The metric system ...

[leghog]

It's a waste of time. It will be centuries before the USA switches to the metric system. It was tried and failed. Heck, we still use a bushel and a peck.

A U.S. Dry Measure bushel is 35.24 liters. There are 4 pecks in a bushel. The British Imperial bushel is different.

BTW, what's a cubit?

Can't change completely. Too many legal docs. Think land, surveys, property lines, and jurisdictional lines. They'll never all be converted.

 

[idaho]

I'm fine with other countries using whatever systems of measurement they want. And they should be fine with letting us use the system we want. By the way, I know it is nit-picking, but we are not the only country still not using the metric system.

Well, one of Mars landers/satelites has crashed because of different measurement system. One guy made calculations in foot-pound not in joules and forget to mention that

Anyway. Different measurement aren't problem, because science, even in USA moved to SI system. And everyday measurement - because you don't need to be super precise, simple mental calculations are good enough. Inches, Feets(foots?), miles, pounds, acres - these are all simple to calculate.

The only measurement I have problem with is Fahrenheit. C= 5/9F -32... Neeech, I will just look for a table in Celcius And F temperatures are often used for quenching/tempering steel.
Hey, I didn't know Fahrenheit was born in Poland Cool

 

[Raymond1000]

When I was a carpenter and had to survey something, I kept a small Engineer’s Measure tape in my belt.

One edge showed feet and inches. The other showed feet and hundredths of a foot.

I only ever used the first foot, for fast and dirty conversions.

 

[Piso Mojado]

I think you forgot Brunei, though I may be a little out of date.

Brunei completed its metrication in 1992.

 

[Gollnick]

Brunei completed its metrication in 1992.

That sort of change is easier in a monarchy.

 

[IMightBeWrong]

Barely touched on Metrics in school here in the states as I grew up, but I agree with you completely OP. Metrics are the better units. They make so much sense it's ridiculous that the Imperial system even exists anymore.

 

[12345678910]

I see folks going on about how the metric system is better.

If you like it, just shut up and use it why do you have to force it on others ?



I am able to visualise and estimate in the inch system much better

279.4 mm WTF is that ?

11" I can picture that.


The length of my first finger joint 1 inch
nose to fingertips, 3 feet, my height 6 feet.




Maybe we are better at fractions, but I also use the .001" notation for appropriate sizes.

 

[Codger_64]

I see folks going on about how the metric system is better.

If you like it, just shut up and use it why do you have to force it on others ?

I am able to visualise and estimate in the inch system much better

279.4 mm WTF is that ?

11" I can picture that.

The length of my first finger joint 1 inch
nose to fingertips, 3 feet, my height 6 feet.

Maybe we are better at fractions, but I also use the .001" notation for appropriate sizes.

Yeah, but how many stones do you weigh?

 

[C_Becker]

Great discussion in here so far :thumbup:

Its not that I dislike the imperial measurements, they're kinda wide spread her in Europe too in some areas, like TV screen sizes or rims.
And I really love using inches for blade lengths, feels much better to say "This here knife has a 6 inch blade" than " it has a 15,2cm blade"

What gets me is converting between units, like I said before. 1000mm=1m=0.001km. You just move the comma or use powers of ten.
With inches and foot and miles that is much more complicated. The difference in british and US units add to the confusion

Interesting to hear about all the older units, too. Back in the days, people here used other units, too. Sometimes you hear older people still using them, like pound (500 grams here). Its very interesting to read up on the history of all this, but it had to be kinda inaccurate, because a lot of it was based on body parts, like hands, fingers, feet ,distance between elbow and middle finger (elle) ec.

I have to say though, for me the Celsius scale makes a lot more sense for me, 0°=water freezes 100°=water boils, comes kinda natural. Fahrenheit seems kinda random to me, he just took the deepest temperature in the winter as the deepest point. I like that the difference of 1K is the same as the difference of 1°C.

Didn't the USA try to convert to metrics at some point ? But yeah, converting all the legal documents like land titles would suck. A lot.


In the end, its what you are used to I guess. It all works in the end, just need to tell your fellow NASA engineers what you are using for your calculations lol


EDIT:

I see folks going on about how the metric system is better.

If you like it, just shut up and use it why do you have to force it on others



I am able to visualise and estimate in the inch system much better

279.4 mm WTF is that ?

11" I can picture that.


The length of my first finger joint 1 inch
nose to fingertips, 3 feet, my height 6 feet.

I don't see anyone forcing anything here, just a good discussion about advantages and disadvantages of the two systems.
The visualizing works in metric too, 1 big step = 1m, distance between my thumb and my pinky when I spread my hands =20cm
BTW 297,4mm is about 30cm, the length of a standard ruler, I can visualize that pretty easy
Like I said, its what you are used to

 

[jimmyd1982]

I had to deal with the metric system to a certain degree while in the military and while it's fine for big distances or very small measurements, it sucks for everything in between.

If you want to calculate someones height you either have to go by cm or use meters and fractions, which is the complaint the op had with the imperial system. The majority of the measurements I have made in my life fall in the <10ft range and ft and inches work really well in that range.

 

[Raymond1000]

I don&#8217;t know why people find traditional measures confusing. All you have to do is arrange them in a table. Here&#8217;s an example for liquid volume.

