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…
International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
561–570 of 589 posts
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#562Earlier quoted context omitted.
Normal people don’t do that. They just know that a gallon is a gallon, a meter is a meter, a pound is a pound, etc. People rarely have need to convert between mass and volume. And they don’t weigh their milk or water.
Because if they had to, they'd rather find a jug than a calculator.
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#563Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
(Look up what happened to the Mars climate orbiter)
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#564Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#565Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you live in NYC, maybe. A lot of people don't, and you can find places where ranges in C are "neater" than in F.
> If you live in NYC, maybe. A lot of people don't Those people are free to use whatever units they like. It doesn't have much bearing on the point that Fahrenheit, which is used in the United States, is a good match for the climate of most of the United States.
OTOH, as far as weather goes, C has the nice property that anything below zero is freezing temperature. In any locale where snow and ice is a thing, that's handy to know.
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#566Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't make sense to me, the definition has changed. The IPK was 1 kg and the copies of it were all slightly heavier or lighter, for argument let's say IPK1 was 1.1 kg and IPK2 was 0.9 kg. Now that we have a constant for the mass of 1 kg, all of those IPK's will now have a new mass relative to the new definition. Unless the new definition was based on the current IPK and set its mass as of today as the standard…
> Unless the new definition was based on the current IPK and set its mass as of today as the standard, and that standard now will be unchanging? Correct. The current IPK will still be 1kg to within margin of error at the time the new definition comes into effect, but any further changes to it will make it, for the first time, drift away from that value.
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#567Can anyone tell this poor ignoramus whether the kg is getting heavier or lighter - and how much by (approximately, I know it's not going to be an exact figure given the reason they are changing it)?
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#568Earlier quoted context omitted.
These units are terrible for humans too. Humans are good at base 10. For this human, the relationships when (for instance) talking about water are great - 1g = 1ml = 1cm^3
Humans are naturally bad at base 10. This is noticeable when learning counting and arithmetic - children often skip 7 and jumble 6, 7, 8. Base-10 is not so bad once one has learned it, though. Humans are really good at doubling and halving, which the Imperial system excels at.
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#569Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who does a lot of woodworking in a metric world: the common fractions (e.g. 1/3) are not a problem at all, they are periodic. Adjusting my saw to 333.33mm or 6.66mm is something I do quite often. If you use fractions often or work with weirder fractions anybody who is worth their grain of salt will build custom temporary rulers or helper systems anyways. And then it won't matter at all if your unit is hype…
> If you use fractions often or work with weirder fractions anybody who is worth their grain of salt will build custom temporary rulers or helper systems anyways. My point is a system with less need for that because it can handle more common divisions easily would be good. > I can see how anybody who grew up with inches likes that one better I tried to be very explicit in that I was not promoting the imperial system.…
My point was, that from a practicle standpoint this doesn't really matter. If you need to tick of a third of a meter somewhere just a few times, everybody would just happily make a mark at 333.33mm – if you need to do this 50 times, building a temporary ruler is a good idea in any measurment system, because it reduces both cognitive load and the likelyhood of mismeasurement. This is especially true if you are building something that involves many steps that are repetitive, similar, but different enough to ruin your day if you fuck up.
For me one of the best things about the metric system is, that it in fact is base10 because it eases the conversion and calculation between units and has cool effects that imo outwheigh the cool things you would get from going base12.
Going base12 in a good way would mean going base12 fully, including temperatures, currencies, voltages, weight, etc. and this would mean turning a whole culture of knowledge upside down and inside out. If we would have a world dictator they might try something like this. From a distribution perspective it is desirable to have one standardized unit system that makes sense.
So my pain point isn't exactly metric vs imperial, but that in 2018 we still need to deal with these two systems and the conversion between them. Metric is far more wide spread than imperial and this has reasons, some historical, some political, some practical. If you are one who thinks national unilateralisms are a waste of energy and potential, you are certainly in favour of the metric system, just because it would be easier for the world to agree on going fully metric, than it would be for the world to go fully imperial.
And I am not talking about everybody having to use it in their day to day life – just look at the UK. I am talking about certain space agencies, industry, electrical engineering etc, where these things can have real graspable consequences, maybe even deaths.
Re: International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
#570Earlier 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 This is not the case. This part: "one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram" is known by most people, even kids in primary school. In other words everyone knows that a litre of water weighs one kilogram, and that there are 1000 litres in a square me…
You probably meant cubic metre?