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People talk about the Metric system, but if we didn't have 10 fingers and if we went with a Base 12 system from the dawn of time, we would have something much b

People talk about the Metric system, but if we didn't have 10 fingers and if we went with a Base 12 system from the dawn of time, we would have something much better than the Metric system. The duodecimal system is unique to the fact that the number 12 has more divisible factors than anything else that's manageable to count. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal Inches/Feet are based on Duodecimal system, but since we use Arabic numerals (base 10), it's obvious why inches/feet aren't the way to go and why Metric system wins. There are still things that the rest of the world use Base 12 for - hours/minutes/seconds, 360 degrees, point font units, etc. The reason why America hasn't adopted Metric system despite of it being the official system in the law is the same reason why the rest of the world hasn't gotten around to changing time/degrees into a decimal equivalent. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to turn the ship, the US being a giant ship to turn. America also leads in determining standards for Metric system around the world - NIST with collaboration from European counterparts work together to establish these standards. Universities in US, semiconductor industry, medical industry, etc. use metric units. Engineers in the US know and use the metric system. If we didn't have Arabic numerals in Base 10, the American system is better :) * But since we are all stuck with arabic numerals, the Metric system is better! Edit: * I realized that its not that simple. Conceding this point, see responses. I was under the impression that most US units were consistent with base 12, but they're not - 1 lb = 16 oz (not 12) for example. A base 12 metric system would be ideal.

