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Do you actually need to convert units a lot in your daily life? Or compare things to the freezing/boiling point of water? For me, the major advantage of the im
by mattkrause 10y ago
Do you actually need to convert units a lot in your daily life? Or compare things to the freezing/boiling point of water?
For me, the major advantage of the imperial units is that they're all approximately human-scale. My foot is about a foot, my stride is about a yard, and it's surprising if I encounter weather outside 0-100F. A pint is a big drink; a cup is small one.
I'm a scientist, and all this goes out the window in the lab, of course. Even there though, a lot of the useful conversions do need some arbitrary constant (e.g. density, molarity) and the SI prefixes are not incredibly useful. I've literally never heard anyone measure something in deci/decameters. In practice, we tend to pick a unit that's approximately the right size and and stick with it--tiny things might be between 0.05µm and 2,500 µm, for example.
- mordant 10y agoI wholeheartedly agree. I'm an expat, and it bothers me to no end when I encounter thermostats which can only be adjusted in whole degrees Celsius - I end up being either too cold or too hot. Given its origins in Revolutionary France, the metric system is quite literally a communist plot.
- robinhoodexe 10y agoSo you're saying you can feel the difference between 20 and 21 degree Celsius?
- Oletros 10y ago> Given its origins in Revolutionary France, the metric system is quite literally a communist plot. That must be a joke
- BrandoElFollito 10y agoTo ease calculations scientists tend to work around 10^(3*n) kind of numbers. This is why you seldom see hecto- or deca- units, rather than kilo, mega, milli, micro, nano, etc.