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The problems with the metric system are largely the problems of using base-10 arithmetic. Say you are a carpenter; your boss hands you a meter stick and asks y
by rhelz 3y ago
The problems with the metric system are largely the problems of using base-10 arithmetic. Say you are a carpenter; your boss hands you a meter stick and asks you to cut him a piece of wood 1/3 meter long.
Well, there's no line on the stick for that. You go back to the boss, and say this meter stick isn't accurate enough; Its only marked to centimeters. So he grumbles, buys you one which is marked to millimeters, and you try again....still no line on the meter stick for 1/3rd of a meter...
Wiki has a beautiful chart relating the olde-tymie english units like inches, barleycorns, and furlongs. These units were developed ad-hoc by people living in every kind of society from industrial stretching back to the paleolithic. And yet, they are remarkably coherent--once you notice it. What is striking is how often the factors of 2 and 3 are involved in converting one unit into another; e.g., three barleycorns is an inch, 6 picas is an inch, 3 feet is a yard, etc.
Metric calculations are ostensibly easier because we use base-10. If we used, say, base-6 or base-12, metric calculations would be as difficult to do in our heads as the English units are. But all those ancient English units would super-easy, because its super-easy to multiply or divide by 2 or 3 in base-6 or base-12.
You can see this most clearly, ironically, in nations like, say, Japan, who have adopted the metric system the most throughly. There, they never use decimeters, or even centimeters. Every measurement is given in millimeters, and you tend to find lengths like 24 and 48 millimeters to be especially previlent--because they both have lots of factors of 2 and 3, making it easy to divide lengths into the most common ratios which are actually used.
Its why eggs are sold by the dozen and beer comes in 6-packs.
- BillSaysThis 3y agoWhy would a boss ask a carpenter for a piece of wood 1/3 of a meter long? What architect or engineer would specify this length instead of a number of millimeters?
- rhelz 3y agoWhy should my measuring stick prevent me from being able to divide a 1 meter length of wood into 3rds? Sure, they use millimeters....but this is an unfortunate workaround for a defect of the metric system. The proof is that if you look at the number of millimeters in the specified length, more often than not its something like 1,200 millimeters, viz, a number which is really big and divisible by 3.
- resonator 3y agoI think that both metric and imperial systems are good for woodworking but I think you need to adapt the way you think of measurements depending on which you choose. I like that using imperial you have a hierarchy of measures: wholes, halves, quarters, eights, sixteenths. It's clear and precise. You know that if you needing to measure 16ths or 32ths things are getting weird. With metric you have similar measures but the hierarchy isn't strongly defined: 100s of mm, 10s of mm, then maybe 5s of mm, and 2s of mms. As far as dividing a meter into equal thirds, you wouldn't use a ruler to do that, or at least I wouldn't. I like that you can fairly easily use the metric system to measure something that was that was made with imperial measures. You can't really say the same for the opposite without a bunch of estimates and holding unmemorable numbers. What I do wonder is whether there is beauty in the ratios you naturally get from using imperial measures when furniture making or designing building façades.
- rhelz 3y ago// beauty in the ratios // I've watched some youtube tutorials on how to use a speed-square for framing out a roof, and marveled at how perfectly that tool is fitted to the job. I know they make metric speed squares, but I've never seen a video from a European carpenter using one. I sure have seen some beautiful homes made with either system, however!
- avmich 3y ago> As far as dividing a meter into equal thirds, you wouldn't use a ruler to do that, or at least I wouldn't. I'd definitely use a ruler in many cases, and I'm curious about your method. How'd you divide a meter into equal thirds?
- resonator 3y agoSorry, I didn't express that well. I guess in that specific case I would use a ruler. Normally I would take measurements from my pre-existing pieces instead of the ruler. It's more accurate because it accommodates for any slight inaccuracies.
- mvdtnz 3y agoWhat if your boss handed you an imperial tape measure and asked you to cut it into 1/63? There's no mark on your tape for this. I too can invent contrived examples.
- rhelz 3y agoNo matter what your unit of length is--meter, foot, whatever--is it really so off the wall to want to be able to measure 1/3rd of that unit?
- avmich 3y agoThe beauty of metric system is in its simplicity. No matter which ratio you want, you can easily calculate the proper approximation, with necessary precision. If you want, you can also precisely call that ratio - just name the numerator and denominator, if you so insist on precision - in practice in all blueprints authors understand the precision and stop at some decimal digit.
- rhelz 3y ago// Just name the numerator and denominator // OK, I name the numerator as 1 and the denominator as 3. Viz, I want to be able to cut a piece of wood which is 1/3rd of a meter long. Still no line on the meter stick for that. Sure, in any base, in any system of units, there will be ratios you need to resort to sig-figs, etc to represent. But that is not an advantage of metric--it a common disadvantage to everybody. What makes it particularly pressing is that 1/3rd is actually a very common ratio. As far as I know, the metric system is the first and only system which does not let you easily divide your unit of length into thirds. A yard is 3 feet. A cubit is 3 shaftments. And inch is 3 barleycorns. Anybody with three kids and a yard-long string of licorice appreciates the fact that there are marks on the yardstick letting you quickly, easily, and fairly divide the candy, before the kids go berserk waiting for you to tally up how many digits you need.
- WorldMaker 3y agoIf you are cutting a piece of wood with a handsaw and your boss gives you a centimeter ruler and asks for a third, 33 centimeters is about as precise as you can get, and there's certainly a mark for that. That infinitely repeating 3 in the decimal form of 1/3rd in Base-10 can certainly be irritating, but in the real world we don't have infinitely precise tools and can often settle for "good enough". (Yeah, problems factoring 3s is a deficiency in Base-10 but Base-10 more often than not is "good enough" in practice.)