8 ms·

I am not anti-metric by any means, but having done carpentry a lot in the past it always strikes me when this comes up that one of the central arguments for (a

by jwecker 12y ago

I am not anti-metric by any means, but having done carpentry a lot in the past it always strikes me when this comes up that one of the central arguments for (a limited use-case of) the imperial system is usually glossed over: the fact that in many crafts (especially historically), using base-12 makes certain things much easier. It divides into 3rds far more easily, divides into 4ths slightly more easily, and still divides into 5ths with only one digit after the decimal. Just like computer programmers have no problem immediately recognizing that 256 is 2^8, it became intuitive when working with the Imperial system (at limited scales) that 48 inches is the same as 4-feet but that it is also 3-stud-distances long (studs in walls are often placed 16 inches apart). Even if you don't work in crafts where dividing things by 3 is more frequent than dividing by 5 it is easy to imagine how certain things might be more difficult if we used base-10 for time (as, it has been pointed out, has been attempted)- and thereby using the ability to easily divide an hour into 3 parts (for example). Consistent base-10 and international standardization has advantages that far outweigh these minor things- but I think it's important to recognize that there is, surprise, a rational practical reason for sticking in some cases to Imperial units- it's not purely tradition or politics or their "organic-ness" (anymore).

Havoc 12y ago
>a rational practical reason for sticking in some cases to Imperial units That to me is the worst of both worlds. The optimal solution is to use one consistent system and the winner is pretty clear. >carpentry Certainly. The future is full of 3D printers though.
- gilrain 12y ago
  Wood is an easily workable, relatively inexpensive, and, importantly, renewable resource. We'll be seeing more of 3D printing for sure, but you're kidding yourself if you think it'll replace carpentry.
  - spiritplumber 12y ago
    I want a 3d printer / wood router hybrid. All I've managed to do so far is a 3d printer / laser cutter hybrid, but it takes forever for it to cut wood.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    Also, wood is beautiful.
  - Havoc 12y ago
    >more of 3D printing for sure, but you're kidding yourself if you think it'll replace carpentry. I wasn't suggesting that 3d printing will replace carpentry...
- jwecker 12y ago
  I would love to hear from someone who does carpentry (or some craft-like equivalent) with the metric system- specifically what kind of ruler/tape they use and whether it has a special 1/3 and 2/3 mark on it (since you don't want to have to eyeball 0.33333....) or if they just avoid dividing things by three altogether. Because the truth is, your perspective is a political one more than a practical one. The whole idea of "officially" adopting either system is somewhat misleading- regardless of politicians or zealots decide, most craftspeople would use rules that easily divide into three, most programmers would often reference things in terms of base-2, and most people would still prefer 24 hours in a day. There is no general-case optimal winner that applies to all measurement and work-flow situations. In the case of base-2, international bodies have already found a nice dual-system ( http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html ). A simple solution for (for example) carpentry that would give the best of both worlds would be to define a unit that is exactly 1/60th of a meter. Let's call it a "sixer." Now someone crafting things can have all the convenience and easy division they need (here- cut this at 1/5 of 1/3 of a meter- no problem!) and still have it unified with the meter at some scale. There would be issues- but it's situational, which is my point.
  - SeanDav 12y ago
    > I would love to hear from someone who does carpentry (or some craft-like equivalent) with the metric system- specifically what kind of ruler/tape they use and whether it has a special 1/3 and 2/3 mark on it (since you don't want to have to eyeball 0.33333....) or if they just avoid dividing things by three altogether. I would love to hear from someone that uses the imperial system how they determine exactly 1/3 of 10 inches and how they eyeball 1/3 of 5/6 of an inch.... My point is it is easy to find measurement scenarios that would make life a little harder for either system. 12cm (metric) for example is trivial to divide into 1/3, 2/3, 1/2, 1/4, 1/6 etc etc. 4.72 inches (imperial equivalent of 12cm) would be harder to do. Besides there are very easy geometric methods to divide a line exactly into any number of equal parts, even if you do not know its actual length precisely.