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Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

petitions.whitehouse.gov

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Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#471

Post by mpyne »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #453

Everything else aside, can someone explain to me the obsession with fractions (w/out common denominators, even!) in the imperial system? I love metric, but I have no problem using the imperial system for my work - however, the fact that all objects made for the imperial system are built on fractions makes it impossible to work with. There is no 0.1" there's only 1/8. There is no 0.15", there's only 5/32. etc. Given t…

Fractional measures are useful when you often have to sub-divide a thing, but you are right in that they make the problem of comparing two things more difficult.

But with that in mind the answer to your question is that when the scales were first devised in the first place that it was apparently more important to be able to evenly split things up easily without grade-school arithmetic than it was to be able to compare a 3/32" socket to a 1/8".

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#472

Post by baddox »

jacquesm wrote: post #323
blhack wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever been inside of a hardware store? Every hardware store I've ever been to has a section for metric. Our lab, for instance, keeps a supply of bolts, and as far as I remember /only/ has metric. Also every socket set I've ever used has a metric and standard set. Why would you care about road signs? And why would you care about a tape measure that is /only/ in metric? The second one seems kindof silly. The on…

> Have you ever been inside of a hardware store? I believe so. Maybe a couple of times. Or maybe I practically lived in one for a couple of years. Would this do for you? http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/trips/jansvisit/?g2_page=6 Yes, there is a section for metric in the hardware store. It's the bit at the back with about 1/2 the sizes missing and only the stuff that you don't need in stock. I've had a machine shop in Ca…

> Yes, there is a section for metric in the hardware store. It's the bit at the back with about 1/2 the sizes missing and only the stuff that you don't need in stock.

So, would your proposed law to switch the USA to the metric system require hardware stores to stock every size and always have what you need in stock?

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#473

Post by StevenXC »

jerf wrote: post #273
tokenadult wrote: post #198

From the petitions.whitehouse.gov petition kindly submitted for comment here: "The United States is one of the few countries left in the world who still have not converted to using the Metric System as a standardized system of measurement. Instead of going along with what the rest of the world uses, we stubbornly still adhere to using the imprecise Imperial Unit - despite the fact that practically every other country…

"the imprecise Imperial Unit" The word "imprecise" is also factually incorrect. AFAIK, all Imperial units are now defined in metric. An inch is not "approximately" 2.54 centimeters, it is defined to be 2.54 centimeters, or, if you prefer, 2.540000000000... centimeters. A pound is defined as 0.45359237 kilograms. It may be very precise specification of a value that is unpleasant and hard to work with, but there is no…

I prefer 2.53999999... centimeters, but to each their own.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#474

Post by jeltz »

xymostech wrote: post #433
ajuc wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People care for various temperatures: - weather (Celcius has the advantage that just from the temperature you know if there will be snow and ice/will snow melt, or no) And you won't know the difference of 1 C anyway, so no point in having so small degrees. - temperature of human body (are you sick or not - it's 36.6 C for healthy human, 40 C for dangerous temperature) - here Fahrenheit has slight advantage, because h…

There is a point in having small degrees, in that small fluctuations in the weather are more noticeable. I can say that the weather will be in the 60s today, and people will know what I mean, but saying it will be in the 20s today (in celcius) offers a much larger range of weathers to be had. Also, you can tell just as easily if something melts using Fahrenheit, you check whether it's above or below 32. Sure, it migh…

This is the reason why nobody ever would say "in the 20s" when giving a temperature in celsius. Instead people either say "about 25" or give a range ("20 to 25"). The size of units change how people express themselves.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#475

Post by baddox »

tokenadult wrote: post #198

From the petitions.whitehouse.gov petition kindly submitted for comment here: "The United States is one of the few countries left in the world who still have not converted to using the Metric System as a standardized system of measurement. Instead of going along with what the rest of the world uses, we stubbornly still adhere to using the imprecise Imperial Unit - despite the fact that practically every other country…

No, you don't understand, the government needs to use more violence to make the wonderful metric system more common.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#476

Post by Torgo »

benholmen wrote: post #353
xxpor wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The federal government has a law that federal funds can not be used to pay for signs with metric measures on them.

Do you have a source for that?

According to: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.htm

"the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 prohibited the use of Federal-aid highway funds to convert existing signs or purchase new signs with metric units."

It appears from my reading of the law that the prohibition expired in 2000.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#477

Post by DannyBee »

jacquesm wrote: post #447
DannyBee wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, if something is milled to a metric size and tolerances in metric, it is in fact, a metric size, regardless if it happens to match some imperial sizes. There is no requirement that metric sizes be only integer whole numbers, and if you are going to claim that, for example, all lumber purchases outside of the US are done to exact integer metric sizes, that's just false. It may be the construction industry purchases…

Lumber isn't 'weird' the sizes make perfect sense, if you're constructing something beyond a picknick table you'll see the logic immediately. Nobody said anything about integer whole numbers. But I can't seem to get around your mental block that the system you are working in is Imperial, not metric so I'll leave it at this.

