5 ms·

>In a cubic mile of seawater, the weight of the salt (as sodium chloride) would be about 120 million tons. A cubic mile of seawater can also contain up to 25 po

>In a cubic mile of seawater, the weight of the salt (as sodium chloride) would be about 120 million tons. A cubic mile of seawater can also contain up to 25 pounds of gold and up to 45 pounds of silver! But before you go out and try alchemy on seawater, just think about how big a cubic mile is: 1 cubic mile contains 1,101,117,147,000 gallons of water! This is one of the best sales pitches for the metric system that I've ever seen.

VoodooJuJu 3y ago
[flagged]
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Yet regimes all over Europe adapted it anyway. The reason the US retained its system has less to do with the units being so intuitive and more to do with having industrialized early enough that switching would have been expensive.
  - spookie 3y ago
    The metric system came about around the same time as the U.S. Either way, that intuitive understanding of the imperial system may just come about due to one's growing up with it. I have the same (I assume), innate understanding of the various metric units, given that I was exposed to it all my life. It's easy for me to glance at something and know if it's as big as a centimeter, a couple, perhaps a decimeter or even a meter. The same goes for the volume of something. I think it has more to do with your education, and experience in life, than it's with... the arbitrary way someone came about with those units. Nothing against the imperial system, I understand how difficult it is to leave it now, and no-one could predict if the metric system were to take off at the time. I wish all of us would use only one though.
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      It seems likely, yeah. Also, these customary units had all kinds of variations (technically they still do in countries using the UK-derived units though in practice the US ones are the ones people care about).
  - CapitalistCartr 3y ago
    Western Europe was more industrialized than we were at the creation of the Metric System, yet they managed. The longer we waited, the more expensive it got. Now here we are, the last holdout.
    - avar 3y ago
      > Western Europe was more > industrialized than we were[...] One reason for this is that weights and measures in Europe were less standardized at the time. While the US (mostly) used a consistent system, different countries, or even different cities and towns in Europe had incompatible systems when metric was introduced. > Now here we are, the last > holdout. Don't forget Liberia and Myanmar!
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      Still, industrialization happened before serious metrification drives and that’s what caused the problem. This video discusses it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1OeoBbjwEFg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1OeoBbjwEFg In practice though it’s not as though metric is not used to a significant extent in some contexts even in the US. Your medications do not list the contents of their active ingredients in drams.
  - zzzoom 3y ago
    I live in a country that uses the metric system. Water and gas pipe diameters are in inches. Nothing breaks because there aren't any competing standards.
    - avar 3y ago
      What country is that? Here in The Netherlands there's at least 3 entirely different standards for household water and gas pipes (and I know Germany's much the same). There's BSP (imperial), but be careful, it's not the diameter that's in inches, it's the inner diameter. Then there's the common 15mm and 22mm copper water and gas pipes, and Alpex 16mm and 20mm.
      - zzzoom 3y ago
        Argentina. I'm pretty sure that gas installations wouldn't pass inspection with non-standard pipes. You could probably use whatever you want for water pipes.
        avar 3y ago
        I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but some quick searching seems to suggest that it's just as much of mess in Argentina as here ;-) https://www.totaline.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/17-Cat%C3%A1logo-Tuber%C3%ADa-de-Cobre-Termomec%C3%A1nica.pdf https://www.totaline.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/17-Ca... My Spanish is rather bad, but I think this: > Los tubos son producidos según los estándares establecidos por la norma internacional ASTM B88 y B88M. Says that ASTM B88 and it's metric equivalent are accepted. As you'll see from the listed dimensions the latter is truly metric, while the former is imperial.