spullara 6y ago
The metric system reminds of engineers doing UX.
- dirktheman 6y ago
  Imperial system reminds of UX people doing engineering. With one system you actually get a working program, guess which one...
  - anticensor 6y ago
    metric
GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
I agree that 10 as the base is suboptimal, however everyone using the same base has great network effects. That’s what the other 190-ish countries are annoyed about
- fermienrico 6y ago
  The thing is, the US tried to adopt the Metric system but with number of failures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Stat... Smaller nations have no problem changing everything. The marginal benefit is too small for a giant to turn on a dime. A lot of things in US are already both ANSI/Metric: - Electronics and PCB manufacturing (accepts both, but its a bit messy). Headers are 0.1" but BGA pitch is 0.4mm for example. - Hardware stores have both standard and metric sizes for fasteners - Liquids (both oz/ml has to be printed by law) - Car speed gauges (both mph/kph printed by law) - Food items are all metric. A Coke can has 42 grams of sugar. There is no oz printed in nutrition labels. It's kind of a hybrid system. However, there are exceptions for the follow which are still stuck: - Temperature, weather is always in Fahrenheit. Even in recipes. - Paper sizes are not adopted to ISO standards. - Pressure is almost always in psi
  - msla 6y ago
    > Smaller nations have no problem changing everything. And some smaller nations (the UK, for example) have never changed "everything" and likely never will.
    - mjevans 6y ago
      In about 4 months the UK is scheduled to leave the EU. Probably some portion hope to revert completely when they do. Probably some portion hope that they rejoin the EU with another vote; and in the process get dragged the rest of the way to the engineering age measurements in the process.
      - msla 6y ago
axaxs 6y ago
Metric makes sense in science, sure. But our system makes more sense to humans. A gallon of gas is easier than 3.8 liters. A pint of beer is easier than its metric equivalent. As a gearhead, I absolutely hate the metric/standard difference. But if metric wants to take over the world, I feel they need more human submeasurements.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  That doesn't make sense. A liter is better to imagine than a gallon (which is a huge jug). A pint of beer is same as saying 500ml of beer - both are equally easy to grasp.
  - axaxs 6y ago
    Beer pouring is inexact. 500 ML is never 500ML. A system based on halfs is inexact but more accurate.
    - ascorbic 6y ago
      Have half a litre then. Speaking as someone from the only country that legally mandates beer in both pints (on draught) and metric (in bottles), I prefer a (UK, 20oz) pint if I'm drinking, because it's larger and I'm thirsty. For every other reason though litres are easier to reason about. The US 16 oz pint doesn't even have the benefit of being larger!
      - fanf2 6y ago
        But usually in British pubs, beer is served in glasses that are a pint up to the brim, so if you are served beer with any head at all it’s probably closer to half a litre than a pint.
    - atomlib 6y ago
      It's physically impossible to measure exactly 500.(0) mL [500.0000000000… mL with infinite number of zeroes] of any liquid with absolute accuracy. It's just the law of metrology. There always will be an error, you will always be able to create better tools to add extra decimal places to your measurement and find more error. The question is how much of error you can tolerate in any given situation. The error has nothing to do with units of measurements chosen. You cannot measure exactly 1.(0) gallon [1.0000000000… gallon with infinite number of zeroes] of liquid with absolute accuracy either. In engineering this would be resolved with something like 500 ± 10 mL. In consumer goods there are either regulations or you get, say, 505 mL so you have nothing to complain about. And you would never be able to tell the difference. By the way, ML is megaliter. Milliliter is mL.
xenocyon 6y ago
What's special in the rest of the world isn't just a metric system, it is one particular metric system: the SI system (also sometimes called the MKS system, for meter-kilogram-second). The SI system guarantees not only that we have nice multiples of powers of ten, but also that all scientific units are easily convertible to each other. This, for example, enables the fact that one ohm times one farad is exactly one second! That's why, for instance, you may have heard that NASA (or most any other scientific org in America) uses the so-called "metric system", again specifically meaning SI units. (There does in fact exist an arcane scientific system based on the foot-pound-second, but nobody - not even Americans - uses it.)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Ekaros 6y ago
  That is exactly what makes system so powerful. Ease of conversion between units and use in physics and engineering. Only thing I hate about system is kilogram... The French... Couldn't do it properly. I really wish we would use grav instead...
boomboomsubban 6y ago
>If we didn't have Arabic numerals in Base 10, the American system is better While I'll agree that a base 12 system would be better, the American system would still be a bizarre hodgepodge. Let's look at distance. First, a thou, or a thousandth of an inch. Breaking everything there. Then twelve inches to a foot, where things work. Then three feet to a yard? Twenty two yards to a chain, ten chains to a furlong and finally eight furlong to a mile. And if you're wondering, yes I had to look up everything besides inch, foot, yard, and mile.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  Haha yeah, same with temperature - Fahrenheit would still be a weird thing.
  - gwd 6y ago
    I dunno -- 0F is about as cold as 99% of humans will ever experince, and 100F is about as hot as most humans will ever experience. And a change in temperature of 1F is just about the minimum I can really detect. With C, sure 0C is cold, but tons of people experience colder on a regular basis; and I've had situations where 20C feels a bit too cold, but 21C feels a bit too warm. Most thermostats denominated in C trigger on half a degree difference, not a full degree.
    - neverminder 6y ago
      Celsius works better with one of the base materials in the world - water. At sea level 0 degrees water freezes and at 100 degrees it boils. For the same reason Celsius works better with metric system. "What feels cold" is not a good base point, because people are different and that feeling also depends on humidity and wind.
      - gwd 6y ago
        The GP didn't say any of that; they simply said Fahrenheit was "weird". I disagree; Fahrenheit simply human-centric, and once you get used to it, is a lot more practical for day-to-day human experience than celsius. You're pointing out how useful it is when doing science with water. Sure. And since science is important, and it doesn't make much sense to keep two systems around, then yeah, let's go with celsius as the standard. But let's not lose sight fo the fact that we actually are giving up a more human-focused system when we gain this scientifically-focused system.
tsimionescu 6y ago
If the American units were 'metric in base 12', there would be a lot more arguments for keeping them. But they really aren't - the units have no well-thought-out relationships to each other, they are just an amalgamation of different historical decisions, often taken in isolation. Inches to feet to furlongs to miles have one set of arbitrary conversions, while ounces to pounds to tons has entirely different conversions. But contrast, a metric system in base 12 should still keep the niceties of the metric system - units of volume should correspond to units lengths of the side of a cube, units of weight should correspond to units of volume of water etc. And there should be a single rule for conversions, with standardized names for sub divisions. These are the things that make the metric system superior, not its being in base 10. And these advantages far outweigh the advantage of being able to divide a sixth of a foot in a whole number of inches - particularly in the era where we carry arbitrary precision calculators in our pockets.
thinkloop 6y ago
What's a concrete eli5 example of how a base 12 system would be a benefit? The number 12 still exists. The base just dictates when the order of magnitude changes, so larger numbers can be represented with slightly fewer digits, but I don't see much more. Am I missing something?
- neilpanchal 6y ago
  If the numeric system was 0123456789AB and 10 (would be 12 in decimal), then 10 would have 2, 3, 4, 6 whole number fractions. 10/2 = 6 10/3 = 4 10/4 = 3 10/6 = 2 That's two more whole number fractions than 10 (decimal) which is only divisible by 2 and 5.
  - mjevans 6y ago
    Meanwhile, the benefit of a system like metric is decimals rather than fractions. It is trivial to change the resolution of a measure or number. E.G. The speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second. The speed of light is 299,792.458 KM per second. The speed of light is about 300 M meters per second.
    - neilpanchal 6y ago
      That’s not true. You can have decimals for any base. 10/5 in Base 12 is 2.49724972497... Or binary (Base 2) 1011/101 = 10.0011001100... Duodecimal metric system would have the same features that you’re talking about (which have nothing to do with the base).
imtringued 6y ago
Even Americans use decimal based systems in engineering. A lot of measurements are defined in thousands of an inch. Why didn't they go with a "superior" system with more divisible factors? The reality is that metric is a standardizing measurement. There is one base unit, changes in scale merely involve a factor denoted by a prefix, it doesn't try to be smarter than absolutely necessary and just sticks to decimal.