Actually, the sizes are in fact, simply odd left-over relics. This is pretty well documented history about how studs came to be nominal vs actual.

Same with hardwood lumber, in fact.

Considering i build about 20 pieces of fine furniture a year, and have built 3 houses, all of which are things "beyond a picnic table", as well as being active in a number of the industry associations that define this stuff (in my spare time), and you apparently know more, maybe you could explain the logic to me.

FWIW: I have no mental block, i actually work in both systems all the time. The whole exercise here has been pointing out your claims are wrong, not about me at all.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#478

Post by mikeash »

mpyne wrote: post #470
mikeash wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nautical miles are used in aviation as well. In both cases, the use actually has a very good, albeit obsolete, reason: one nautical mile is equal to one arc minute of latitude on the Earth, to within reasonable accuracy. Very handy for navigation, at least when you didn't have a magic black box to do it for you. I previously had a flight computer with two displays, each of which showed the distance to the next waypoi…

> But there are constant, ongoing costs to having mixed units, potentially including lives lost (and certainly very expensive space probes lost). In engineering there is never an excuse for not knowing the units of measure of a value in use. That probe would have been brought down just as easily by mistaking a 'kg' parameter as 'g' as it would have been by mistaking a 'kg' parameter as 'lbs'. What's worse, in enginee…

Excuses don't matter. The fact is that these mixups happen. And the probe would not have been brought down just as easily by mistaking 'kg' for 'g', because that would result in a number that was off by a factor of a thousand, and the result would be unlikely to make any sense. The meters/feet mixup that actually did happen could only happen because being off by a factor of 3.3 resulted in a number that still made basic sense, even though it was incorrect.

There are documented instances of metric/imperial mixups crashing space probes and forcing airliners to land after running out of fuel in midair and such things. Are there any documented instances of similar metric/metric mixups?

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#479

Post by DannyBee »

fr0sty wrote: post #418
DannyBee wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thickness wise, they are sized in metric. If you got 6.45mm, someone messed up :) No non-hardwood plywood, even 1/4" plywood, is oversized , and 6.45mm would be oversized at .2539 inches. If it was actual 1/4" (hardwood plywood), it would be 6.4mm per APA (american plywood association) standards. Outside of hardwood plywood, thicknesses are really done in metric. 1/4" nominal plywood nowadays is sized at "15/64" impe…

>The only plywood you will find that is "actual" size... Actual thickness you mean... All construction sheet goods available in the US come in 4x8 sheets (drywall excepted, which I believe can be as long as 12'). Just because you can express "4ft by 8ft" as "Xmm by Ymm" (and that very well may be the official spec) doesn't make it 'metric' lumber in any meaninful way.

Actually, not all construction sheet goods come in 4x8 sheets, you have things like cement boards, which are 3x5 sheets. Same with some fiber based sheathings, some fire-code panels, etc. There are actually plenty of non-4x8 construction sheet goods.

In any case, let me make this very simple:

All non-domestically produced (and most domestically produced) sheet goods are produced to metric sizes that are close to 4ft x 8ft x whatever thickness. They are whole number integer metric sizes. They are metric sheet goods. They are produced and measured metrically by every producer and exporter.

They get sold as imperial sizes in the US. However, the fact that they are close to some imperial size does not make them imperial sized lumber in any meaningful way.

If i take a bunch of things that were produced as squares, sell them as circles, and people keep calling them circles, that doesn't make them circles.

You can call a 4ft x 8ft x 1/2" piece of sheathing 4ft x 8ft x 1/2" if you like. But it's neither 4ft, nor 8ft, nor 1/2".

If you don't believe that sheet goods produced and measured metrically to whole number metric sizes are metric sized simply because someone in the US decides to call it something different, we'll have to simply agree to disagree as to whether they are metric.

I'm happy to agree that folks in the US don't work with the metric system intentionally, but they are working with it, whether they know it or not.

This whole discussion started because one of the premises given was that things like construction sheet goods (and lumber, but let's stay simple) would have to change for folks to be able to use the metric system in the US.

As i've shown, this is simply false, they just need to pretending they are imperial sizes, because the construction sheet goods are already done to metric sizes.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#480

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

ScottWhigham wrote: post #462
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the recurring cost that we have now of using both systems?

I'll play along. What "recurring cost"?

As mentioned elsewhere on this page:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4996563

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4996646

And also things like the occasional cost of writing off a Mars probe (and they aren't cheap) because not enough was spent on checking unit conversions.

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