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> His best argument is that Imperial measurements are based on eyeballing. So can metric, if you are familiar with them. I think people pushing for metric in t

by mpyne 14y ago

> His best argument is that Imperial measurements are based on eyeballing. So can metric, if you are familiar with them. I think people pushing for metric in the U.S. keep forgetting that they are pushing against the status quo. I.e. there must be a positive net benefit to the change they want for there to be a reasonable shot at getting the vast entrenched infrastructure of units displaced. Saying "but but metric can do this too!!" isn't good enough. Metric needs to be better and the fact of the matter is that U.S. imperial units are good enough for the day to day life of the average citizen (who for the most part don't even go around converting imperial units, making any improvement in how conversions can be calculated a moot point).

TheAmazingIdiot 14y ago
My funny jab about Le Gran K goes back to the similar reason why Imperial measurements were dumb: the damned measurement (weight) changes. Le Gran K is a weight stored in France that every kilogram weight is measured against. This weight, made of iridium and platinum is measured every 40 years. Every weigh in has been different. Every other metric measurement is keyed in upon a hard constant of nature. A meter is some fraction of C. A second is the number of vibrations in a rarefied caesium gas. The kilogram is a weight that's compared to a bunch of others?! I do remember some chemists working back in '08 about the calculation of a precise kilogram by definition of the exact number of atoms of carbon-12 in a cube. They worked out the math, and determined an exact number of atoms.* * http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/kilogram.htm http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/kilogram.htm
VLM 14y ago
"who for the most part don't even go around converting imperial units" This is the key line which MUST be understood, no matter which side of the argument you're on. Its a sig fig issue. Converting feet to miles is a nearly useless activity. A mile is the minimum human discernible distance for a marching roman legion, in that no human can tell the difference between a 8.2 and a 8.3 mile march at the end of the day, but most can, at the end of the day, tell the difference between 8 and 9 miles of march. So the minimum human sized unit for marching distance is the mile. Ditto degrees F, although the probably apocryphal story about the local weather fitting in a 0 to 100 degree range is probably almost as good a reason as most humans can not discern temps finer than one degree. Another sig fig issue rears its head where frankly unless you're a pastry chef "any ole cup" is close enough to Plato's concept of the ideal form of a cup or a chemists concept of a graduated cylinder for successful cooking or virtually all dishes. If your soup turns out foul its because of substandard ingredients or technique, not because you used 1001 ml of water instead of 1000 ml. I like metric as a conformity thing in science and engineering, but its not inherently any better. You can do useless things that almost no one ever needs to do easier in one system or another, but it doesn't matter most of the time, so just conform and when in rome do as the romans do.

by mpyne 14y ago

TheAmazingIdiot 14y ago

My funny jab about Le Gran K goes back to the similar reason why Imperial measurements were dumb: the damned measurement (weight) changes. Le Gran K is a weight stored in France that every kilogram weight is measured against. This weight, made of iridium and platinum is measured every 40 years. Every weigh in has been different. Every other metric measurement is keyed in upon a hard constant of nature. A meter is some fraction of C. A second is the number of vibrations in a rarefied caesium gas. The kilogram is a weight that's compared to a bunch of others?! I do remember some chemists working back in '08 about the calculation of a precise kilogram by definition of the exact number of atoms of carbon-12 in a cube. They worked out the math, and determined an exact number of atoms.* * http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/kilogram.htm http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/kilogram.htm

VLM 14y ago

"who for the most part don't even go around converting imperial units" This is the key line which MUST be understood, no matter which side of the argument you're on. Its a sig fig issue. Converting feet to miles is a nearly useless activity. A mile is the minimum human discernible distance for a marching roman legion, in that no human can tell the difference between a 8.2 and a 8.3 mile march at the end of the day, but most can, at the end of the day, tell the difference between 8 and 9 miles of march. So the minimum human sized unit for marching distance is the mile. Ditto degrees F, although the probably apocryphal story about the local weather fitting in a 0 to 100 degree range is probably almost as good a reason as most humans can not discern temps finer than one degree. Another sig fig issue rears its head where frankly unless you're a pastry chef "any ole cup" is close enough to Plato's concept of the ideal form of a cup or a chemists concept of a graduated cylinder for successful cooking or virtually all dishes. If your soup turns out foul its because of substandard ingredients or technique, not because you used 1001 ml of water instead of 1000 ml. I like metric as a conformity thing in science and engineering, but its not inherently any better. You can do useless things that almost no one ever needs to do easier in one system or another, but it doesn't matter most of the time, so just conform and when in rome do as the romans do.