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Comment by Just_Smith | Hacker News Reader

Also, the statement that metric is more useful for measurement largely ignores the fact that Imperial has stuck around so long because of its usefulness in trade work.

It's definitely ONLY because of base12, but being base12 - imo - positions it far beyond metric for daily use. There's a reason why food items so commonly come by the dozen. Why would anyone prefer to build a house using a system that can't even accurately measure 1/3?

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1/3 can easily be measured in metric... it's just not a whole number.

Far out I can invent a system that is unique to everything, and I can create my own abominable conversion ratios all I like. It doesn't make the system superior, it makes my system necessarily inferior.

My TV is now 12 Settos in size. My surround system consumes 12 audots of power. My fridge holds 12 cubic fudo of room.

There. Now everything is easily divisible by 12ths.

I won't even go into conversion factors on this insanity.

Metric is objectively the better system to anyone that doesn't have a decades-long familiarity with the stupidity that is the imperial system. That's coming from an american without a college education, by the way. I am the target demographic for the pro-imperial people. I wasn't abducted into any metric-only education system and forced to convert or fail and disappoint my family. I was a disappointment by my own hand, thank you very much.

I challenge you to make a 1/3 cut in meter length wood using a metric ruler. Must be accurate to 1/128 inch (0.2mm), the tolerance used in fine woodworking.

Not only is it trivial to just cut at 33.33 or what have you, your argument breaks down at cut it into 1/5s.

Good luck with imperial. And has to be accurate to .02mm. In metric? This is a no brainer

That doesn't really hurt the argument at all - you're just arguing about factors now, and if you're really going to go there, 12 wins due to having more factors. The mathematical correction you'll have to do to measure 1/5th will be displaced by all the correction you don't have to do for other cases.

You're bent on the whole number thing. Why?

Whole numbers don't make things easier to measure or cut or reason about. I can measure in thirds or fifths of a meter or a foot or an inch or any unit you want with a compass and a straight edge.

You're arguing that the mark on the tape measure is possible for imperial and impossible for metric, when thirds are involved. Not true.

Because infinite numbers are not a natural expression of discrete measurements, and when it comes to being price 1/3 = 4 is always going to be easier to put your finger on than 1/3 = 3.333.

I work in software and data analysis in the construction industry. A continuous measurement is good for some things, but it's definitely not good for discrete measurements. Furthermore, a lot of the people who work in the field for construction greatly prefer Imperial for a reason. They have no bias towards systems beyond what works fast and easy.

"price" is an autocorrection of "precise"

> and when it comes to being price 1/3 = 4 is always going to be easier to put your finger on than 1/3 = 3.333.

Am I missing something? Wouldn’t it just be putting your finger on the 10 cm mark? This is approx 4”.

I realize this is not exact conversion, but it’s trivial to come up with examples where metric is easier: say you have a piece of wood 7 7/8” long that you want to cut in half. Is it easier to put your finger on 3 15/16” or 10 cm?

What is stopping people from making meter sticks with 3000 lines, i.e. every third of a millimeter is marked?

(The point is, there is nothing any more "infinite" about the rational number 1/3 than 1/4, 1/5, 1/2 or what have you. It just can't be written in the arbitrary base 10 system, just like 1/5 can't be written in base 12)

There is nothing stopping you from writing 1/3 meter.

I work a lot with wood in the metric system and the third thing is bot a problem at all. I never had even remotly any trouble finding 333.33 mm or a 666.66 on a tape measure. For anything that needs extreme accurcay I’d go with my iron ruler with 0.1 mm ruling and beyond that I would go for a caliper.

If you consistently have to use a weird measurement over and over again, you usually end up making a temporary ruler (paper, wood, metal) anyways

The factor argument is not really something that stands up, because you need to consider factors for an arbitrary length of something in the world, not a well defined unit of your own making.

How about 1/3rd of a tree? It's likely to be in some ungodly fractional amount of an inch, that's extremely hard to convert into feet, but in metric the decimal system just makes it super easy.

Can I pick the blade thickness?

Sure, kerf is less important than the thickness of your pencil line in terms of accuracy

wasn't going to use a pencil

Place the center of your line at the correct location.

You're missing the point if you don't see the problem of an infinitely repeating measurement. That doesn't translate to a tangible action. You can't cut 1/3 of a meter, and there's no subunit to roll down to that can express the right number. It's not like Imperial system exists for uneducated people - it exists for trades people. Metric is the "simple" system, because it ties back to 10, a number we're all used to. I like the metric system for its scalability, but as somebody who works in a math-y area of computing, I have nothing but distaste for base10.

I can cut 1/3 of a meter just as accurately as you can cut 1/3 of a yard.

Not being a whole number does not make it harder to find where it is.

Ha! I'm happy for your apparent virtuosity, but the whole of America's construction industry is quite a few years into disagreeing with you.

So THAT'S why U.S., Liberian and Myanmar architecture is centuries ahead of the rest of the world.

By the way, why isn't your currency base 12? All the purported benefits that apply to length would certainly apply to money as well.

This is just silly. People in most of the world are able to build things just fine without using the American system of units.

Yeah just line it up with that non-existant mark on your measuring stick. Is it enough of a tolerance problem to really worry about? Likely not. But you still can't point to a specific line to measure too unless they have specially added 1/3 marks.

> you still can't point to a specific line to measure too unless they have specially added 1/3 marks.

You also can't point to a line to measure a quarter of an inch, unless they have specifically added 1/4 marks. What's your point?

I have a project where I need 3 wooden blocks, each perfect squares, to fit width wise in a 10” wide gap. I don’t want any space between these blocks sides of the gap they fit in. It’s an important project to me and I’m willing to pay a substantial sum of money.

But from what I am reading it sounds like you’re not able to do the job, the blocks need to be 3 1/3” wide each. It’s a no-go if I see someone try to cut them to 3 5/16”

What kind of system doesn’t let you cut such a fundamental length into thirds. Crazy.

I bet you that if I cut the blocks to 84.7 mm they would do just fine. If they don't, you take a file to one of them. And you have to do it like this with wood, anyway - because of imprecise saws, and moisture changes.

Yeah my point was every measurement system has some value you can’t easily divide into thirds. How you measure depends on your tolerances. I have no qualms using either system, but metric is a much better system in my opinion.

Counterpoint, the us already had undergone industrial revolution and had standardized size on inches. It would have been expensive to restandardize everything

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