The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushel
(and that there still is no such thing as a "one size fits all" system of units)
That is exactly the problem with the imperial system. You have multiple units for the same thing, and when they are multiples of each other, it is in base 12.
You could settle on feet and have kilofeet and millifeet, and you'd have a sensible system (apart from being incompatible with the rest of the world).
Why? Why is it more practical? How is it better other than being more familiar? It blows me away that people can make the argument as it being "better".
Yes. However, the earth is not a perfect sphere. The nautical mile is an average arc-minute.
(http://metricviews.org.uk/2010/01/why-do-nautical-miles-ling...)
That's when you're lucky, can also be 3 (yard to feet), 22 (chain to yard), 10 (furlong to chain), 8 (miles to furlong, and that's why a mile is 5280 feet), 5 (gill to fluid ounce), 4 (acres to rod, gallons to quarts), 14 (stones to pounds) and probably everything in-between.
Even so, varying units does restrict how we can express time. Even if someone tells you something as simple as "half a week", you have to ask for clarification. And while "a week from now" translates to a date, forget about "a month from now." That could mean half a dozen different things.
Suppose I am recounting a dish I made to someone over the phone in two realities, one with Imperial and the other with metric.
Imperial universe: "Okay, now add... say... a third of a gallon of milk" "...third of a gallon.. eehh.. half a pint of milk.
Metric universe: "Okay, now add... say... 2/3rds of a liter." "Two thirds of a liter... 666 ml it is then."
In the imperial universe poor conversations force two inaccurate estimations. In the metric universe only one of the parties is being dreadfully inaccurate.
Imperial is defined in terms of metric units, so it is possible to be as accurate in imperial. The difference between imperial and metric is that imperial adds mental overhead that in practice reduces accuracy.
I've never heard anyone say a third gallon, but just convert to ounces. 128 / 3 = 48. That's 3 pints, btw.
Of all the "math is hard" arguments, I think the kitchen measures are the least convincing. Everything is a power of two. You can halve or double a recipe without even thinking.
You can think the arguments for metric are weak (most of the world disagrees...), but the arguments against it are nonexistent.
(Dividing by two is just easy in a decimal numbering system as it is in a hybridized decimal system, so give me a break)
Come again? This doesn't quite look like sarcasm, or did you want to prove the OP's point?
Or maybe this is just an explanation for the taste of British food...
It never gained much hold, probably for two reasons
- its units were too far off the customary units, hard to convert, and didn't fit into the neat 10^3 system. The other units (metres, kilograms) were close or easily convertible into what they replaced (ell and pound, both at approximately 0.5 metres/kilograms).
- the number of days in a year is set, so you never end up at a neatly decimal system with e.g. 10^3 days in a year (and even worse, it's a weird fraction leading to leap years and seconds)
> a neatly decimal system with e.g. 10^3
Why is ^3 neat? 10 for the radix is standard all over the world now, except perhaps in IT where there's some competition from 16.
But 3 for digit groups isn't very standard. East Asia uses groups of 4, so 10,000 and 100 million are standard. India uses lakh and crore, i.e. the oddball groupings 3, 5, 7, etc.
We need to be able to easily count days, since we sleep at night. (It would be very difficult to change to, say, a 20 hour cycle.)
We could skip the month, week, hour, minute and second, but the year and day are essential.
I suppose I like it in the same way I prefer natural languages to some artificial languages like Esperanto, etc. - or our base-60 time units as opposed to some other decimal-based system. :)
Like a previous commenter said, all my science labs in high school and college used metric. I imagine legitimate research and engineering labs in America are also using metric.
The metric system is relatively ancient, dating from the late 1700s.
We 've already settled on using English for everything on the net, why not settle on common language about measures too.
You understand that you're just saying this in an english-speaking world and if there is anything against your argument it just won't come up here at your feet?
Besides which, what problem would be solved in the process? People will use whatever units they prefer anyways at the end of the day. As a negative, forcing top-down change would irritate people.
The world is already nine-tens of the way through the switch. This is a compelling reason to finish the job.
That is what kills me about the metric system. It seems to intentionally ignore the human scale. Why is 10 centimeters not a standard unit of measurement, and this is the important part, that is marked on every ruler and tape measure? The same for 10 Milliliters, 10 grams and 100 grams. Over the entire metric system the base 10 increments that are human scale are always ignored. The liter is the only one that comes close. Why is this?
Until the human scale is taken in to account I'm perfectly happy using more than one measurement system...
As someone raised metric, Imperial measures are just weird, pointless and baroque. It is nothing more than a question of what you are used to.
Of course, that doesn't apply much when the difference is only a factor of 2, like the pound/kilogram difference, but even there people cheat a bit by just saying "kilo."
Of course, once you enter any sort of engineering work, well, simple fractions often won't cut it and it's far, far easier to simply use a decimal number. And then there's no reason not to use metric measurements.
What does that mean? Isn't "use of multiples of fractions" a property of numbers in general?
