8 ms·

Seems like a positive change. But somehow (perplexingly) we still use inches, feet and miles in a major part of the world.

by anonu 7y ago

Swizec 7y ago
Funfact: US customary units are metric by definition. Everything is in grams and meters and liters, it’s just using weird numbers so it roughly fits with customary units roundedly. The switch happened in 1893 according to wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_unit...
Someone1234 7y ago
Except in science. Where the inconsistency itself can cause problems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_... I have no idea how you'd convince a large country to convert to SI aside from just forcing it. There are quantifiable upsides (consistency, conversion, not needing two sets of tools, etc) but momentum is hard to overcome. Interestingly Metric is "the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce" according to the 1975 Metric Conversion Act[0]. But it had no teeth, so everyone just continued using US Customary Units. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act
- atonse 7y ago
  Yup this is what I always tell people – in the US, all science is taught in Metric. (at least in my schooling in the DC area). All physics, chemistry, etc units were in metric. So where it truly makes a difference, it seems to all be metric. That's why I'm always surprised when I read a story about some scientific endeavor in the US that didn't use metric.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  The US uses some metric units for some liquids (e.g. a 2 liter of soda). For me a big stumbling block is cooking; I like using volume units for cooking, but metric recipes tend to use weight.
  - simias 7y ago
    Don't you think that weight (or, pedantically, mass) generally makes more sense for many ingredients? 100g of flour is a well-defined quantity, one cup of flour can vary significantly depending on how tightly packed the flour is.
    - galaxyLogic 7y ago
      Why not use liters?
    - bobthepanda 7y ago
      The packing is mostly a function of how you yourself put the flour into the cup/how it was handled and stored before I got to my house. In practice there's not much variation of this sort. And you still want to taste and adjust as needed, so I don't think you would really need to-the-gram precision since there are so many factors like humidity that can impact how much of an ingredient you should use anyways.
- lopmotr 7y ago
  I think the way it'll happen is by America's loss of manufacturing. That's a big user of units and it's declining. Imported stuff is going to be more and more often metric unless it was also designed in America. So people are going to encounter it more and more. At some point, there might be a price penalty for specifying the less common imperial threads and material thicknesses on Chinese made parts so American designers in competitive industries might start preferring metric. But it might never go away from daily life. The Chinese still use "jin" as a unit of weight/mass. The communists unified the customary definitions to be exactly 0.5 kg, but even they weren't powerful enough to force everybody to use kg directly. If a communist dictatorship is too weak, there's no hope for a democratic government!
ragebol 7y ago
AFAIK imperial units are defined in terms of SI units.
- theandrewbailey 7y ago
  Since 1959: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_yard_and_pound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_yard_and_pound > The agreement defined the yard as exactly 0.9144 meters and the pound as exactly 0.45359237 kilograms.
intothev01d 7y ago
Probably something to do with this type of propaganda... https://www.reddit.com/r/cringe/comments/bxugvv/a_fox_news_segment_against_the_metric_system/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cringe/comments/bxugvv/a_fox_news_s...
kzrdude 7y ago
Customs stick around for a long time, but I think metric will gradually find its way in, it will just take generations. When I for example look into discussions about hiking and outdoor life right now, there is a mix of units being used conventionally - US customary and metric depending on what quantity is being measured. And this is a good thing, it mean the metric units are creeping in, and some people are getting used to them. Even if it's not a full conversion. If I'm placing bets, the liter will be the metric unit to take over next in the USA (winning out over gallon and fl. oz), maybe just because the gallon has a good size, not too small or too large - stuff you buy liquid is often around 0.5 - 2 liters.
- firethief 7y ago
  I'd bet a Troy ounce of feathers we just end up dual-stack forever.
- galaxyLogic 7y ago
  What will make the change easier is smartphones, smart-phone measuring stick can tell you cm. I haven't seen one but I assume a smartphone could also be used to measure weight?
macawfish 7y ago
Base-12 is a wonderful number system. 12 is divisible 2,3,4 and 6. What's 10 divisible by? 2 and 5. In an ideal society, maybe they'd use a kind of metric base-12 system. That'd offer the best of both inches/feet and the simplicity of the metric system's scaling.
- Aardwolf 7y ago
  Base-16 would've been more useful imho, from a computer science perspective :) What does one need fractions for actually? You can measure with digits behind the point. I find 3.5 and 4.6 easier to compare then 7/2 and 23/5.
