7 ms·

Up to about a yard, divisibility for imperial distances is pretty good, but you're absolutely right that past yards, it doesn't make much sense. However, for mo

Up to about a yard, divisibility for imperial distances is pretty good, but you're absolutely right that past yards, it doesn't make much sense. However, for most day-to-day, hands-on tasks (with the major exception of driving), those shorter distances are sufficient. I find this same principle is perhaps better exemplified by weights/volumes commonly used in cooking. Since many sizes (1 cup = 8 fl.oz, 1 pound = 16 oz, 1 gallon = 128 fl.oz, 1 fl.oz = 2 tablespoons, etc) are powers of 2, scaling recipes up or down on the fly is extremely easy. On the other hand, given an accurate metric scale, all recipes can be converted to weights, allowing scalar conversions. However, I suspect the proliferation of accurate scales in home kitchens is a relatively recent (nascent?) phenomena.

JackFr 8y ago
>Up to about a yard, divisibility for imperial distances is pretty good, but you're absolutely right that past yards, it doesn't make much sense. Seems to work well with miles miles ft 1/10 528 1/11 480 1/12 440 1/15 352 1/16 330 1/20 264 1/22 240 1/24 220 1/30 176 1/32 165 1/40 132 miles yds 1/2 880 1/4 440 1/5 352 1/8 220 1/10 176 1/11 160 1/16 110 1/20 88
- jerf 8y ago
  One of the problems here is that given that our "home" numeric base is 2 times 5, we just aren't going to get both convenient unit conversion via moving the decimal point (or appropriate term in base of choice) and convenient divisibility. So I suppose if metric just isn't signal-y enough for you (in the general sense of "you", not JackFr), you can join the call for the world to convert to duodecimal: http://www.dozenal.org/ http://www.dozenal.org/
  - JackFr 8y ago
    That's tremendous -- never knew such an organization existed.
    - ChristianBundy 8y ago
      It's surprisingly easy once you get the hang of it. I started counting in dozenal for fun, and now when I think "7, 8, 9" my brain finishes the series with "X, E, 19". It's not common enough to use with other people, but I use dozenal in my personal projects and journal whenever possible.
  - gowld 8y ago
    This problem will solve itself when we apply appropriate sexual selective pressure to evolve 6-digit hands and feet.
    - jerf 8y ago
      "Hey honey, this is going to sound weird, but hear me out..."
mannykannot 8y ago
In a way, there are parallels with a type system. Yards, a measure taken from a human limb, are for fabric, furlongs are for arable land, and miles (a thousand paces) for roads. Prior to the need for exercises in teaching arithmetic to the masses, it might have seemed rather pointless (if not exactly a type error) to express the measurement of one thing in the units for another.
- TremendousJudge 8y ago
  In fact, land wasn't really measured in units of area as much as it was measured in units of productivity (ie bushels), which was much more useful to know
  - vram22 8y ago
    And distances (on land and maybe sea too) were long ago measured in interesting units like maybe an arrow shot (distance an arrow can travel) and such like (from my memory of reading legends as a kid, both Indian and probably Western or other ones) :) E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yojana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yojana
  - InitialLastName 8y ago
    An acre (which is still used in the US for land measurement) is roughly the amount of land a team of oxen can plough in a day.
    - TremendousJudge 8y ago
      And a league is the distance a person can walk in an hour. The actual distance doesn't actually matter; two places can be 5 leagues away and be at different distances. However, it'll take you 5 hours to get to any of them, be it because different quality roads or elevation changes
    - mbfg 8y ago
      Really? an acre is quite small. i find it hard to believe that a team of oxen can't do much more.
nikanj 8y ago
Metric recipes are quite easy to scale too. 8 desiliters / 3=2.6 desiliters, not 7.2 arbitrary units. People often point to that decimal portion and say it makes metric impossibly hard, but to anyone used to the system, it reads “‘bout half”. Most home measurement problems are not super exact science.

JackFr 8y ago

>Up to about a yard, divisibility for imperial distances is pretty good, but you're absolutely right that past yards, it doesn't make much sense. Seems to work well with miles miles ft 1/10 528 1/11 480 1/12 440 1/15 352 1/16 330 1/20 264 1/22 240 1/24 220 1/30 176 1/32 165 1/40 132 miles yds 1/2 880 1/4 440 1/5 352 1/8 220 1/10 176 1/11 160 1/16 110 1/20 88

jerf 8y ago
One of the problems here is that given that our "home" numeric base is 2 times 5, we just aren't going to get both convenient unit conversion via moving the decimal point (or appropriate term in base of choice) and convenient divisibility. So I suppose if metric just isn't signal-y enough for you (in the general sense of "you", not JackFr), you can join the call for the world to convert to duodecimal: http://www.dozenal.org/ http://www.dozenal.org/
- JackFr 8y ago
  That's tremendous -- never knew such an organization existed.
  - ChristianBundy 8y ago
    It's surprisingly easy once you get the hang of it. I started counting in dozenal for fun, and now when I think "7, 8, 9" my brain finishes the series with "X, E, 19". It's not common enough to use with other people, but I use dozenal in my personal projects and journal whenever possible.
- gowld 8y ago
  This problem will solve itself when we apply appropriate sexual selective pressure to evolve 6-digit hands and feet.
  - jerf 8y ago
    "Hey honey, this is going to sound weird, but hear me out..."

mannykannot 8y ago

In a way, there are parallels with a type system. Yards, a measure taken from a human limb, are for fabric, furlongs are for arable land, and miles (a thousand paces) for roads. Prior to the need for exercises in teaching arithmetic to the masses, it might have seemed rather pointless (if not exactly a type error) to express the measurement of one thing in the units for another.

TremendousJudge 8y ago
In fact, land wasn't really measured in units of area as much as it was measured in units of productivity (ie bushels), which was much more useful to know
- vram22 8y ago
  And distances (on land and maybe sea too) were long ago measured in interesting units like maybe an arrow shot (distance an arrow can travel) and such like (from my memory of reading legends as a kid, both Indian and probably Western or other ones) :) E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yojana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yojana
- InitialLastName 8y ago
  An acre (which is still used in the US for land measurement) is roughly the amount of land a team of oxen can plough in a day.
  - TremendousJudge 8y ago
    And a league is the distance a person can walk in an hour. The actual distance doesn't actually matter; two places can be 5 leagues away and be at different distances. However, it'll take you 5 hours to get to any of them, be it because different quality roads or elevation changes
  - mbfg 8y ago
    Really? an acre is quite small. i find it hard to believe that a team of oxen can't do much more.

nikanj 8y ago

Metric recipes are quite easy to scale too. 8 desiliters / 3=2.6 desiliters, not 7.2 arbitrary units. People often point to that decimal portion and say it makes metric impossibly hard, but to anyone used to the system, it reads “‘bout half”. Most home measurement problems are not super exact science.