spullara 6y ago

The metric system reminds of engineers doing UX.

dirktheman 6y ago
Imperial system reminds of UX people doing engineering. With one system you actually get a working program, guess which one...
- anticensor 6y ago
  metric

GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago

I agree that 10 as the base is suboptimal, however everyone using the same base has great network effects. That’s what the other 190-ish countries are annoyed about

fermienrico 6y ago
The thing is, the US tried to adopt the Metric system but with number of failures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Stat... Smaller nations have no problem changing everything. The marginal benefit is too small for a giant to turn on a dime. A lot of things in US are already both ANSI/Metric: - Electronics and PCB manufacturing (accepts both, but its a bit messy). Headers are 0.1" but BGA pitch is 0.4mm for example. - Hardware stores have both standard and metric sizes for fasteners - Liquids (both oz/ml has to be printed by law) - Car speed gauges (both mph/kph printed by law) - Food items are all metric. A Coke can has 42 grams of sugar. There is no oz printed in nutrition labels. It's kind of a hybrid system. However, there are exceptions for the follow which are still stuck: - Temperature, weather is always in Fahrenheit. Even in recipes. - Paper sizes are not adopted to ISO standards. - Pressure is almost always in psi
- msla 6y ago
  > Smaller nations have no problem changing everything. And some smaller nations (the UK, for example) have never changed "everything" and likely never will.
  - mjevans 6y ago
    In about 4 months the UK is scheduled to leave the EU. Probably some portion hope to revert completely when they do. Probably some portion hope that they rejoin the EU with another vote; and in the process get dragged the rest of the way to the engineering age measurements in the process.
    - msla 6y ago

axaxs 6y ago

Metric makes sense in science, sure. But our system makes more sense to humans. A gallon of gas is easier than 3.8 liters. A pint of beer is easier than its metric equivalent. As a gearhead, I absolutely hate the metric/standard difference. But if metric wants to take over the world, I feel they need more human submeasurements.

fermienrico 6y ago
That doesn't make sense. A liter is better to imagine than a gallon (which is a huge jug). A pint of beer is same as saying 500ml of beer - both are equally easy to grasp.
- axaxs 6y ago
  Beer pouring is inexact. 500 ML is never 500ML. A system based on halfs is inexact but more accurate.
  - ascorbic 6y ago
    Have half a litre then. Speaking as someone from the only country that legally mandates beer in both pints (on draught) and metric (in bottles), I prefer a (UK, 20oz) pint if I'm drinking, because it's larger and I'm thirsty. For every other reason though litres are easier to reason about. The US 16 oz pint doesn't even have the benefit of being larger!
    - fanf2 6y ago
      But usually in British pubs, beer is served in glasses that are a pint up to the brim, so if you are served beer with any head at all it’s probably closer to half a litre than a pint.
  - atomlib 6y ago
    It's physically impossible to measure exactly 500.(0) mL [500.0000000000… mL with infinite number of zeroes] of any liquid with absolute accuracy. It's just the law of metrology. There always will be an error, you will always be able to create better tools to add extra decimal places to your measurement and find more error. The question is how much of error you can tolerate in any given situation. The error has nothing to do with units of measurements chosen. You cannot measure exactly 1.(0) gallon [1.0000000000… gallon with infinite number of zeroes] of liquid with absolute accuracy either. In engineering this would be resolved with something like 500 ± 10 mL. In consumer goods there are either regulations or you get, say, 505 mL so you have nothing to complain about. And you would never be able to tell the difference. By the way, ML is megaliter. Milliliter is mL.

xenocyon 6y ago

What's special in the rest of the world isn't just a metric system, it is one particular metric system: the SI system (also sometimes called the MKS system, for meter-kilogram-second). The SI system guarantees not only that we have nice multiples of powers of ten, but also that all scientific units are easily convertible to each other. This, for example, enables the fact that one ohm times one farad is exactly one second! That's why, for instance, you may have heard that NASA (or most any other scientific org in America) uses the so-called "metric system", again specifically meaning SI units. (There does in fact exist an arcane scientific system based on the foot-pound-second, but nobody - not even Americans - uses it.)

