3 ms·

...I am still baffled by the continued existence of the legacy systems of units. Every single other country (well, except the rest of the British Commonwealth,

...I am still baffled by the continued existence of the legacy systems of units. Every single other country (well, except the rest of the British Commonwealth, and the US, I guess) managed to switch to SI without crippling their economies. Nope, our situation is unique, no can do. Yes, I get it that it's expensive and laborious but unless the UK economy shrinks to 10% of what it is now, it's not going to become cheaper and easier, it'll only become more and more expensive. As the saying goes, "the best time to plant a fruit tree was 20 years ago; the second best time is right now".

prewett 5y ago
For me it's not an economic thing, it's that the metric units aren't that useful for everyday things. Sure, converting between them is easy, but there aren't centimeter sized things, meter sized things that I use every day. There are a bunch of things in integral sizes of inches and feet, though. And 1 cup is a lot easier measurement for cooking than 235 mL. The SI units are arbitrary divisions of arbitrary quantities (size of the earth, etc.) There's nothing that makes them inherently better, just that they are computationally easier. Since science uses quantities with no connection to everyday sizes, this is an advantage, but it's not an advantage for daily life. That said, I assume this is just the UK wanting to distance itself from Europe. Basically a continuation of the impulse that lead to Brexit.
- Normille 5y ago
  >And 1 cup is a lot easier measurement for cooking than 235 ml... Really? What size cup is that... a tiny dainty bone china teacup?... big ceramic builder's mug? While we're at it, we might as well bring back spans and cubits. After all, everyone's hands are the same width and everyone's arms the same length </sarcasm>
- avian 5y ago
  > And 1 cup is a lot easier measurement for cooking than 235 mL. On the other hand, 2 dcl is a lot easier measurement for cooking than 0.704 cups.
- Joker_vD 5y ago
  235 mL? What is even that? A standard glass [0] is 200 mL if filled up until the lower rim, 250 mL if filled to the brim. And I assure you, if milk is sold in 1 L bottles, flour in 500 g/1 kg packs, butter in 200 g packs, etc. then the sizes of things absolutely do start to be proportional to each other. Oh, and by the way, the width of my palm is precisely 10 cm, it's very handy (heh). [0] https://i.imgur.com/LK3RrYu.jpg https://i.imgur.com/LK3RrYu.jpg
- rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
  The SI units are not arbitrary quantities -- they are all physically derived quantities from water. For example, 1L of water weighs 1kg and and takes up 1000cc. Its density is 1000 kg/m^3. Simple. 235mL is just as easy to measure as 1 cup or 0.000992063492063492 Hogshead, you use your measuring cup. They are absolutely inherently better! They are an advantage in daily life. This is a very retrograde move. Imperial units are absurd and make calculations more difficult / less accurate. Edit: The Kg is arbitrary (you need a single arbitrary base), but everything else is derived from physical phenomena, including seconds: "The second is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the cesium frequency ∆Cs, the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the cesium 133 atom, to be 9,192,631,770 when expressed in the unit Hz, which is equal to s^–1."
  - xyzzy21 5y ago
    SI units ARE arbitrary in the context of humans. A foot is derived from a physical size of human feet. So the size of the units is human-scaled in ways that SI never are. That said, in engineering school we never used imperial, only SI. And it was far easier. But that's not the general public. Related to this: Fahrenheit: Human-scaled temperature Celsius: Water-scaled temperature Kelvin: Atom-scaled temperature
  - rb12345 5y ago
    Even the kilogram is defined via physical constants these days (https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/41483022/SI-Brochure-9.pdf/fcf090b2-04e6-88cc-1149-c3e029ad8232 https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/41483022/SI-Brochure-9...., pages 21 and 205 in the PDF).
fileoffset 5y ago
Actually, much of the British Commonwealth is fully metric, Australia for example.

prewett 5y ago

For me it's not an economic thing, it's that the metric units aren't that useful for everyday things. Sure, converting between them is easy, but there aren't centimeter sized things, meter sized things that I use every day. There are a bunch of things in integral sizes of inches and feet, though. And 1 cup is a lot easier measurement for cooking than 235 mL. The SI units are arbitrary divisions of arbitrary quantities (size of the earth, etc.) There's nothing that makes them inherently better, just that they are computationally easier. Since science uses quantities with no connection to everyday sizes, this is an advantage, but it's not an advantage for daily life. That said, I assume this is just the UK wanting to distance itself from Europe. Basically a continuation of the impulse that lead to Brexit.

Normille 5y ago
>And 1 cup is a lot easier measurement for cooking than 235 ml... Really? What size cup is that... a tiny dainty bone china teacup?... big ceramic builder's mug? While we're at it, we might as well bring back spans and cubits. After all, everyone's hands are the same width and everyone's arms the same length </sarcasm>
avian 5y ago
> And 1 cup is a lot easier measurement for cooking than 235 mL. On the other hand, 2 dcl is a lot easier measurement for cooking than 0.704 cups.
Joker_vD 5y ago
235 mL? What is even that? A standard glass [0] is 200 mL if filled up until the lower rim, 250 mL if filled to the brim. And I assure you, if milk is sold in 1 L bottles, flour in 500 g/1 kg packs, butter in 200 g packs, etc. then the sizes of things absolutely do start to be proportional to each other. Oh, and by the way, the width of my palm is precisely 10 cm, it's very handy (heh). [0] https://i.imgur.com/LK3RrYu.jpg https://i.imgur.com/LK3RrYu.jpg
rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
The SI units are not arbitrary quantities -- they are all physically derived quantities from water. For example, 1L of water weighs 1kg and and takes up 1000cc. Its density is 1000 kg/m^3. Simple. 235mL is just as easy to measure as 1 cup or 0.000992063492063492 Hogshead, you use your measuring cup. They are absolutely inherently better! They are an advantage in daily life. This is a very retrograde move. Imperial units are absurd and make calculations more difficult / less accurate. Edit: The Kg is arbitrary (you need a single arbitrary base), but everything else is derived from physical phenomena, including seconds: "The second is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the cesium frequency ∆Cs, the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the cesium 133 atom, to be 9,192,631,770 when expressed in the unit Hz, which is equal to s^–1."
- xyzzy21 5y ago
  SI units ARE arbitrary in the context of humans. A foot is derived from a physical size of human feet. So the size of the units is human-scaled in ways that SI never are. That said, in engineering school we never used imperial, only SI. And it was far easier. But that's not the general public. Related to this: Fahrenheit: Human-scaled temperature Celsius: Water-scaled temperature Kelvin: Atom-scaled temperature
- rb12345 5y ago
  Even the kilogram is defined via physical constants these days (https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/41483022/SI-Brochure-9.pdf/fcf090b2-04e6-88cc-1149-c3e029ad8232 https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/41483022/SI-Brochure-9...., pages 21 and 205 in the PDF).

fileoffset 5y ago

Actually, much of the British Commonwealth is fully metric, Australia for example.