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Comment by metabagel | Hacker News Reader

The reason the penny isn’t eliminated in the U.S. is inertia and conservatism. Same reason(s) we haven’t finished switching to the metric system.

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>Same reason(s) we haven’t finished switching to the metric system.

You're not totally wrong but like the UK we (US) tend to use the metric system where it actually matters and use our variant of Imperial for everyday things which makes perfect sense for anyone who grew up with it. Aside from not having a well-developed intuitive sense for what Celsius means from a comfort perspective when traveling, I can pretty much use whatever local units are in use. (My only real limitation at home is that, aside from my scale, I have very little metric measuring gear so I have to convert.)

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/526/

I have some more complicated conversions in my head but, for a lot of purposes, a liter is about a quart, a kilometer is about half a mile, and a kilogram is about two pounds. Those suffice for a lot of rough conversions I encounter when traveling. I suppose I could sit down and just memorize some F to C conversions.

Miles and kilometers can be estimated by the Fibonacci Sequence. The conversion (mi -> km) is very nearly the golden ratio (1.61 and approximately 1.62, respectively, IIRC). For any number in the sequence taken as miles, the subsequent number is the distance in kilometers. Your way is probably quicker, but it’s a fun bit of information.

Room temperature is 21°C and every degree Celsius is worth about 2°F; that’s about all it takes.

Having lived in the UK, I found the balance between systems to be quite nice. I think that the Imperial System is actually underrated for daily use: most of the measurements are intuitive (based on sensory information and easily visualizable objects) and align better with common uses of measurements (rough approximations and division into equal parts). I think the metric system is beautiful and elegant, but for non-scientific tasks I don’t think it’s as valuable.

Thats what people say who have grown up with the system. If you grew up with the metric system in day to day life then you'd say the same.

eg A Metre is a distance between two held out hands. A litre is half a 2l bottle. A kg is the same weight as a litre of water or a small bag of something like sugar. I instinctively know how hot 10, 15 20 or 30 degrees is.

I grew up with 20 and 30cm rulers so I can picture how big they are. At school we had various weights around. Stuff is sold in metric weights.

I adjust a thermostat regularly. 1C is way too large a swing, and I’ve stayed at hotels that offer half degree F adjustments.

Celsius doesn’t work well for human temperature. In America, air conditioning is common. Even poor people have air conditioning and often use it.

Come on, surely you don't believe your own argument. If thermostats can offer fractional-degree adjustment in fahrenheit, they can offer it in celsius.

By “two held out hands”, do you mean a person’s wingspan? Is there something similar for centimeters? I’m asking out of genuine curiosity and not antagonizing. I would love to have more tools at my disposal. An inch, for example, is the length of the first digit of the index finger. [0]

With length, I find that most of my use cases are division into equal parts as opposed to scaling. The imperial system was designed for this (frequently using base 12) [1]. I understand that this may be due to my framing.

I agree with the sibling comment about temperature granularity. Fahrenheit set 0 degrees to the coldest temperature in his hometown, then used freezing water and body temperature as reference points. 100 degrees is about body temperature, and around as hot as ambient temperature gets for many people.

[0] Useless trivia: an acre is one chain (66’) by one furlong (660’) and was supposed to be the amount a field a single ox could plow in a day. Neither of the latter two measures are commonly used anymore but a mile was redefined from 5000’ to 5280’ to make it an even 8 furlongs.

[1] Apparently this is the reason that the French failed twice to establish Metric Time

I mean a nice natural two hands held apart is 1 metre. I can use that to roughly measure things like the width of a room.

My full outstretch (wingspan) is around 2m.

> Aside from not having a well-developed intuitive sense for what Celsius means from a comfort perspective when traveling

20 Celsius is comfortable. Plus or minus 20 (so 0 C and 40 C) and you're at extreme temperatures that will kill in a few hours of unmitigated exposure.

So the questions then are: Is it above or below 20 C. How far above or below?

3 above, comfortable. 10 above, probably comfortable, bring some water if you'll be doing physical work. 20 above, make sure you have a large supply of water available to avoid heat stroke. 10 below, wear a jacket. 20 below, wear a warm coat and maybe gloves. Etc.

We haven't switched to the metric system because there's no benefit for most people, simple as. The only people who would benefit are those who regularly need to deal in metric already, and children who would no longer need to learn the common imperial conversions. Most adults know the common conversions, and don't need to deal in metric for anything. Meanwhile, those same people would need to relearn how to estimate everything in metric units, which is a huge pain in the ass for them.

When you are trying to advance a measure which brings most people no benefits, and also incurs significant costs on them, it shouldn't be surprising that it's not popular. It's not exactly rocket surgery.

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