Comment by sam_goody | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sam_goody | Hacker News Reader

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I split my time between Europe and the US, and I am totally not convinced that metric is better.

Some things are ridiculously better in the imperial system - like temperature: In Fahrenheit, 0 is roughly the coldest mean day in densely inhabited areas, and 100 is the hottest. In Metric, 0 is the freezing point of water at sea level in ambient temperatures and with a low barometer reading, 100 is boiling in the same conditions.

Since I measure weather much more frequently than I measure water temps, I am driven cukoo by the silly Centigrade system.

Also, The splitting into 12 used by the foot is more useful, in my experience, than the ten of the metric. In fact, I strongly decry that we teach our kids to use base 10 instead of the much more efficient and easier to divde into fractions of base 12. (You can teach kids to count joints on thier fingers [using the thumb as a pointer] to get to 12x12 on two hands, and give the kids a headstart on fractions, multiplication and division, but I digress..)

On the other hand, having both an Imperial Gallon and a US Gallon, etc, where the same word is used for different amounts, now THAT is insane.

I've always found the weather argument somewhat unconvincing, because 0°C being the freezing point of water is very much a useful point of reference in weather contexts - it's roughly where one may expect iced-over pavements and rain to turn to snow! And then the higher temperatures are a question of getting used to it - 40°C instead of 100°F is very very warm, 30 is pretty hot, 20 is reasonably warm, etc.

But then I grew up with Celsius, so no wonder I'm used to it!

Yeah, frankly Celsius is very easy for weather temperatures in temperate environments. Snow and ice is approx 0, room temperature approx 20, a hot summer's day approx 30 and it won't reach 40 unless you go on holiday in a desert region. Easy to approximate on a small range (and the nominal extra precision of Fahrenheit is illusory for talking about weather anyway because you care far more about humidity and wind than sub 1 Celsius differences)

> But then I grew up with Celsius, so no wonder I'm used to it!

People confuse familiarity with intuitiveness all the damn time. It's a recurring theme in OS "ease of use" superiority debates as well as metric vs imperial. And date, time or number formats. And road signs.

In my area of the US 0 farenheit is useful to know as the point when salted roads start to refreeze.

But I'm never at exactly 1 atm plus the government dumps copious amounts of salt so water never actually freezes at 0°C plus so long as I memorize that 32°F is freezing it's exactly the same as memorizing 0°C is freezing.

I would say the nice thing about the metric system is as long as you convert into a base unit (i.e. Meters, Seconds, etc) then you can easily convert stuff around. But you can't! Metric uses Kilograms not Grams all the time for things like Force (Kg *m/s^2). So I still have the same problem as imperial units ...

It's just whatever your familiar with.

> But you can't! Metric uses Kilograms not Grams all the time for things like Force (Kg *m/s^2)

A <kilo>gram is 1000 times a gram, it's written in the word. Are you serious when you say you can't easily multiply or divide by 1000?

A mile is 5280 feet. I can't just convert 231 miles into feet like that, and that's assuming I remember "5280".

If you can't multiple 231 by 5280 what are you going to do when you measure a length of 23.1 cm and need to multiple it by the height of 52.80 cm?

> Are you serious when you say you can't easily multiply or divide by 1000?

You have missed the point. Force is a mass * distance / time. So, if I have a 1 g weight I want to move 1 meter in 1 second then it takes 1 Newton of force. Except it doesn't because Force is actually kilo-mass * distance / time. If I need to look up (or memorize) stuff like this then the entire advantage of metric goes away because I can just memorize the imperial way as well.

It just comes down to what you're familiar with. There's certainly a benefit to everybody using Metric in the same reasoning as there's a benefit to everybody using Mandarin.

> If I need to look up (or memorize) stuff like this then the entire advantage of metric goes away

Hmmm... no?

With metric, once you know what a "meter" is, you have the distances. <milli>meter, <centi>meter, <deci>meter, ... It's one unit: the meter. And fractions of it that require trivial conversions.

With imperial, you have multiple units of distance: inches, feet, yards, football fields, miles.