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    You know, there's about 25 millimeters to the inch, and I've never seen anyone measure anything with more than 16th-inch precision for any construction job - maybe for very high-end cabinetmaking people use 32nds, but generally millimeters will give you more precision than you need, certainly if you're using a carpenter's pencil, which makes marks thicker than the smallest scale on a ruler. I have no problem dividing things by 3 in metric. Rounding up to the next millimeter is going to result in an error equivalent to a couple of human hairs. If I'm working with wood and I need a perfect fit I'm going to be using sandpaper long before that. Seriously, do you imagine that construction workers and craftsmen in Europe, Japan and the rest of the world spend their days ina state of helpless anxiety because of their inability to divide things with sufficient precision, or do you think they just get on with it and make buildings and furniture as good as any you can find in the US? The construction industry didn't collapse in the UK, Ireland, or Australia when they adopted the metric system.
- nice_uname_nerd 12y ago
  I strongly disagree. Using the right tool for the right job is worth far more than enforcing arbitrary universal consistency. In a math course, you'd measure angles in radians so you're dealing with nice small multiples of pi. I think it'd be downright dangerous to use radians in a fighter jet, say, when the precision you need is much better provided by degrees. Imagine if we enforced only one programming paradigm, since they're all equivalent. Or if we demanded that logicians and cs professors only prove things using turing machines, instead of picking the model of computation that best suits the problem. If there's a case where the english measurement system is more convenient, people should use it.
  - guscost 12y ago
    "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  - Havoc 12y ago
    >Using the right tool for the right job is worth far more than enforcing arbitrary universal consistency. Except units of measure are not "tools"...they are ways of communicating information. And when each person feels the need to enforce their own version of "right tool for right job" then things like the mars orbiter incident happen. >Imagine if we enforced only one programming paradigm, since they're all equivalent. Hardly. A better analogy would be to enforce identical calling parameters for DLLs libraries across all languages. That would benefit all languages and improve interoperability.
    - nice_uname_nerd 12y ago
      >units of measure are not "tools"...they are ways of communicating information. How you communicate information is important and has real impacts. Given a graph, you could choose to encode it as an adjacency matrix or as a collection of adjacency lists. Both convey the same information, but nobody would say we should pick one and only one. I disagree with the assertion that measurement units aren't tools or that they are exempt from similar consideration. Sure, the Mars incident is a call for consistency, but it's a call for consistency inside NASA. That shouldn't affect carpenters who need divisibility by 2, 3 and 4 more than they need 5. Or those who like to use inches because theyre significantly larger than centimeters and consequently easier to approximate by eye.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  The present is full of CNC machines, and yet cars are not milled out of billet aluminum. It's rarely worthwhile to fabricate something, when you can readily produce it from bulk forms like lumber or bar stock.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    With the awesome exception of the Pagani Huayra: http://www.pagani.com/huayra/partners/aspa.aspx http://www.pagani.com/huayra/partners/aspa.aspx "Even the car's name tag positioned on the rear bumper, is carved in a 24 hour process from a solid block of aluminium. It is the Pagani way of reassuring its customers that their cars are built to their own standards exceeding the highest in the industry."
    - sliverstorm 12y ago
      Great example really. Basically highlighting my message; it can be done (and can be awesome- machined parts are top-quality) but the Huayra costs $1.3M.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
sb057 12y ago
Here's a page featuring more examples like you mentioned. http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/metrix/pontius http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/metrix/pontius
phaemon 12y ago
It's hardly "glossed over". It's brought up every time metric/imperial is discussed and it never makes any sense. Standard lengths for timber are things like 240cm or 360cm. There is no difficulty dividing them into thirds, or quarters, or fifths, or sixths.
- bronson 12y ago
  You think that working in hundreds of centimeters is easier?? I guess the system one first learns is the system that feels easiest.
  - phaemon 12y ago
    It makes no difference to me. If I described $2.40 as 240 cents, would you suddenly be incapable of dividing it up evenly?
    - bronson 12y ago
      Of course, but it would be a little harder, a little more to keep track of. More precision than necessary. People prefer to use dollars and not cents, don't they?
      - phaemon 12y ago
        They're usually referred to as 2.4m and 3.6m if that makes it easier for you to track. I converted them to cm as I thought that would be simpler for people.
        bronson 12y ago
