There recently was a discussion on lemmy where several US citizens (one of them allegedly an engineer…) tried to explain to me that metric might be „more precise“ (? 😂) but the imperial system more practical, because „everybody knows what a foot is“. When I asked them to add feet to miles I got shouted at (in CAPS) that noone (ever) does that. 🤷♀️
They are right, no one ever does that. Their reasoning for the imperial system being practical is stupid though. The reason it can be practical is that its useful to have a unit the size of a foot sometimes. Metric is better in general, but there are aspects of the imperial system I would miss if I switched entirely. I just use imperial in casual conversation and metric for anything important.
edit: To be clear I’m not saying conversion from feet to miles isn’t a problem because no one does that, its the opposite. No one does it because its a problem.
Sigh, here we go again…
Yes YOU don’t do that. Because you can’t.
Everybody in Europe can and does so. There’s nothing arcane or mysterious about the metric system. I have no issues telling you how many litres of water go into a 50 x 50 x 200 cm aquarium, or a pool with a 3.5 m diameter and 80 cm height. Good luck doing that with your inches and feet and quarts and gallons.
There’s nothing „more useful“ about either a foot or a meter. Either you know how much it is or you don’t. Everybody knows what a meter is. For me it’s a large step. My arm from elbow to fingertips is 50 cm. Or 1/2 m… A sheet of paper is 30 cm (actually it’s 297 mm, but that’s another story), and so are rulers. Which, btw, is very close to a „foot“.
Your foot btw most likely is not as long as a „foot“, and a small woman’s size is easily 20% off. And no, that’s not „in the ballpark“.
Yes YOU don’t do that. Because you can’t.
I won’t argue that, its a flawed measurement system. My goal isn’t to show you why imperial is so much better than metric, because its obviously not. That doesn’t mean imperial is never useful though.
There’s nothing „more useful“ about either a foot or a meter.
They can both do the same job, but its more convenient to have smaller units depending on what you’re measuring. I find the size of a foot to be convenient for measuring things in casual situations where accuracy and precision aren’t priorities.
Your foot btw most likely is not as long as a „foot“, and a small woman’s size is easily 20% off. And no, that’s not „in the ballpark“.
We don’t literally measure it with our feet, that’s just what its called.
Sometimes I think there was a missed opportunity in defining an easy conversion between inches and cm. It is 2.54 cm to 1". Why couldn’t it simply be 2.5? Then a 2x4 from the building supplier could simply be renamed a 5x10. 5.8x11.6 doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as well.
My understanding is that the metre was inspired by nautical measures? So the distance from pole to equator along sea level is supposedly 10000 km. But that’s pretty approximate, and there is a more rigorous definition that involves the wavelength of a certain type of radiation. But that number is quite arbitrary-sounding. Couldn’t they have chosen it to line up with the imperial system at some level to aid migration? Anyway, that train has left the station and I’ll stop ranting now…
At the time when the metric system was created, imperial units weren’t standardized at all, so if centimeters lined up with one definition of inch, they wouldn’t line up with the many other definitions anyway.
I wish decimeter was used more commonly. It kinda takes up the place of the imperial foot.
That’s the great thing about being a metric user in the US. It’s not the common system here, and the only people who really use it consistently are those who do so for work, and those who just enjoy it the same way one might enjoy learning a new language. It’s sort of a grassroots thing here. And because it’s not the standard system, there’s no one here telling us what measures are socially acceptable to use and which aren’t. Use the decimeter. Hell, if you like it, use it in Europe, you might get a weird look, but it won’t be like asking for the distance to the deli in leagues. They’ll still understand. In the US, use the decimeter if you want. I’ve used the metric system exclusively for so long, started as a sort of personal test, that I tend to think in metric now. I look at something and think “30cm” more than I think “a foot,” occasionally I’ll think “bout a 1/3 of a meter.”
Have fun with it. Also, hot tip. If you ever struggle with temps, it’s percentage of boiling. 0% of boiling is frozen. 100% of boiling is boiling. 20% of boiling is nice.