  - macawfish 7y ago
    Now that you mention it, I suppose one of my favorite things about inches are their base-2 subdivisions (e.g. 16ths). The orders of magnitude aren't nearly as drastic as with base 10. They're much more intuitive and easier to estimate visually. Fractions are great for mental math, especially division, in situations where you might be working with wood for example. 6 months of carpentry made me appreciate feet and inches in a new way.
- XCSme 7y ago
  You have (probably) 10 fingers, thus base 10.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - jhasse 7y ago
    wouldnt base 11 make more sense then?
  - Grue3 7y ago
    If you ignore the thumbs, each finger has 3 subsections, so in total you have 12 "slots" on your hand. And you can use them to count with the spare thumb. It's even more convenient than counting on fingers because you're only using one hand, and the other one is free!
atonse 7y ago
My argument is mostly for things like day-to-day practical measurements, there's no difference between the two units, so it doesn't affect people. Temperature – absolutely no difference in _practicality_ in communicating about the daily weather in C or F. People that claim otherwise are usually just arguing for the system they grew up with. Weight – no difference in measuring most larger weights in pounds vs kgs. (weighing people, furniture, cars, trucks, comparing the weight of laptops, etc) Distance – Whether DC to NY is 220 miles or 352 kilometers makes no difference. In most daily use, the differences in units probably don't make any difference to most people, which is why the cost of switching (so that it looks good on paper) just hasn't caught on. However, in the sciences, in cooking, areas where you need precise measurements, grams, KG, etc all give you nicer units to work with. When measuring things for DIY and home improvement, God, I wish I could do everything in meters and centimeters than 1/8 or 1/6 of an inch (mainly for doing calculations). And when cooking, I cringe with "cups" and "tbsp" – I wish it were all grams and ml.
- theandrewbailey 7y ago
  > And when cooking, I cringe with "cups" and "tbsp" – I wish it were all grams and ml. "tsp", that's tablespoons, right? Teaspoons? Argh!
  - oarabbus_ 7y ago
    Tsp is teaspoon; tb/tbl/tbsp is tablespoon
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      tsp (or just t) is teaspoon, Tbsp (or TB, Tbl, or just T) is tablespoon. The little one has a little t, the big one has a big T.
- XCSme 7y ago
  Temperature - at what temperature does the water freeze? 0C, 32F. At what temperature does the water boil? 100C, 212F. Which ones are easier to remember on a day-to-day basis? Weight, Distance - conversion is a lot easier in the metric system You just mentioned that there were no differences, than why would you use units which have strange relations between each other instead of units that are easy to remember, easy to convert are based on math instead of historical/common knowledge?
kasperni 7y ago
I think it depends on how you define major part... Burma, Liberia, and the US are the only countries in the world that have not adopted the International System of Units
outadoc 7y ago
"Major", i.e. three countries in the world.
Dirlewanger 7y ago
In many private industries where it matters in the US, they've switched over to metric/are increasingly moving over to it/using it side-by-side with imperial units. The biggest hurdles are all levels of government and the massive cost of converting all measurements over to metric. And given how much we already neglect public infrastructure, I don't see changing to metric units happening any time in the next several decades.
stan_rogers 7y ago
When you get right down to it, it's still just arbitrary stuff that amounts yo "about yay long", "about yay heavy", and so forth... but with a means of describing what we mean to people (or whatever they choose to call themselves) who aren't present and have no access to an official artifact. The metre is about a cloth yard (a very old "standard") with an excuse (one ten-millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator through the Paris meridian... or thereabouts; we should really work on a better way of defining that at some point), the litre is close enough to a compromise quart, which can be sort of defended by monkeying with the metre (hey, a decimetre's about a hand, right? Clever of us to have thought of that), and the kilogram's a bit too big and the gram's a bit too small, but you can't get 'em all right all of the time. Defining them all in a way that doesn't rely on artifacts and/or special moments in time is a good idea, but it doesn't make them any less arbitrary. There is nothing fundamentally more scientific about SI.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lysp 7y ago
> in a major part of the world http://blog.sciencescore.com/blogss_uploads/All-about-Metric-conversion.jpg http://blog.sciencescore.com/blogss_uploads/All-about-Metric... Imperial: USA, Canada, UK, India. Metric: The rest (190~ other countries).
- anticensor 7y ago
  Imperial: USA, Liberia Burmese: Myanmar Metric: ~200 other

Seems like a positive change. But somehow (perplexingly) we still use inches, feet and miles in a major part of the world.

by anonu 7y ago

Seems like a positive change. But somehow (perplexingly) we still use inches, feet and miles in a major part of the world.

