Why is the US still using imperal units?
newscientist.com
newscientist.com
Believe me, this is the wrong way. We should strive to avoid special cases, and not create new ones. Thus - for the sake of consistency - we should build our number system (and measurement units) on base 11. This way all (non-trivial) factors will be treated the same way.
Since you have to deal with repeating fractions anyway, you might as well make it the only case.
I rest my case.
Metric is worse in almost every way for day to day tasks. Not everyone is a scientist doing complex calculations. For science, maths, engineering, sure use metric.
Imperial measurements are based on convenience. Why do we buy a dozen rolls from the baker and not 10? So we can divide them between 2,3,4,6 people.
Weights are similarly based on what is useful. Look at a recipe for cakes and you might see 1Lb of this, 1/2Lb of this. The metric equivalent? 100g of this, 200g of that. How is that more useful to me?
You can easily divide imperial weights by 2,4,8,16 to make smaller batches. Doing the same with metric is a pain.
Why do we ask for some 2 by 4 timber? Because it's easier than asking for some 48mm by 96mm timber.
If you're doing finer work, measuring things in divisions of an inch makes perfect sense. 16ths of an inch means you can subdivide with ease. Try dividing a cm into 8 equal parts sometime and tell me how you get on.
Why do we use shoe size numbers rather than specify the length of our feet in mm? Because shoe sizes are about the right precision.
In the UK, we also use stone to measure our weight. I'm 9 stone and a bit. Why is it more useful to be able to say I'm, 60kg. That's more precision than I want to tell someone my weight.
I know this is an unpopular view with geeks, but if someone could please explain what problem metric solves, I'm all ears (And please don't trot out the space shuttle imperial vs metric mix up FUD).
Only, you wouldn't. For the same reason you do not buy 2.11337642 pints [0] of milk. The metric system is convenient enough to work in daily life. (But the historical baggage it contains annoys me. For example the we should get rid of the Kelvin and use a unit of temperature that makes the Boltzmann constant have a numerical value of 1. Also the Mol should make way for a sensible unit of number of atoms, like 1. Oh, and the speed of light should be made some simple number, too.)
I guess with the advent of computers the difficulties of calculation with imperial units should not matter any longer. So imperial units are just not inconvenient enough to warrant a change. Like SI units are not inconvenient enough to warrant a change to something even simpler.
On the subject of choosing dimensions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number has some interesting things to say.
[0] 1 Liter = 2.11337642 Pints
We build our houses with stones. Not stupid trees ;-)
A 2x4 isn't even 2"x4"
My country (Sweden) has used the metric system by law since 1888 so there's nobody left that remembers the good old days, it's something even the oldest of our grandparents were taught in school.
Metric is worse in almost every way for day to day tasks. Not everyone is a scientist doing complex calculations. For science, maths, engineering, sure use metric.
Considering that every day people in my country and every other country that uses the metric system (almost the whole world mind you) is as normal and ordinary as every other place on earth I really don't see the point of what you are arguing. Even the most incompetent people I meet seem to be perfecly able to do extremely trivial calculations like they are second nature.
Imperial measurements are based on convenience. Why do we buy a dozen rolls from the baker and not 10? So we can divide them between 2,3,4,6 people.
We still say dozen and buy eggs in the dozen (or two dozen). The system for measurment you use do not force you to stop buying in convenient amounts. The only time I notice problems with dividing edibles is when there's children around or someone is trying to figure out how to slice a cake into an odd number of pieces.
Weights are similarly based on what is useful. Look at a recipe for cakes and you might see 1Lb of this, 1/2Lb of this. The metric equivalent? 100g of this, 200g of that. How is that more useful to me?
It's not more or less useful, it's exactly the same level of usefulness.
Why do we ask for some 2 by 4 timber? Because it's easier than asking for some 48mm by 96mm timber.
I would write your question exactly the same way but with 5 by 10cm instead of 2 by 4 though I honestly have no idea whatsoever what unit you are using to make the decimal equivalent. nevermind I figured it out it's probably " which means inches except it gives me slighter larger numbers when I put in "2 inches in cm" into Google it's 5,08cm. You would also probably ask for a slightly larger piece of timber for the same reason as you wouldn't ask for 1.9 by 3.9 of timber. Then again I'm not an arts and crafts type of guy, maybe there's a convention here I'm missing that's used even in countries that have the metric system.
