I am really glad that a second wasn't broken further into 72 pieces.
Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America
31–40 of 363 posts
Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, I have the same intuitive feeling with Celsius. I guess it depend on which temperature system you grew up with.
As I suggested on a parallel reply, could you say a bit more about why you feel it makes sense, perhaps with a chart like the one I wrote up?
Well, I think it's just the same as you except 0 is the freezing point and not what seems like an an arbitrary 32 Farenheit for us.
Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America
#33Everyone seems to be missing the most obvious reason to convert. http://gizmodo.com/5786004/these-are-the-three-countries-who... We're a global economy. By the ends of the century, India and China will have pushed us down to at least #3.
Some countries aren't known for knowledge outside of the borders.
Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America
#34The article uses "Anyway, we have calculators now" as an argument for decimalization, but I see it as an argument against it. The less people do math on paper (or in their head), the less need we have to tie our system of measurement to the number of fingers the human hand happens to have; calculators divide by 12 as easily as 10.
The nice thing about the metric system is that the base is consistent - it's always some multiple of 10. With the imperial system, it gets tricky remembering whether you have to multiply by 12 or 16 or 5280 or whatnot.
Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America
#35I wish the article had touched on temperature systems; I feel like Celsius is metric at its weakest. Farenheit has beautiful bands: 0's: So cold you have trouble doing anything and just want to warm up immediately 10's: Wear a ski jacket with hat and scarf and gloves 20's: Wear a ski jacket and hat 30's: Wear a ski jacket but leave it open 40's: Wear a wool overcoat 50's: Wear a heavy jacket 60's: Wear a light jacket…
Fahrenheit has a couple nice properties. One is that he picked two conveniently available reference points — melting ice and body temperature — and put them 2⁶ degrees apart, which made it practical to label thermometers by bisection. The other is that (after a very slight adjustment) freezing and boiling water are 180° apart, which is a highly composite number.
Body temperature isn't constant. Even excluding abnormal cases (eg fever), normal body temperature not only is within a range, but even this range depends on the body part you use for your readings.
Instead with Celsius at 0°C water freezes, at 100°C water boils. Thus Celsius makes more sense because the main range (0-100) covers both very cold and very hot temperatures from a human perspective.
Furthemore it has a straightforward conversion to Kelvin.
Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America
#36The things that remain often get 10 ized. we have measuring tape with feet and tenths of feet. Inches are divided into mils (1000th of an inch). So we get base 10 with familiar units of measeure.
Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or is it just more familiar? We all like what we're accustomed to. Is there some reason Celsius 'makes sense'? Why does it make sense that 22 is comfortable but 40 is miserably hot? It doesn't make any more sense than 72 and 100.
0°C - water turns into ice 100°C - water boils and turns into steam -30°C and below - very cold weather +30°C and above - very hot weather
But the freeze/boil numbers are arbitrary as well only being true at sea-level. Where I live in Colorado, we're 1 mile (cough, 1.6 km) above sea level meaning those formulas are meaningless.
Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, to a non-American like myself the Fahrenheit scale feels weird and arbitrary (and yes, I understand the "human scale" argument, just don't buy it") while the Celsius scale makes sense.
Or is it just more familiar? We all like what we're accustomed to. Is there some reason Celsius 'makes sense'? Why does it make sense that 22 is comfortable but 40 is miserably hot? It doesn't make any more sense than 72 and 100.
All depends what you are used to - I would say 15C or so is "comfortably warm", 22C is definitely "warm" and 40C is utterly miserable with no wind but really nice with a breeze and in the shade....
People generally start sunbathing, wearing T-shirts and flip-flops, when the temperature goes above 10C here...
Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fahrenheit has a couple nice properties. One is that he picked two conveniently available reference points — melting ice and body temperature — and put them 2⁶ degrees apart, which made it practical to label thermometers by bisection. The other is that (after a very slight adjustment) freezing and boiling water are 180° apart, which is a highly composite number.
Body temperature isn't constant. Even excluding abnormal cases (eg fever), normal body temperature not only is within a range, but even this range depends on the body part you use for your readings. Instead with Celsius at 0°C water freezes, at 100°C water boils. Thus Celsius makes more sense because the main range (0-100) covers both very cold and very hot temperatures from a human perspective. Furthemore it has a s…
Consider, in 1725, reliably dividing a measured distance into 100 segments. Repeated bisection is practical.
Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America
#40Since our civilization seems to have moved to binary for actual computations I wonder if we will someday go back to thinking in terms of halves, quarters, eighths, etc. of some standard unit. Then people would mock the metric system for being implicitly based on the biological accident of ten fingers...
We should abandon base 10 and use base 16.