As an American, I understand that metric is better for a lot of things. It also would cost a metric fuck ton (ha!) of money to switch over, and it just really isn’t a priority when things work just fine for us here. It’s not like we are constantly running into problems that would be easier to solve by using metric, and the people in the few professions that do run into those problems frequently just use metric.
The original idea behind imperial units is actually quite nice. They used 12 inches in a foot because you could divide it in so many ways without using decimals. You can take 1/2 of it, 1/3, 1/4, and 1/6 without ever needing decimals. It’s great for mental math with small numbers. That obviously is no longer the most important thing anymore, as we all have calculators with us at all times, and we deal with much bigger numbers on average than they used 200 years ago.
We all still use 360° in a circle for this exact reason. It can be divided up in 22 different ways (excluding 1 and 360 as factors).
Ok, I have heard this argument before.
If you go down this rabbit hole, you will eventually realize that it is our base 10 number system that is weak in terms of divisibility. If we counted in base 12, the metric system would follow suit and you’d have your convenient fractions.
In my “perfect world” musings, however, I jump back and forth between base 12 and some power of 2 base. The latter would not be very naturally divisible but would make basic arithmetic much easier. There is a reason computers prefer binary.
The other point I’d like to raise is that even in the imperial system, you are not spared having to deal with awkward fractions, as you will realize when you walk into a hardware store looking for that 5/64" screw. Apparently, fractions are not a deal breaker in this case, so perhaps we should refer to a third of a metre as simply that: 1/3m?
The original idea behind imperial units is actually quite nice. They used 12 inches in a foot because you could divide it in so many ways without using decimals. You can take 1/2 of it, 1/3, 1/4, and 1/6 without ever needing decimals.
You can measure 1/2, 1/3, or 1/4 of a meter, why wouldn’t you? Also, seriously, those common fractions aren’t that hard in decimal. Everybody knows that 125 g is 1/8 kg.
That’s not the issue. The issue is that it’s not consistent between imperial units, you have a zoo of different subdivisions between units. You have 12 inches in a foot, three foot in a yard etc pp.
The issue is it gets really unwieldy in multiplication, 1 cubic ft is how many cubic inches… 1728, how convenient.
Tell me how much is 1/6 cubic ft in inches? How many cups are that? There goes your mental math.
(It is also a common misconception that imperial is „duodecimal“. It’s not. It’s counting to 12 in decimal. If you had a proper duodecimal system, „12“ * „12“ would make 100 not 144.)
We all still use 360° in a circle
And you also say 180°, 45°, 720°. Not 1/2, 1/8, 2.
I say that Metric is like color vision. You can see things in whole new and easier ways. People in USC can’t understand what others see and insist things are just fine the way they are. Thus the “no one ever does that”, “why would you need to know that”, “who cares”, etc.
It is true that no one ever does that though. That doesn’t mean its not a problem, but I’ve never seen anyone do it. If you need to do something like that and you have a brain, you use metric. Just because its flawed doesn’t mean imperial should be completely abolished though. What needs to stop is people thinking imperial is better than metric somehow. Aside from that, its just a weird flawed measurement system.
We don’t use imperial in the US, we use US customary. Some units have different sizes in imperial. For example, a US pint is 16oz and an imperial pint is 20oz.
I’ll tell you something I do as a woodworker a lot that metric isn’t great for: divide by powers of two, three or four. I’ve got some boards milled up 3/4" thick. I’m going to join them with a bridle joint, that means cutting the middle third out of one and the outer two thirds from the other. So each of the remaining “tongues” are each 1/4" thick. 3/4" is approximately 20mm. That’s a nice metric number, a multiple of 10. Let’s cut that same bridle joint in 20mm stock. What’s a third of 20mm? Can you come point to 6.6666mm on my metric tape measure here?
Don’t pretend base ten doesn’t do stupid things too.
Can you come point to 6.6666mm on my metric tape measure here?
Yes: For woodworkers, it’s identical to 6.5mm, accurately eyeballed at between 6 and 5mm. Don’t pretend you’re a machinist. Does your tape measure even have a vernier scale. Does it make satisfying clicks when measuring. If you have a slip instead of interference fit just dump one piece in water for a second it’ll be fine.
