5 ms·
Units are units, they're fungible and convertible by nature. As an engineer in the US, I can assure you that there are cases where Metric units are handier, an
by dublin 5y ago
Units are units, they're fungible and convertible by nature. As an engineer in the US, I can assure you that there are cases where Metric units are handier, and other cases where Standard/English units are handier. It's not at all a bad thing to be bilingual in units, and the Petroleum and Aerospace industries are still largely based on Standard units. (As are pixel densities, most PCB traces/pads, and the like...) I design most things in Standard units, since metric hardware is expensive and hard to get unless you buy CheapChineseShit.)
A good example of Standard units being easier is machined parts, where 0.001" (a thousandth of an inch) is a much more useful size in the real world than a tenth (too coarse) or a hundredth (too small) of a millimeter. (It also helps that a cigarette packet wrapper is exactly .001", so you just need to find the nearest smoker (harder to find than it used to be) for a quick and dirty clearance gage....)
I'd also argue that Fahrenheit degrees are markedly superior on a human scale - I've had European cars that use Celsius to run the automatic AC (even if they lie and display F), and since they're nearly twice as big, you wind up fiddling with setpoints much more than you do with a Deg F setpoint: the Celsius/Centigrade degree is just too large to really dial in on human comfort. That said, I find metric Temperature the be the thing that's hardest to develop a "feel" for, outside the usual room temp ranges. I know polyimide cures at 600F, but have to work out what the Hell that is in Celsius...
But as I said, be "bilingual" and it's not much of an issue at all.
- Doxin 5y agoRe AC dealing with degrees Celsius: I have yet to find a thermostat of any kind that works in Celsius but does not allow half-steps. I'm sure they exist but then the problem is more lazy design than the units used. In general I don't mind much the difference between metric and imperial except for how poorly the different imperial units interact. I don't think there's many people that can tell you from the top of their head how many gallons are in a cubic foot. Looking it up it's some awful repeating fraction. Try the same in metric and it's much easier: One cubic decimeter is exactly one liter. A cubic meter therefore contains one thousand gallons.