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Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

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Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#121

Post by _delirium »

rakoo wrote: post #100
harshpotatoes wrote: post #53

Could you imagine Boeing/lockheed/GM/some some oil company or any other manufacturer going up to their stockholders and saying: "This next year, profits will be significantly reduced as we replace every piece of equipment we own, replace every 1/4-20 screw with an M5, and redesign every aircraft/automobile/widget to meet new metric specifications"

It's not like the metric system was invented yesterday and will vanish tommorrow. Change doesn't have to be instantaneous, it can be gradual over the years (and, as the article pointed out, already is)

Also, switching to metric units for measurement doesn't mean you have to switch the physical size of parts: there is nothing in the metric system requiring that you use round numbers in manufacturing. Canadian engineering, for a mixture of historical reasons and ties to the U.S., measures in metric but often has parts with suspicious sizes like 101.6mm.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#122

Post by bronson »

phaemon wrote: post #110
jwecker wrote: post #89

I am not anti-metric by any means, but having done carpentry a lot in the past it always strikes me when this comes up that one of the central arguments for (a limited use-case of) the imperial system is usually glossed over: the fact that in many crafts (especially historically), using base-12 makes certain things much easier. It divides into 3rds far more easily, divides into 4ths slightly more easily, and still di…

It's hardly "glossed over". It's brought up every time metric/imperial is discussed and it never makes any sense. Standard lengths for timber are things like 240cm or 360cm. There is no difficulty dividing them into thirds, or quarters, or fifths, or sixths.

You think that working in hundreds of centimeters is easier??

I guess the system one first learns is the system that feels easiest.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#123

Post by ScottBurson »

nemo wrote: post #102
harshpotatoes wrote: post #53

Could you imagine Boeing/lockheed/GM/some some oil company or any other manufacturer going up to their stockholders and saying: "This next year, profits will be significantly reduced as we replace every piece of equipment we own, replace every 1/4-20 screw with an M5, and redesign every aircraft/automobile/widget to meet new metric specifications"

Boeing has run into occasional problems by holding to imperial rather than moving to metric and these will only get worse, esp. with their model of using vendors around the globe. In aerospace it's ugly since imperial is so entrenched, but other industries have retooled, there are examples to learn from for efficient transitions. GM already went metric. Lockheed destroyed a half-billon dollar space mission by clingin…

> Lockheed destroyed a half-billon dollar space mission by clinging to imperial.

If anyone wants more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#124

Post by jwecker »

phaemon wrote: post #110
jwecker wrote: post #89

I am not anti-metric by any means, but having done carpentry a lot in the past it always strikes me when this comes up that one of the central arguments for (a limited use-case of) the imperial system is usually glossed over: the fact that in many crafts (especially historically), using base-12 makes certain things much easier. It divides into 3rds far more easily, divides into 4ths slightly more easily, and still di…

It's hardly "glossed over". It's brought up every time metric/imperial is discussed and it never makes any sense. Standard lengths for timber are things like 240cm or 360cm. There is no difficulty dividing them into thirds, or quarters, or fifths, or sixths.

Give 240cm or 360cm a name (like STL for "standard-timber-length", 1 stl = 240 cm) and you're effectively doing the exact same thing as the imperial system. Then it's just a popularity contest (which is fine and appropriate and metric wins except for wrt time) but at least conceding the fact that base-10 scaling of units is not intrinsically superior for all units & situations.

Edit: If the argument is that metric is more intuitive (less memorization because of consistent scales) then I think that's a great argument. If the argument is that it's more standardized and more widely adopted, I think that's also a great argument. But I think that the argument that the metric-system is somehow superior intrinsically because only scales of powers of 10 are worth naming (as the name implies) is a poor argument, as you've helped illustrate.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#125

Post by SeanDav »

jwecker wrote: post #115
Havoc wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a rational practical reason for sticking in some cases to Imperial units That to me is the worst of both worlds. The optimal solution is to use one consistent system and the winner is pretty clear. >carpentry Certainly. The future is full of 3D printers though.