I saw that too, and many of them claimed they learn both Metric and Imperial British systems and convert between them all the time. So this stood out now:
For the most part, we generally only use pounds, feet, miles. Everything else is a mystery. Even ounces, cups and gallons are some fucking magical mystery. Just follow the recipe.
I mean, it’s true. Ask an American to visualize an ounce of anything other than drugs, and they probably won’t be able to. Ask how many ounces in a gallon, and they’ll Google it. Even cups aren’t well understood. We can eyeball a mile on the interstate, or tell you how tall someone is, or lift a box and guess it’s weight to within 5 pounds. But honestly, that’s about it. We just aren’t really taught to visualize our weights and measures, it’s why newscasters keep saying shit like “8 Olympic swimming pools!” Or “the size of three football fields” because we just don’t have a coherent system ingrained in us. That’s also, I think, why we’re so against metrification. Because weights and measures feel hard, because we’re basically only semi-literate in our own mother tongue, so a “foreign language” feels like it’d be this huge undertaking.
We just aren’t really taught to visualize our weights and measures, it’s why newscasters keep saying shit like “8 Olympic swimming pools!” Or “the size of three football fields”
This really isn’t an American thing - it’s just human, we can’t really visualize dimensions accurately unless we have a good reference. Some may measure the Olympic swimming pool in feet others in meters, but the effect is the same.
I mean, if you’re converting feet to miles, you’re doing something weird.
Why on Earth would I ever do that?
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If I was a rail engineer, I would have a chart (or a calculator if its past the year 1980)
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Can you divide 1000 by 39 quickly and easily?
Lol, that sounds very much “as a black man”
I’ll tell you, most of us in the states would love a total switch to metric. We use it where is matters most, but we also have an aging population raised on lead has fumes that think anything they don’t know is “communism” or “wholeness” or whatever else the propaganda right spews. Those are the assholes that pretty much stop progress on anything.
I’m big into 3D printing, actually got into the same argument with another 3D printing guy…. And I’m like, literally EVERYTHING we do is in metric. The whole damn hobby is metric.
I hate humanity
You do realize that the US tried to switch to metric for 6 months in the 70s and it was a giant failure so we switched back, yes? Do you think 2023 America is smarter than 1970s America lol?
Edit: not sure why downvotes. I am in favor of switching US to metric. But historically it didn’t work.
You do realize asshole Republicans reverted before it could be more than implemented on a couple of highways
“Metric supporters argued the road signs were a crucial step in helping Americans get over any psychological blocks to switching measurement systems. But Republican Charles Grassley, then a congressman and now a senator from Iowa, killed proposed federal regulations that would have forced states to put up signs in kilometers.”
They literally locked putting up signs in both metric an Imperial
Also… remember my comment about old fucks raised on gas lead fumes…. Yea, the 70s……
Lol, that sounds very much “as a black man”
You mean the „engineer“? Well, what can I say, he was insisting his professor at uni taught him „a true engineer can work with every system“.
I mean yes, but the difference is one engineer is just happily pushing around decimals, the other one goes pale when you ask what 1/5th of a gallon in cubic inches is…
Sometimes I like to think about the logistical challenges with a switch to metric. The one that always gives me pause is highway signs. Thinking about the monumental task of replacing every speed sign, distance sign, and mile marker across the country in any timely period makes my head hurt.
It could certainly be done, and is probably easier than I think with all the state DoTs working independently on it especially over time. We have a lot of road with a lot of signs.
I honestly hate that argument. “it would cost so much to change all those signs” is just negative talk for “it would employee a shit ton of people, create a lot of jobs, and be a major infrastructure project that could help our economy.”. Honestly, the economic benefit of major infrastructure works is rarely talked about as much as it should be. Mainly, I think, because the people it benefits are the ones actually doing the work. And that’s scary to a certain segment of society that would like very much that not to be the case.
I think the bigger one is the construction industry.
2"x4" studs. 4’x8’ plywood. 16" O.C.
Changing to 44x95, 1219x2438, 406 O.C doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. We could switch over to the metric equivalents (like 1250x1250 or 600 O.C.), but that would mean switching out machinery and would break a lot of standards.
