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Speaking as someone who grew up with the metric system before moving to America: Because growing up, we never had to convert between different measuring systems

Speaking as someone who grew up with the metric system before moving to America: Because growing up, we never had to convert between different measuring systems. Everything was easy to do in your head: 5cm + 15cm = 20cm 0.5kg + 0.15kg = 0.65kg 2900mm / 2 = 1450mm. Now I'm forced to do mental gymnastics like: 5/8" + 7/16" = ??? 2'9 1/4" + 14" = ??? 11'4"1/4 / 2 = ??? 1lb9oz / 2 = ??? It's not impossible, but it takes me a lot more time to think through these things, and often they are impossible to even punch into a calculator. Adding fractions of an inch in my head was not something I learned in school (honestly, my experience since moving to the US is that most adult Americans also struggle to add fractions of an inch).

rootusrootus 3y ago
There's give and take. A unit based on 1/12th makes one third, one half, and one quarter all even divisions. It's just not that big a deal in my experience. And if I want to use millimeters, every ruler and tape measure has those too. For all the bitching about the US not using metric, we in fact use it for many things. But it's customary to use imperial for discussion, and I don't get why that hurts people's feelings. I don't care about the UK weighing people in stones...
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  This was one consequence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
- tomjakubowski 3y ago
  Yeah, ability to employ both systems and translate between them is quite useful. It might be similar to native bilingualism. Even outside of the legacy imperial unit systems, there will always be units not nicely expressed in metric units that are handy nevertheless and good to know and use. Like electron-volts.
kzrdude 3y ago
Now that you're mentioning that, why doesn't the default calculator app on a phone have prominent functionality for that, it's so useful in everyday life.

rootusrootus 3y ago

There's give and take. A unit based on 1/12th makes one third, one half, and one quarter all even divisions. It's just not that big a deal in my experience. And if I want to use millimeters, every ruler and tape measure has those too. For all the bitching about the US not using metric, we in fact use it for many things. But it's customary to use imperial for discussion, and I don't get why that hurts people's feelings. I don't care about the UK weighing people in stones...

lotsofpulp 3y ago
This was one consequence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
tomjakubowski 3y ago
Yeah, ability to employ both systems and translate between them is quite useful. It might be similar to native bilingualism. Even outside of the legacy imperial unit systems, there will always be units not nicely expressed in metric units that are handy nevertheless and good to know and use. Like electron-volts.

kzrdude 3y ago

Now that you're mentioning that, why doesn't the default calculator app on a phone have prominent functionality for that, it's so useful in everyday life.