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Here's a completely random anecdote: my mother often told me that her father, my grandfather, born in France in 1899, sculptor, draftsman and general maker of t
by bambax 1y ago
Here's a completely random anecdote: my mother often told me that her father, my grandfather, born in France in 1899, sculptor, draftsman and general maker of things, had a strong dislike of the metric system. He complained continuously that anything with round metric ratios was "ugly" and that beauty could only be found in more ancient measuring systems.
He died when I was 4 so it's not a first hand account, I'm not sure how much of it is true or what he really thought, but somehow it feels right.
The metric system is incredibly useful and practical (of course) but there's something rigid and unpleasant about it.
- IAmBroom 1y agoI know modern craftsmen* who lament the same. Being able to divide things in 2, 3, 4, 6, or 12 is mechanically more useful than 2/5/10 (the former being achievable by drafting tools more easily). *Yes, it should be craftspeople, but that doesn't exactly sound like the same thing, and anyway all of them happen to be men.
- claudex 1y agoNohting prevent you to use the metric system and use 60cm (for example) as a base unit for your construction. So you can easily divide it by 12 if you want.
- rags2riches 1y agoJust one example I'm familiar with. Drywall typically comes in widths of 1200 mm and are mounted on studs 600 mm c/c.
- Svip 1y agoNothing's stopping you from defining beautiful ratios and express the result in metric units, like ISO 216.[0] It feels like an odd complaint about the utility of the metric system, as if it is the only system; ratios aren't even units themselves! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_216 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_216