The benefit of metric is that you have to memorise fewer units, period. Your example is a formula in physics. There you have to memorise F = m * a AND in which units those are (bonus if they are consistent between the formulas, of course). That's strictly equivalent between imperial and metric there.

> It just comes down to what you're familiar with.

Of course, if you're familiar with imperial and not metric, then you're better off with imperial!

> There's certainly a benefit to everybody using Metric in the same reasoning as there's a benefit to everybody using Mandarin.

That's an interesting example: Mandarin is known for being a lot harder than English. Obviously, if you grew up with Mandarin and no English, you will be more comfortable with Mandarin. But people speaking Mandarin don't insist on saying that Mandarin is not harder than English, in my experience :-).

I think in your first point the difference is between "calculation" and "conversion". For calculations, it's generally accepted that arbitrary numbers are possible and a calculator may have to come out. For conversions, it's nice to be able to say that 1250m is 1.250km - I bump into conversions much more commonly than having to do calculations, and it's nice to be able to do them in my head.

I don't think the second point is particularly valid. The SI unit is a kg - which is weird, but always consistent. All Physics units in metric involve kilograms. I will grant that it's unusual that it has a prefix, but still - if you know the 7 base SI units (including the kg), the rest follows reasonably, and conversions are trivial compared to Imperial (orders of magnitude vs arbitrary multipliers).

Fundamentally yeah, what one's familiar with is the system that feels most intuitive, but I don't think these specific arguments against metric work super well

If we still used furlongs it would make more sense because there are 8 furlongs in a mile.

I am ready to bet big that you would never hear that kind of opinions from someone who learned the metric system first. Am I right in your case?

As someone who grew up with metric, my opinion is that nothing that imperial people claim is unintuitive with metric is, in fact, unintuitive to me. Nothing. And I tried hard. We're used to what we're used to :-).

> Some things are ridiculously better in the imperial system - like temperature

This says that you grew up with imperial, I'm convinced of it!

> In fact, I strongly decry that we teach our kids to use base 10 instead of the much more efficient and easier to divde into fractions of base 12.

What's the argument there? That because you can divide 12 by 2, 3, 4 makes it vastly easier than 10, because 10 you can only divide by 2 and 5? How does that make it easier to learn fractions? What about the fact that in metric, a centimeter is 1/100 of a meter, and a millimeter is 1/1000 of a meter? Those are fractions, right?

Just to make it clear: I am not claiming anything about imperial being ridiculous; I totally understand that if you grew up with it, then it's intuitive to you. What I don't understand, really, is all those imperial people who just cannot seem to apprehend the idea that maybe, just maybe, they are biased because imperial is what they know better. Is it that hard? It makes me concerned about cultural differences... do those people realise that others may have different cultures, and that it is okay and not ridiculous?

PS: I upvoted you because I don't find it fair that you get so many downvotes for an innocent opinion. I don't share your opinion, but it's not offensive or anything like that :-).

Fractional units do work much easier with 2, and 3 as common denominators, and I find metric natives are a bit less wieldy with fractional units overall, presumably because they aren't used as often. However the majority of people overall are bad with fractions anyways.

I think the mistake you have is starting from the wrong premise. The premise, IMO, should be that OP has been harassed, demeaned, and otherwise been made to feel bad for 20+ years for using the units they were raised with. At least that's my experience as an American.

Most people don't seem to care about the units, what the haters care about (not you, but the general experience) is having an opportunity to proclaim how much better they are than other people, mostly over an accident of birth.

I totally feel for that, you should not be harassed, demeaned or made to feel bad for that (or anything else for that matter).

But I don't think that the rational answer is to try to convince everybody that your system is more intuitive because the other has "ridiculous" features. I answered to a comment that said: "ridiculously better in the imperial system".

Imperial is more familiar to you. You could just have said that.

Everybody hates swapping between units of measurement. You pick one and stick with it. It's natural having the need to move between two measurement systems irritates you.

>I measure weather much more frequently than I measure water temps,

In cold climates water temp is actually the most important thing to know about the weather by a long shot. The freezing point tells you if it's wet or dry, slippery or non-slippery.

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