If you're doing finer work, measuring things in divisions of an inch makes perfect sense. 16ths of an inch means you can subdivide with ease. Try dividing a cm into 8 equal parts sometime and tell me how you get on
Do you somehow manage to get cut things with infinite precisions? You do realize you can use decimal points in the metric system, calculators and that it's no different than the scenario where you split an inch into 7 which I'm sure isn't a problem for you, right? Also since an inch seem to be defined to be exactly 2.54 cm 1/8th of that would be exactly 0,3175cm the scenario you paint up first doesn't become impossible to do with a finite number of decimal points and your argument about splitting a cm has no bearing on that.
In the UK, we also use stone to measure our weight. I'm 9 stone and a bit. Why is it more useful to be able to say I'm, 60kg. That's more precision than I want to tell someone my weight.
Don't people assume you are rounding when you give them whole numbers over there when you give them nice well formed number like 60? If you tell ordinary people you weigh 60kg I'm fairly certain everyone would assume you weight roughly 60kg or you could always say "roughly 60kg", I really don't see the difference. If it's a convention everyone uses you would presumably think telling someone you weigh 60,3kg is more precision than you want to tell someone.
I know this is an unpopular view with geeks, but if someone could please explain what problem metric solves, I'm all ears (And please don't trot out the space shuttle imperial vs metric mix up FUD).
The point of standardization is that it costs society is less when it doesn't have to convert or adapt all the time and I don't mean your country in particular, I mean for the whole of earth. It would also remove a fair bit of confusion not only from trying to understand what a yard, furlong or pint is but worse things like there being more than one mile unit. If you can convert almost the entire earth into using an Imperial system I'll be happy to jump on that instead, it sure would be simpler if everyone used the same system. That FUD as you called it is called confusion and I don't see why you should ignore a perfectly valid point when we are just a few countries short of eliminating those types of mistakes forever.
I have a ruler with 1/16ths of an Inch marked on it. I don't have one with every 0.3175cm marked off on it.
In several instances, fractions are far more useful than their decimal equivalent.
>> "The point of standardization is that it costs society is less when it doesn't have to convert or adapt all the time"
I agree. But the average person doesn't need to. We're not all traveling the world buying things in different measures or collaborating on space shuttles. Most of us are popping down the shop to buy a pint of milk.
And lastly, these are the things that make countries unique! Different! Interesting! Culture! Anything to keep those differences is good.
I really don't see what the difference between not having a mark for 1/10th of an inch and not having 1/16th of a cm either, so that issue goes both ways and I'm sure you don't suffer particularly whenever you need to calculate some awkward unit that's doesn't have a mark on an imperial ruler.
I agree fractions are more useful in many cases, which is why if I could relate to your previous mention of splitting a cm into eight, I would've calculated with 1/8cm fractions until I was forced to use decimals.
I have a ruler with 1/16th of an inch on it as well. Many rulers come with both but I've never had to use an inch for anything in my life and I'm going to try to remember asking some engineering friends if they've ever if I can remember. (http://cdn-write.demandstudios.com/upload//5000/300/40/8/353...)
I agree. But the average person doesn't need to. We're not all traveling the world buying things in different measures or collaborating on space shuttles. Most of us are popping down the shop to buy a pint of milk.
I'm sure they don't, I hardly think all that many peoples around the world were happy to move to the metric system from whatever they were on before when that was introduced including my own countrymen but you have to realize that it's an issue that everyone has dealt with and after a few years it should stop being an issue entirely. The average person buys a pint of milk but somewhere someone is calculating pints from liters because the UK is nowhere near self-sufficient in food and I'm sure that includes milk, so it's not unreasonable to think that the cost of conversion does affect the average person in some small unnoticeable way.
And lastly, these are the things that make countries unique! Different! Interesting! Culture! Anything to keep those differences is good.