32,786 fluid drams = 32 gallons = 24,576 teaspoons
8,192 mouthfulls = 32 gallons = 8,192 Tablespoons
4,096 handfulls = 32 gallons = 4,096 fluid ounces
4,096 jiggers = 32 gallons = 2,073 jackpots
1,024 gills = 32 gallons = 512 cups
256 pints = 32 gallons = 128 quarts
64 quarterns = 32 gallons = 18 pecks
18 double gallons = 32 gallons = 9 double pecks
8 buckets = 32 gallons = 8 tuffets
4 ale firkins = 32 gallons = 4 bushels
2 ale kilderkins = 32 gallons = 2 casks
2 strikes = 32 gallons = 2 sacks
1 ambar = 32 gallons = 1 ale barrel
32 gallons = 1 chauldron
32 gallons = 4 bushels
Weight of water 32 gallons = 267 pounds

What could be simpler?

 

[mwerner]

At the university, we currently have about 40% foreign students. Most of these will reply in metric terms to common questions like "Well, how tall was he?" "Oh, about 2 meters" Which causes me to have to do sums in my head..

I have a "quick and dirty guide to the metric system"....

Millimeter..... Really small.
Meter.... About a yard.
Kilometer.... About a half-a-mile.
Liter... About a quart
And so forth...

 

[Gollnick]

The other helpful one to keep in mind is that an inch is about two and one-half centimeters.

A kilogram is about two and one-quarter pounds.

One cup is about a quarter of a liter.

A change of one degree-Celsius in a change of almost two degrees-Fahrenheit. Because degrees Celsius are much larger, fractional degrees are used more often when temperatures are expressed in Celsius. In the US, for example, it is rare to see ambient temperatures expressed in anything but integers. The sign at the bank will tell you that the outdoor temperature is 86 or 87, but never 86.5. Degrees Fahrenheit are small enough that we don't need to split them. The average person can't feel the difference between 86 and 87, much less 86 and 86.5. But the difference between 30 and 31 degrees-Celsius is almost the difference between 86 and 88 degree-Fahrenheit which is a definitely-palpable difference and so at least half-degrees-Celsius are needed.

In addition to knowing that water freezes at 0C and boils at 100C, it is handy to keep in mind that comfortable room temperature (about 70F) is about 21C. A warm day (86F) is 30C (again, 16 degrees of Fahrenheit change, 70 to 86F, caused only nine degrees of Celsius change, 21 to 30C). And normal body temperature is exactly 37C. From these few reference points and using the two-to-one approximation, you can get a good "feel" for practical temperatures in Celsius.

 

[Codger_64]

It is a lot easier just to stick with the system I learned back in the 1950's.

 

[555]

I see we use the same "quick and dirty guide to the metric system"....

BTW I still use the Country Mile, make the turn at the Barn or Oak Tree navigation/system of measurement.

 

[Gollnick]

I see we use the same "quick and dirty guide to the metric system"....

BTW I still use the Country Mile, make the turn at the Barn or Oak Tree navigation/system of measurement.

Why wouldn't you? It works just fine for the purpose. If it was a matter of building that new road and a avoiding the 36-inch (91.44cm) natural gas pipeline that burried around here somewhere, you might hope that better surveying techniques might be used. But, for day-to-day getting from here to there, if "Go about a country mile down this road and then turn right just after the big red barn," gets you there, then why not use it? And that's an important principle: good enough is good enough... and what's good enough depends on the purpose.



And that really is the point: the Metric system has advantages. The advantages are especially advantageous in highly-precise deeply-technical applications. But for most of our day-to-day needs, getting from here to there, mixing a pitcher of martinis, that sort of thing, it really doesn't matter.

 

[300Six]

Perfect example of 'metric system units' for you Yanks is money. 10 cents to the dime, 10 dimes to the dollar, 100 bucks to the C note and 10 C notes to the G note! The Brits had (and probably still do) some weird system of 12 and 16s with pence, farthings, crowns and pounds that makes sense to no one but the people that grew up with it.
Ask me to measure out something substantial in multiples of 16 inch (ie construction materials) and I have to rely entirely on the stud marks on a carpenter's tape measure but tell me to go forward with 40 cm spacing and I don't really have to use a special tape or ruler. What Imperial is very nice for is working in fractions (1/4, 1/3) rather than always having to deal in multiples or decimals of 10.
I taught high school shop in Canada for 10 years and modern 'metric' kids can't work in fractions to save their lives!

 

[DB731]

I would like to be able to fix a car without doing fractions in my head (wrenches). When I am greasy, hot, and tired, fractions are the least desired thing on my mind.

 

[s_f]

again it was always part of my life I used and grew up with both, I can usually look at a bolt and nut and tell what size it is whether it's metric or not, same with temp, liquids and weights.

You got my respect if that includes that you can distinguish 1/8" and 3mm allen wrenches...

 

[Rubicon_Joey]

As a recent mechanical engineering graduate and now design engineer I hate that there isn't one unified system. It wouldn't really matter to me what it was (all though metric makes the most sense) just as long as there was one and only one. Engineering teachers love nothing more than to torture you with converting units. It's bad enough just working problems in thermodynamics, fluids, etc but then you want me to convert the units!? I go quite good at converting but, it sucked and is really unnecessary. Now as a design engineer, everything is designed in inches and feet but are made from drawings done in millimeters.