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Ekaros 6y ago
That is exactly what makes system so powerful. Ease of conversion between units and use in physics and engineering. Only thing I hate about system is kilogram... The French... Couldn't do it properly. I really wish we would use grav instead...

boomboomsubban 6y ago

>If we didn't have Arabic numerals in Base 10, the American system is better While I'll agree that a base 12 system would be better, the American system would still be a bizarre hodgepodge. Let's look at distance. First, a thou, or a thousandth of an inch. Breaking everything there. Then twelve inches to a foot, where things work. Then three feet to a yard? Twenty two yards to a chain, ten chains to a furlong and finally eight furlong to a mile. And if you're wondering, yes I had to look up everything besides inch, foot, yard, and mile.

fermienrico 6y ago
Haha yeah, same with temperature - Fahrenheit would still be a weird thing.
- gwd 6y ago
  I dunno -- 0F is about as cold as 99% of humans will ever experince, and 100F is about as hot as most humans will ever experience. And a change in temperature of 1F is just about the minimum I can really detect. With C, sure 0C is cold, but tons of people experience colder on a regular basis; and I've had situations where 20C feels a bit too cold, but 21C feels a bit too warm. Most thermostats denominated in C trigger on half a degree difference, not a full degree.
  - neverminder 6y ago
    Celsius works better with one of the base materials in the world - water. At sea level 0 degrees water freezes and at 100 degrees it boils. For the same reason Celsius works better with metric system. "What feels cold" is not a good base point, because people are different and that feeling also depends on humidity and wind.
    - gwd 6y ago
      The GP didn't say any of that; they simply said Fahrenheit was "weird". I disagree; Fahrenheit simply human-centric, and once you get used to it, is a lot more practical for day-to-day human experience than celsius. You're pointing out how useful it is when doing science with water. Sure. And since science is important, and it doesn't make much sense to keep two systems around, then yeah, let's go with celsius as the standard. But let's not lose sight fo the fact that we actually are giving up a more human-focused system when we gain this scientifically-focused system.

tsimionescu 6y ago

If the American units were 'metric in base 12', there would be a lot more arguments for keeping them. But they really aren't - the units have no well-thought-out relationships to each other, they are just an amalgamation of different historical decisions, often taken in isolation. Inches to feet to furlongs to miles have one set of arbitrary conversions, while ounces to pounds to tons has entirely different conversions. But contrast, a metric system in base 12 should still keep the niceties of the metric system - units of volume should correspond to units lengths of the side of a cube, units of weight should correspond to units of volume of water etc. And there should be a single rule for conversions, with standardized names for sub divisions. These are the things that make the metric system superior, not its being in base 10. And these advantages far outweigh the advantage of being able to divide a sixth of a foot in a whole number of inches - particularly in the era where we carry arbitrary precision calculators in our pockets.

thinkloop 6y ago

What's a concrete eli5 example of how a base 12 system would be a benefit? The number 12 still exists. The base just dictates when the order of magnitude changes, so larger numbers can be represented with slightly fewer digits, but I don't see much more. Am I missing something?

neilpanchal 6y ago
If the numeric system was 0123456789AB and 10 (would be 12 in decimal), then 10 would have 2, 3, 4, 6 whole number fractions. 10/2 = 6 10/3 = 4 10/4 = 3 10/6 = 2 That's two more whole number fractions than 10 (decimal) which is only divisible by 2 and 5.
- mjevans 6y ago
  Meanwhile, the benefit of a system like metric is decimals rather than fractions. It is trivial to change the resolution of a measure or number. E.G. The speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second. The speed of light is 299,792.458 KM per second. The speed of light is about 300 M meters per second.
  - neilpanchal 6y ago
    That’s not true. You can have decimals for any base. 10/5 in Base 12 is 2.49724972497... Or binary (Base 2) 1011/101 = 10.0011001100... Duodecimal metric system would have the same features that you’re talking about (which have nothing to do with the base).

imtringued 6y ago

Even Americans use decimal based systems in engineering. A lot of measurements are defined in thousands of an inch. Why didn't they go with a "superior" system with more divisible factors? The reality is that metric is a standardizing measurement. There is one base unit, changes in scale merely involve a factor denoted by a prefix, it doesn't try to be smarter than absolutely necessary and just sticks to decimal.