        zzzoom 3y ago
        The regulations [1] list national standard NAG E-209 [2] for copper gas pipes, which is metric based on ASTM B88M. [1] https://www.enargas.gob.ar/secciones/normativa/pdf/normas-discusion/NAG-200.pdf https://www.enargas.gob.ar/secciones/normativa/pdf/normas-di... [2] https://www.enargas.gob.ar/secciones/normativa/pdf/normas-tecnicas/NAG-E209.pdf https://www.enargas.gob.ar/secciones/normativa/pdf/normas-te...
  - mardifoufs 3y ago
    Europe adopting something does not mean it's good or intuitive. I like metric but that's just a non argument. It's just like saying the US manages to uses imperial just fine, so imperial is just fine too
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      It is an argument against the idea that it’s an insane idea from socialists gone mad since conservative regimes found it equally useful.
    - vhcr 3y ago
      "just fine", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
- kibwen 3y ago
  While I could talk at length about the intuitive advantages of customary units (and how that alone isn't enough to outweigh the advantages of the metric system), pounds aren't intuitive (humans are pretty bad at intuiting weight in general) and neither are miles (humans are decent at intuiting human-scale lengths, but miles are just too long).
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    Once we start getting into large units the argument seems ridiculous. Especially with stuff like a hogshead that is a slightly different amount depending on what is being measured.
- crtified 3y ago
  Any system of regular measurement can be adapted to various real world equivalences. The argument that one division system is inherently superior to the other would be a long one indeed.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
swampthinker 3y ago
Hard to understand unless it’s converted to football fields.
- mchaver 3y ago
  American or metric football fields?
crazygringo 3y ago
To be honest, such numbers in the millions and trillions are totally incomprehensible to human experience regardless of which units are used. It's equally silly to try to convey the size of a cubic mile of water in gallons, just as much as it is to convey the size of a cubic kilometer in liters. The numbers are just round in the latter case. In other words, both: 1,101,117,147,000 and liters in 1 km^3: 1,000,000,000,000 are equally meaninglessly large to any lay reader.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  You can have an idea of orders of magnitude though, say a billion is a cube 1000 units on each side. That is, a meter cubed with units of 1mm. Actually you could have such a thing on the kitchen table. Edit: now a trillion, that's getting beyond comprehension. Just multiply each side by 10. Edit edit: that "1 billion" would make for a good conversation piece. Or, easier, a container with 1 billion small grains in it.
- verve_rat 3y ago
  A cubic km of sea water would weigh a bit north of a billion tonnes. You're right that large numbers are hard to comprehend, but being able to summarise them and convert to other measures easily helps convey meaningful information. Saying you want to process a billion tonnes of something is immediately grokable as vastly different to wanting to process a million tonnes. Being able to immediately convert that into a conversation about processing a trillion litres vs a billion litres is similarly valuable. If I can process 1 tonne of water per unit time, then I know that the cubic km will take 1000 times longer than a billion litres / million tonnes.
- avar 3y ago
  > are equally meaninglessly > large to any lay reader. No, because a cubic kilometer of ocean does not contain a nice round number of liters of water. It contains however many liters of water are in that cubic kilometer after you subtract everything else in the ocean, it'll be close to a trillion liters, but not quite. Of course the article may be using "water" in the loose sense. But if it's not the metric version would implicitly provide you with an easily inferred percentage of how much of a cubic kilometer of ocean is made up of other stuff. Whereas in imperial units you won't know that at a glance, you'll need to either repeat the calculation, or memorize various conversions.