> For some people, a simple fraction of a relatable unit really is easier to deal with than a base ten decimal
What's easier is what you're used to. That's the whole point.
Also, I don't get the thing about fractions. Decimal numbers are fractions as well.
16 is divisible by 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16.
24 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24
10 just has 1, 2, 5, 10
If you wanted, you could always count in 2 times, 12 times or 16 times the basic SI units.
People who have no trouble with the concept of "half of a third for four people taken out of this bag of potatoes" get stuck on "0.25".
For all the people who answered my post - I agree that metric and SI are the sensible way forward. I'm kind of relieved that some sections of US[1] industry are choosing to ignore the international market or to lumber themselves with extra costs for both systems.
[1] Because I'm not in the US; I'm European and I want our industry to do well.
Thumb is out of the question because it's what sets us apart, lets us use tools and so forth. Next finger up is usefull for pointing, not getting interrupted while on the phone and most importantly pulling triggers...seems valuable enough. Finger #3 has too much social importance due to it's use as a universal sign of diagreement. Finger #4 seems to be of mostly sentimental value if you're married I could see this one as a viable candidate. Finger #5 is freakishly small compared to the rest but it is also very valuable for swearing.
So I think I'd propose removing both fingers #4 on birth from here on out or I suppose we could keep it as is. Occam's razor would suggest keeping it as is but could also be used to cut off the fingers.
Too many choices...which makes me wonder if binary isn't the way to go after all.
I recommend base 11, since it's the closest prime base to the customary base 10.
Maybe it's just that I'm so used to decimal measurements, but whenever I see plans that use fractions of inches, it looks confusing and imprecise... Coming from a decimal background, I don't really feel like using a fraction is ever better than using a smaller unit unless you're making an estimate (ie, "about half a kilometre").
The system is embedded in standards, such as SAE. It is embedded in industries such as construction. It is embedded into statutes, regulations, and deeds for real property.
Yes, the system is familiar, but wiping the slate clean and starting anew is not a feature of stable democracies.
So is the metric system now in most of the world.
And where the non-metric world has to interact with the rest of us, metric is embedded in their processes too. E.g. science done in the U.S. and engineering goods made for export in the US. This comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4996646 discusses some of the same issues.
I knew a civil engineer who first worked in the private industry and later got a job at the DOT.
At the construction company, they did everything in metric internally. Once a design was finalized, they would convert everything to imperial and submit to the DOT. DOT is behind the times, she thought.
When she got to the DOT, she learned their procedure. Before engineers got started reading the plans, a secretary would translate units from imperial to metric for internal use.
The fact that an old contract specifies units of rods and farthings is not an argument for anything other than defining official conversion factors between the old way and the new way.
What about those that already went through the metric conversion?
If you have precise measuring tools at your disposal, then I'm inclined to agree though.
But it doesn't matter anyway. You could sit and invent an infinite number of cases when using the imperial system "feels" easier. None of these invalidate the conveniences of the metric system, nor do they remove the compelling motivation to setup our system in line with that of the rest of the world to stop the waste of money, material, and time the is now spent on conversion, dual labeling, and confusion.
Unless all of the people you deal with have nearly the same foot size, it's easier to deal with a single reference measure. But hey, if you and your mates want to say that the tractor is 30 feet, 20 cubits, 10 yards, 5 fathoms, or 1.8 rods away, then more power to you.
If instead of putting your feet in front of each othr you actually take a step you should get closer to 1m.
(most people I met measure distances with 1m = 1step when playing european football, for example and you have to be at X meters from the ball por something)
It seems more practical (and certainly faster) than to measure the distance to "approximately 30 feet" by putting one foot just in front of the other 30 times.
e.g. If somebody asks me "How tall is that person?" it's easier to say "About five foot" rather than "I dunno, about 155cm?"
(I'm British, btw)
The 30cm unit would improve absolutely nothing, it would only complicate things. If you want to use approximate measurement, just round it to tens of centimeters. Or you can use meters with one decimal place, whatever comes more natural.
I totally agree. Rounding to powers of ten works comes for free in metric measurements using base ten numbers. This is by design.
It isn't, really. If asked about my approximate height, I'd say 'eins-achtzig' ie 1.8m (notice me omitting the unit), which in practice also has only a single significant digit (or 2 if you account for tall people) and to me isn't any more unwieldy than '6 foot'.
I'm totally unable to represent in my head how really tall "about five foot" is whereas 1,50m is totally understandable for me, easy to visualize.
It's confusing, but makes sense in the long run.
You're perceiving things like this because it's what you were brought up with. None of the examples in which you claim it's "natural" to use imperial units make any sense to me at all. I don't think in miles, don't know how much a "stone" is, and pints are just pure confusion - which pint? there's about 4 types isn't there?
It's what you grew up with, nothing more.
This all apart from miles of course, but when all your road signs are in miles and the speed limits in mph there’s not much you can do about that. Who knows what plans there are for that switchover…
And what if your feet are not 30cm, but longer or shorter?
If you say "about x" you might as well estimate to 10cm precision and say "about 180cm" or "about 190cm".