Swizec 7y ago

Funfact: US customary units are metric by definition. Everything is in grams and meters and liters, it’s just using weird numbers so it roughly fits with customary units roundedly. The switch happened in 1893 according to wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_unit...

Someone1234 7y ago

Except in science. Where the inconsistency itself can cause problems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_... I have no idea how you'd convince a large country to convert to SI aside from just forcing it. There are quantifiable upsides (consistency, conversion, not needing two sets of tools, etc) but momentum is hard to overcome. Interestingly Metric is "the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce" according to the 1975 Metric Conversion Act[0]. But it had no teeth, so everyone just continued using US Customary Units. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act

atonse 7y ago
Yup this is what I always tell people – in the US, all science is taught in Metric. (at least in my schooling in the DC area). All physics, chemistry, etc units were in metric. So where it truly makes a difference, it seems to all be metric. That's why I'm always surprised when I read a story about some scientific endeavor in the US that didn't use metric.
bobthepanda 7y ago
The US uses some metric units for some liquids (e.g. a 2 liter of soda). For me a big stumbling block is cooking; I like using volume units for cooking, but metric recipes tend to use weight.
- simias 7y ago
  Don't you think that weight (or, pedantically, mass) generally makes more sense for many ingredients? 100g of flour is a well-defined quantity, one cup of flour can vary significantly depending on how tightly packed the flour is.
  - galaxyLogic 7y ago
    Why not use liters?
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    The packing is mostly a function of how you yourself put the flour into the cup/how it was handled and stored before I got to my house. In practice there's not much variation of this sort. And you still want to taste and adjust as needed, so I don't think you would really need to-the-gram precision since there are so many factors like humidity that can impact how much of an ingredient you should use anyways.
lopmotr 7y ago
I think the way it'll happen is by America's loss of manufacturing. That's a big user of units and it's declining. Imported stuff is going to be more and more often metric unless it was also designed in America. So people are going to encounter it more and more. At some point, there might be a price penalty for specifying the less common imperial threads and material thicknesses on Chinese made parts so American designers in competitive industries might start preferring metric. But it might never go away from daily life. The Chinese still use "jin" as a unit of weight/mass. The communists unified the customary definitions to be exactly 0.5 kg, but even they weren't powerful enough to force everybody to use kg directly. If a communist dictatorship is too weak, there's no hope for a democratic government!

ragebol 7y ago

AFAIK imperial units are defined in terms of SI units.

theandrewbailey 7y ago
Since 1959: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_yard_and_pound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_yard_and_pound > The agreement defined the yard as exactly 0.9144 meters and the pound as exactly 0.45359237 kilograms.

intothev01d 7y ago

Probably something to do with this type of propaganda... https://www.reddit.com/r/cringe/comments/bxugvv/a_fox_news_segment_against_the_metric_system/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cringe/comments/bxugvv/a_fox_news_s...

kzrdude 7y ago

Customs stick around for a long time, but I think metric will gradually find its way in, it will just take generations. When I for example look into discussions about hiking and outdoor life right now, there is a mix of units being used conventionally - US customary and metric depending on what quantity is being measured. And this is a good thing, it mean the metric units are creeping in, and some people are getting used to them. Even if it's not a full conversion. If I'm placing bets, the liter will be the metric unit to take over next in the USA (winning out over gallon and fl. oz), maybe just because the gallon has a good size, not too small or too large - stuff you buy liquid is often around 0.5 - 2 liters.

firethief 7y ago
I'd bet a Troy ounce of feathers we just end up dual-stack forever.
galaxyLogic 7y ago
What will make the change easier is smartphones, smart-phone measuring stick can tell you cm. I haven't seen one but I assume a smartphone could also be used to measure weight?

macawfish 7y ago

Base-12 is a wonderful number system. 12 is divisible 2,3,4 and 6. What's 10 divisible by? 2 and 5. In an ideal society, maybe they'd use a kind of metric base-12 system. That'd offer the best of both inches/feet and the simplicity of the metric system's scaling.