VoodooJuJu 3y ago

[flagged]

emodendroket 3y ago
Yet regimes all over Europe adapted it anyway. The reason the US retained its system has less to do with the units being so intuitive and more to do with having industrialized early enough that switching would have been expensive.
- spookie 3y ago
  The metric system came about around the same time as the U.S. Either way, that intuitive understanding of the imperial system may just come about due to one's growing up with it. I have the same (I assume), innate understanding of the various metric units, given that I was exposed to it all my life. It's easy for me to glance at something and know if it's as big as a centimeter, a couple, perhaps a decimeter or even a meter. The same goes for the volume of something. I think it has more to do with your education, and experience in life, than it's with... the arbitrary way someone came about with those units. Nothing against the imperial system, I understand how difficult it is to leave it now, and no-one could predict if the metric system were to take off at the time. I wish all of us would use only one though.
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    It seems likely, yeah. Also, these customary units had all kinds of variations (technically they still do in countries using the UK-derived units though in practice the US ones are the ones people care about).
- CapitalistCartr 3y ago
  Western Europe was more industrialized than we were at the creation of the Metric System, yet they managed. The longer we waited, the more expensive it got. Now here we are, the last holdout.
  - avar 3y ago
    > Western Europe was more > industrialized than we were[...] One reason for this is that weights and measures in Europe were less standardized at the time. While the US (mostly) used a consistent system, different countries, or even different cities and towns in Europe had incompatible systems when metric was introduced. > Now here we are, the last > holdout. Don't forget Liberia and Myanmar!
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    Still, industrialization happened before serious metrification drives and that’s what caused the problem. This video discusses it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1OeoBbjwEFg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1OeoBbjwEFg In practice though it’s not as though metric is not used to a significant extent in some contexts even in the US. Your medications do not list the contents of their active ingredients in drams.
- zzzoom 3y ago
  I live in a country that uses the metric system. Water and gas pipe diameters are in inches. Nothing breaks because there aren't any competing standards.
  - avar 3y ago
    What country is that? Here in The Netherlands there's at least 3 entirely different standards for household water and gas pipes (and I know Germany's much the same). There's BSP (imperial), but be careful, it's not the diameter that's in inches, it's the inner diameter. Then there's the common 15mm and 22mm copper water and gas pipes, and Alpex 16mm and 20mm.
    - zzzoom 3y ago
      Argentina. I'm pretty sure that gas installations wouldn't pass inspection with non-standard pipes. You could probably use whatever you want for water pipes.
      - avar 3y ago
        I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but some quick searching seems to suggest that it's just as much of mess in Argentina as here ;-) https://www.totaline.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/17-Cat%C3%A1logo-Tuber%C3%ADa-de-Cobre-Termomec%C3%A1nica.pdf https://www.totaline.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/17-Ca... My Spanish is rather bad, but I think this: > Los tubos son producidos según los estándares establecidos por la norma internacional ASTM B88 y B88M. Says that ASTM B88 and it's metric equivalent are accepted. As you'll see from the listed dimensions the latter is truly metric, while the former is imperial.
        zzzoom 3y ago
        The regulations [1] list national standard NAG E-209 [2] for copper gas pipes, which is metric based on ASTM B88M. [1] https://www.enargas.gob.ar/secciones/normativa/pdf/normas-discusion/NAG-200.pdf https://www.enargas.gob.ar/secciones/normativa/pdf/normas-di... [2] https://www.enargas.gob.ar/secciones/normativa/pdf/normas-tecnicas/NAG-E209.pdf https://www.enargas.gob.ar/secciones/normativa/pdf/normas-te...
- mardifoufs 3y ago
  Europe adopting something does not mean it's good or intuitive. I like metric but that's just a non argument. It's just like saying the US manages to uses imperial just fine, so imperial is just fine too
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    It is an argument against the idea that it’s an insane idea from socialists gone mad since conservative regimes found it equally useful.
  - vhcr 3y ago
    "just fine", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
kibwen 3y ago
While I could talk at length about the intuitive advantages of customary units (and how that alone isn't enough to outweigh the advantages of the metric system), pounds aren't intuitive (humans are pretty bad at intuiting weight in general) and neither are miles (humans are decent at intuiting human-scale lengths, but miles are just too long).
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Once we start getting into large units the argument seems ridiculous. Especially with stuff like a hogshead that is a slightly different amount depending on what is being measured.
crtified 3y ago
Any system of regular measurement can be adapted to various real world equivalences. The argument that one division system is inherently superior to the other would be a long one indeed.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

swampthinker 3y ago

Hard to understand unless it’s converted to football fields.

mchaver 3y ago
American or metric football fields?

crazygringo 3y ago

To be honest, such numbers in the millions and trillions are totally incomprehensible to human experience regardless of which units are used. It's equally silly to try to convey the size of a cubic mile of water in gallons, just as much as it is to convey the size of a cubic kilometer in liters. The numbers are just round in the latter case. In other words, both: 1,101,117,147,000 and liters in 1 km^3: 1,000,000,000,000 are equally meaninglessly large to any lay reader.

HPsquared 3y ago
You can have an idea of orders of magnitude though, say a billion is a cube 1000 units on each side. That is, a meter cubed with units of 1mm. Actually you could have such a thing on the kitchen table. Edit: now a trillion, that's getting beyond comprehension. Just multiply each side by 10. Edit edit: that "1 billion" would make for a good conversation piece. Or, easier, a container with 1 billion small grains in it.
verve_rat 3y ago
A cubic km of sea water would weigh a bit north of a billion tonnes. You're right that large numbers are hard to comprehend, but being able to summarise them and convert to other measures easily helps convey meaningful information. Saying you want to process a billion tonnes of something is immediately grokable as vastly different to wanting to process a million tonnes. Being able to immediately convert that into a conversation about processing a trillion litres vs a billion litres is similarly valuable. If I can process 1 tonne of water per unit time, then I know that the cubic km will take 1000 times longer than a billion litres / million tonnes.
avar 3y ago
> are equally meaninglessly > large to any lay reader. No, because a cubic kilometer of ocean does not contain a nice round number of liters of water. It contains however many liters of water are in that cubic kilometer after you subtract everything else in the ocean, it'll be close to a trillion liters, but not quite. Of course the article may be using "water" in the loose sense. But if it's not the metric version would implicitly provide you with an easily inferred percentage of how much of a cubic kilometer of ocean is made up of other stuff. Whereas in imperial units you won't know that at a glance, you'll need to either repeat the calculation, or memorize various conversions.