not have any idea how much '300ml' is. Canadians have no clue what 10ml of anything is. Canadians will continue to use feet and pounds for personal…

And here I thought 1 Imperial cup was ~284 ml... 1 US cup is closer at 240 ml. Might get away with that discrepancy when cooking, but when baking, not so much.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#556

Post by eigenvector »

zmix wrote: post #366
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 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…

You know what is worse than either metric or imperial?

Having both in use simultaneously like we have in Canada, where we work with lots of things manufactured in the US or in Canada for export to the US.

So any technician will have to have both metric and imperial tools, occasionally things of very similar size will get interchanged accidentally - using a 3/4" socket on a 19mm bolt for instance, which will work for a while but eventually round off the head because 3/4" is slightly more than 19mm.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#558

Post by School-Cotton »

TomMarius wrote: post #503
School-Cotton wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that only a minority of people in metric-using countries -- those with basic chemistry knowledge fresh in their mind -- know that "one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade". Probably a similar number of Americans know the same facts. And any of them would answer "How much energy does it take to boil a room-…

> I suspect that only a minority of people in metric-using countries -- those with basic chemistry knowledge fresh in their mind -- know that "one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade". They taught us that in 4th grade in cooking classes. Then they made us remember that in physics and chemistry classes 2 years later.

There are plenty of things that everyone learns in 4th grade that not everyone remembers.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#559

Post by Iv »

vlehto wrote: post #486
jameshart wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do I detect sarcasm here? I'm pretty sure I detect sarcasm here.

I detect 1.23 furlongs of sarcasm.

Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

#560

Post by Iv »

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…

The strength of the metric system shows when you need several different scales. nano- micro- milli- kilo- mega- giga-

The number of inches in a mile is harder to get than the number of millimeters in a kilometer or grams in a ton.

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