4 ms·

I'm not sure it's hard, is there evidence? Personally I don't think there's any valuable benefit, certainly not worth all the resulting disruption, and wouldn'

I'm not sure it's hard, is there evidence? Personally I don't think there's any valuable benefit, certainly not worth all the resulting disruption, and wouldn't advocate for it for that reason.

mbustamanter 4y ago
Even more, several aviation reports use both. METARs use feet for cloud altitude and meters for visibility.
- mfkp 4y ago
  METARs more commonly use statute miles for visibility (indicated by SM), not meters. But they do use things like Celsius for temperatures, and air pressure in hectopascals instead of inHg.
rybosworld 4y ago
One anecdote in regards to the potential benefits: I've gotten into wood working the last few years and I've found that I'm significantly less likely to make a measurement mistake when I use metric. It seems like nearly all my measurement mistakes are when I did something in imperial. So why don't I use metric all the time? Because materials are usually sold in imperial units.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  I love metric but the binary logarithmic inches subunits are fantastic for imperial with wood: Suppose you have a 30 cm piece and you need to evenly space 5 3.5 cm-wide wood planks on the 30cm piece. The decimal calculation will take you to a resolution you likely can't measure confidently (0.25 mm)
silvestrov 4y ago
One obvious problem: if a US factory has a surplus of drain pipes they cannot export them. US pipes are 1.5 inch = 38.1 mm whereas EU use 40 mm pipes. So US companies cannot export surplus and will need new tooling when they want to export. That makes it much more difficult to expand into international markets.
- humanizersequel 4y ago
  You could just as easily say that the EU will have trouble exporting their surplus drainage pipes.
  - silvestrov 4y ago
    No, rest of world is much more likely to use metric than imperial units. E.g. Japan use metric: https://www.kubota-chemix.co.jp/dcms_media/other/20161226_en_products.pdf https://www.kubota-chemix.co.jp/dcms_media/other/20161226_en...
  - 314 4y ago
    No, because the other regions of the world also use metric. America is an outlier.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    It makes somewhat more sense to say that 3 countries have trouble exporting to the other 192 than the other way around.

I'm not sure it's hard, is there evidence? Personally I don't think there's any valuable benefit, certainly not worth all the resulting disruption, and wouldn't advocate for it for that reason.

mbustamanter 4y ago

Even more, several aviation reports use both. METARs use feet for cloud altitude and meters for visibility.

mfkp 4y ago
METARs more commonly use statute miles for visibility (indicated by SM), not meters. But they do use things like Celsius for temperatures, and air pressure in hectopascals instead of inHg.

rybosworld 4y ago

One anecdote in regards to the potential benefits: I've gotten into wood working the last few years and I've found that I'm significantly less likely to make a measurement mistake when I use metric. It seems like nearly all my measurement mistakes are when I did something in imperial. So why don't I use metric all the time? Because materials are usually sold in imperial units.

throwawaymaths 4y ago
I love metric but the binary logarithmic inches subunits are fantastic for imperial with wood: Suppose you have a 30 cm piece and you need to evenly space 5 3.5 cm-wide wood planks on the 30cm piece. The decimal calculation will take you to a resolution you likely can't measure confidently (0.25 mm)

silvestrov 4y ago

One obvious problem: if a US factory has a surplus of drain pipes they cannot export them. US pipes are 1.5 inch = 38.1 mm whereas EU use 40 mm pipes. So US companies cannot export surplus and will need new tooling when they want to export. That makes it much more difficult to expand into international markets.

humanizersequel 4y ago
You could just as easily say that the EU will have trouble exporting their surplus drainage pipes.
- silvestrov 4y ago
  No, rest of world is much more likely to use metric than imperial units. E.g. Japan use metric: https://www.kubota-chemix.co.jp/dcms_media/other/20161226_en_products.pdf https://www.kubota-chemix.co.jp/dcms_media/other/20161226_en...
- 314 4y ago
  No, because the other regions of the world also use metric. America is an outlier.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  It makes somewhat more sense to say that 3 countries have trouble exporting to the other 192 than the other way around.