I would love to hear from someone who does carpentry (or some craft-like equivalent) with the metric system- specifically what kind of ruler/tape they use and whether it has a special 1/3 and 2/3 mark on it (since you don't want to have to eyeball 0.33333....) or if they just avoid dividing things by three altogether. Because the truth is, your perspective is a political one more than a practical one. The whole idea…

> I would love to hear from someone who does carpentry (or some craft-like equivalent) with the metric system- specifically what kind of ruler/tape they use and whether it has a special 1/3 and 2/3 mark on it (since you don't want to have to eyeball 0.33333....) or if they just avoid dividing things by three altogether.

I would love to hear from someone that uses the imperial system how they determine exactly 1/3 of 10 inches and how they eyeball 1/3 of 5/6 of an inch.... My point is it is easy to find measurement scenarios that would make life a little harder for either system. 12cm (metric) for example is trivial to divide into 1/3, 2/3, 1/2, 1/4, 1/6 etc etc. 4.72 inches (imperial equivalent of 12cm) would be harder to do.

Besides there are very easy geometric methods to divide a line exactly into any number of equal parts, even if you do not know its actual length precisely.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#126

Post by sliverstorm »

Havoc wrote: post #99
jwecker wrote: post #89

I am not anti-metric by any means, but having done carpentry a lot in the past it always strikes me when this comes up that one of the central arguments for (a limited use-case of) the imperial system is usually glossed over: the fact that in many crafts (especially historically), using base-12 makes certain things much easier. It divides into 3rds far more easily, divides into 4ths slightly more easily, and still di…

>a rational practical reason for sticking in some cases to Imperial units That to me is the worst of both worlds. The optimal solution is to use one consistent system and the winner is pretty clear. >carpentry Certainly. The future is full of 3D printers though.

The present is full of CNC machines, and yet cars are not milled out of billet aluminum.

It's rarely worthwhile to fabricate something, when you can readily produce it from bulk forms like lumber or bar stock.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#127

Post by dalke »

kps wrote: post #60
dalke wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is a very odd place when it comes to metrication. My experience in Sweden is that things sold in the 1/2 and 1/4 kg sizes are often measured in grams or sometimes hectograms rather than kg. Meat, for example, is usually given in values which are a multiple of 25 g, even when there's more than 1kg. This bypasses the need to use low denominator fractions.

> Meat, for example, is usually given in values which are a multiple of 25 g Those used to be 28g, and called ‘ounces’.

Point taken, though "usually" also means "not always." For example, http://www.mathem.se/varor/fransyska-o-notstek/fransyska-nat... is 1220 grams and https://www.handla24.se/hovslatt/pc-60-288-flskfil-frsk.aspx is "about 570 grams".

That's 43.6 and 20.4 oz, respectively.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#128

Post by ScottBurson »

Natsu wrote: post #116
ScottBurson wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the use of "code" as a count noun is quite old and well entrenched in the numerical modelling community. I can recall back in the early 1970s hearing Fortran programs routinely referred to as "codes".

Code is a weird one because there are times when it's correct (e.g. "encryption codes"). But when it's used to mean "software" it should never be "codes", IMHO, though I guess there's a minority in disagreement.

I understand why you would think so, as I haven't heard the usage anywhere else in the software world that I've been, but it is a standard usage in that community; it's not hard to find examples [0] [1] [2] [3].

[0] http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/f_src/f_src.html

[1] http://www.unige.ch/~hairer/software.html

[2] http://www.mcs.anl.gov/project/openadf-automatic-differentia...

[3] http://math.berkeley.edu/~strain/Codes/

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#129

Post by phaemon »

bronson wrote: post #122
phaemon wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hardly "glossed over". It's brought up every time metric/imperial is discussed and it never makes any sense. Standard lengths for timber are things like 240cm or 360cm. There is no difficulty dividing them into thirds, or quarters, or fifths, or sixths.

You think that working in hundreds of centimeters is easier?? I guess the system one first learns is the system that feels easiest.

It makes no difference to me. If I described $2.40 as 240 cents, would you suddenly be incapable of dividing it up evenly?

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#130

Post by bronson »

phaemon wrote: post #129
bronson wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that working in hundreds of centimeters is easier?? I guess the system one first learns is the system that feels easiest.

It makes no difference to me. If I described $2.40 as 240 cents, would you suddenly be incapable of dividing it up evenly?

Of course, but it would be a little harder, a little more to keep track of. More precision than necessary.

People prefer to use dollars and not cents, don't they?

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