Aardwolf 7y ago
Base-16 would've been more useful imho, from a computer science perspective :) What does one need fractions for actually? You can measure with digits behind the point. I find 3.5 and 4.6 easier to compare then 7/2 and 23/5.
- macawfish 7y ago
  Now that you mention it, I suppose one of my favorite things about inches are their base-2 subdivisions (e.g. 16ths). The orders of magnitude aren't nearly as drastic as with base 10. They're much more intuitive and easier to estimate visually. Fractions are great for mental math, especially division, in situations where you might be working with wood for example. 6 months of carpentry made me appreciate feet and inches in a new way.
XCSme 7y ago
You have (probably) 10 fingers, thus base 10.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jhasse 7y ago
  wouldnt base 11 make more sense then?
- Grue3 7y ago
  If you ignore the thumbs, each finger has 3 subsections, so in total you have 12 "slots" on your hand. And you can use them to count with the spare thumb. It's even more convenient than counting on fingers because you're only using one hand, and the other one is free!

atonse 7y ago

My argument is mostly for things like day-to-day practical measurements, there's no difference between the two units, so it doesn't affect people. Temperature – absolutely no difference in _practicality_ in communicating about the daily weather in C or F. People that claim otherwise are usually just arguing for the system they grew up with. Weight – no difference in measuring most larger weights in pounds vs kgs. (weighing people, furniture, cars, trucks, comparing the weight of laptops, etc) Distance – Whether DC to NY is 220 miles or 352 kilometers makes no difference. In most daily use, the differences in units probably don't make any difference to most people, which is why the cost of switching (so that it looks good on paper) just hasn't caught on. However, in the sciences, in cooking, areas where you need precise measurements, grams, KG, etc all give you nicer units to work with. When measuring things for DIY and home improvement, God, I wish I could do everything in meters and centimeters than 1/8 or 1/6 of an inch (mainly for doing calculations). And when cooking, I cringe with "cups" and "tbsp" – I wish it were all grams and ml.

theandrewbailey 7y ago
> And when cooking, I cringe with "cups" and "tbsp" – I wish it were all grams and ml. "tsp", that's tablespoons, right? Teaspoons? Argh!
- oarabbus_ 7y ago
  Tsp is teaspoon; tb/tbl/tbsp is tablespoon
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    tsp (or just t) is teaspoon, Tbsp (or TB, Tbl, or just T) is tablespoon. The little one has a little t, the big one has a big T.
XCSme 7y ago
Temperature - at what temperature does the water freeze? 0C, 32F. At what temperature does the water boil? 100C, 212F. Which ones are easier to remember on a day-to-day basis? Weight, Distance - conversion is a lot easier in the metric system You just mentioned that there were no differences, than why would you use units which have strange relations between each other instead of units that are easy to remember, easy to convert are based on math instead of historical/common knowledge?

kasperni 7y ago

I think it depends on how you define major part... Burma, Liberia, and the US are the only countries in the world that have not adopted the International System of Units

outadoc 7y ago

"Major", i.e. three countries in the world.

Dirlewanger 7y ago

In many private industries where it matters in the US, they've switched over to metric/are increasingly moving over to it/using it side-by-side with imperial units. The biggest hurdles are all levels of government and the massive cost of converting all measurements over to metric. And given how much we already neglect public infrastructure, I don't see changing to metric units happening any time in the next several decades.

stan_rogers 7y ago

When you get right down to it, it's still just arbitrary stuff that amounts yo "about yay long", "about yay heavy", and so forth... but with a means of describing what we mean to people (or whatever they choose to call themselves) who aren't present and have no access to an official artifact. The metre is about a cloth yard (a very old "standard") with an excuse (one ten-millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator through the Paris meridian... or thereabouts; we should really work on a better way of defining that at some point), the litre is close enough to a compromise quart, which can be sort of defended by monkeying with the metre (hey, a decimetre's about a hand, right? Clever of us to have thought of that), and the kilogram's a bit too big and the gram's a bit too small, but you can't get 'em all right all of the time. Defining them all in a way that doesn't rely on artifacts and/or special moments in time is a good idea, but it doesn't make them any less arbitrary. There is nothing fundamentally more scientific about SI.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lysp 7y ago

> in a major part of the world http://blog.sciencescore.com/blogss_uploads/All-about-Metric-conversion.jpg http://blog.sciencescore.com/blogss_uploads/All-about-Metric... Imperial: USA, Canada, UK, India. Metric: The rest (190~ other countries).

anticensor 7y ago
Imperial: USA, Liberia Burmese: Myanmar Metric: ~200 other