Sure but you could qualify anything with that. I like culture as much as the next guy and I would enjoy ordering a pint ( and then hand it of to whoever is closest and actually drink beer ) but keeping a unit system that's different from everyone else is like showing up to a party and telling people they need to say the words backwards and not use any vowels, it's doable but frustrating. Then again it's in my culture to be conformist, maybe others think culture is enough of a reason to never change.
People who argue in favour of the Imperial system are the same kind of people who argue against renewable energy, Everything-over-IP and an eventual 10G mobile internet. They will lose, not because of some cultural or moral superiority but because what they're arguing against has been proven to be so much better than the alternative.
Remember, we all used to measure using sticks, body parts and things we find on the ground, but most of us have moved on since then. There's a reason for that.
I do get that it is costly to convert. I cannot, until today, grasp any imperial unit intuitively. Every time I encounter one of those strange things I have to convert (painful even with Google) or else I wouldn't get it. Imperial units are just gibberish to me. I guess this would be the same if it were the other way round.
I don't get your point about convenience. Sure, there might be some minor things that work a bit better in imperial (or not, I don't think your examples are that convincing), but compared to the cost of learning two systems (you have to, for school and science - that must be a pain, I'm happy I never had to do this) this is minor stuff. Also: I don't really know, but I would think that science class would be much harder if you are unable to intuitively grasp the units.
I would guess that you are locked into your system. Leaving it would be costly, even if having only one system for everything would clearly be an advantage.
-- Robert Heinlein
From the Mendehall Order of April 5, 1893
... such action will also have the great advantage of putting us in direct relation for our weights and measures with all civilized nations, most of which have adopted the metric system for exclusive use.
http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP447/app3.pdf
I am actually convinced that if all costs are properly factored in, it will be more than beneficial in the long term. It is not that bad, I lived through a transition and it was almost uneventful!
"Twenty-four states have legislated that surveying measures should be based on the U.S. survey foot, eight have legislated that they be made on the basis of the international foot, and eighteen have not specified the conversion factor from metric units"
Yea. Survey foot. That's not even the current international standard for the length of a foot. Ridiculous. Glad I'm not an interstate contractor that has to deal with this mess.
One issue that would crop up though is some very odd looking sizes. Assume a rod of 1". This will translate to 25.4 mm, no sane Engineer in the rest of the world would specify a size like this, but would go for 25.0 mm.
Having studied both systems I can assure you that the Imperial System adds easily 6 months to an Engineer's training.
They lost $125 million alone on the Mars Orbitor. Add the other crashes, and I think NASA has already lost more than it would cost to convert to metric.
The answer is that a decimal system of notation isn't a pure win in every endeavor.
As a woodworker, there's a lot that I like about Imperial (I like doing metalworking in metric, though, and I have one metalworking lathe calibrated in each system).
In woodworking, an inch is about the width of my thumb pressed flat. I can quickly measure things that way. The foot is a convenient size for the work that I do. Meters are a bit too big. Centimeters are too small. Imperial drill bits are available in sizes related by n/2. I can go from a 1" bit to a 1/2" to 1/4" to 1/8", etc. Or, I can add 50%, going from 1/8" to 3/16".
See also ISO preferred numbers (ISO 3:1973)
Thankfully, excepting the occasional conversion flub from NASA and structural engineers, Americans that need to use the metric system usually know how to use the metric system. So don't dismiss quite all of us as backwards wankers quite yet...
edit: hey downmodders, seriously, the answer is lawyers.
The legal mess that would ensue from having to switch the land measurements to metric is one of the biggest stumbling blocks, the lawyers would have endless causes to bicker over the exact location of property boundaries.
Never mind that the inch is defined as 0.0254 meters.
Not really.
My uncle was a farmer, which in these days involves mostly machinery, which all have bolts. Back then, there was talk of converting to the metric system, and he said that he hoped that he would be able to retire before that came into being. But then he bought a New Holland combine, which was all metric.
At that time, I think there was a proposal to allow mechanics to get a tax deduction for replacing all there tools with metric tools, but this was denied.
Similarly the cost of conversion is huge for NASA and many other industries.
Property boundaries are, except for Texas, I hear, are all based off of reference points that are precisely described.
So I don't think the answer is lawyers.