        Now THAT makes sense to me. I can picture being on a team using those units to build a house.
        phaemon 12y ago
        (replying to the wish for a name for 2.4m; edited out): Why for the 2.4m, but not the 1.8m or the 3.6m? Surely it makes just as much sense to refer to it as the "two point four" as anything else?
anigbrowl 12y ago
My house is 100 years old, and having some construction experience myself I take care of small maintenance issues. I'm European but I grew up with both imperial and metric systems side-by-side, so it was easy for me to pick up American standards on things like stud distances and so on. It is convenient to have some things like that standardized, although the particular standardized measures themselves are highly arbitrary. However, because my house is old nothing is perfectly standard any more - all the angles are off by a degree or two, different parts of the house have slightly stretched or compressed over the course of a century, and so on. So whenever I measure something I end up noting both metric and imperial - imperial because I am going to be forced to deal with it at the store/supply depot, metric because I want to get the numbers right and I would way rather work in base 10 that mirrors my 10 fingers than juggling fractions of an inch (a unit which is divided into 16ths instead of 12ths because...er...um...). Unfortunately, I don't expect this change any time soon.
JoshTriplett 12y ago
> 48 inches is the same as 4-feet but that it is also 3-stud-distances long (studs in walls are often placed 16 inches apart). To some extent that's an artifact of the units we use. We could just as easily put studs 40cm apart, which is approximately the same distance, or 50cm (0.5m) apart, which would be particularly convenient. From Wikipedia: "In the United States [...] typically placed 16 inches (406 mm) from each other's center, but sometimes also at 12 inches (305 mm) or 24 inches (610 mm)." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_stud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_stud) A quick search suggests that 400mm is common in metric-using countries.
yutah 12y ago
Carpentry is a bad example... 1/4 inch vs 6mm or 7mm doesn't make any difference in this low precision craft... it is far from being precise to the millimeter... Even if you were doing higher precision wood working, you could make your box-joint 6mm wide instead of 1/4" and it would still be a perfect fit.... Also, try dividing an inch into tenths using a ruler?
- jpindar 12y ago
  In fields where precision does matter - such as machining or PCB design - decimal inches are used. Calipers work in decimal inches and steel rules are often marked in tenths. PCB layout programs typically allow you to use either millimeters or mils.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
snarfy 12y ago
Ten has three factors: 1, 2, 5. Twelve has five factors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6. When dealing with fractions, twelve is more efficient. I agree imperial units still aren't worth the trouble of being different than the rest of the world.
- xxs 12y ago
  You shall count only the prime ones, both have only 2 prime divisors. Then 60 would be of real use (and it has been used in the past[1]... and still is in angular measurements with the famous 360 degrees) but it contains only 5 as extra prime divisor. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal
Taniwha 12y ago
I lived through the change in ZN a long time ago - really only two comments to make: - for most things a saw cut is ~1mm wide - measuring in mm is good enough for most things, it's a great unit for carpentry - a 2x4 (or 4x2 anywhere other than the US) isn't really 2x4, but then neither is a 5x10 (the exact same thing after you go metric)
- NickNameNick 12y ago
  It was 50x100 when I was building in Chch ~10 years ago. It was explained to me that the rough cut timber was closer to the stated size, and that the finished timber we used for framing was named after the unfinished dimensions. Of course, I don't know how true that actually is. Certainly the unfinished 75x50 we used for roofing purlins (spelling?) was noticeably thicker than the finished structural 100x50s

by jwecker 12y ago

Havoc 12y ago

>a rational practical reason for sticking in some cases to Imperial units That to me is the worst of both worlds. The optimal solution is to use one consistent system and the winner is pretty clear. >carpentry Certainly. The future is full of 3D printers though.

gilrain 12y ago
Wood is an easily workable, relatively inexpensive, and, importantly, renewable resource. We'll be seeing more of 3D printing for sure, but you're kidding yourself if you think it'll replace carpentry.
- spiritplumber 12y ago
  I want a 3d printer / wood router hybrid. All I've managed to do so far is a 3d printer / laser cutter hybrid, but it takes forever for it to cut wood.
- arethuza 12y ago
  Also, wood is beautiful.
- Havoc 12y ago
  >more of 3D printing for sure, but you're kidding yourself if you think it'll replace carpentry. I wasn't suggesting that 3d printing will replace carpentry...
jwecker 12y ago
I would love to hear from someone who does carpentry (or some craft-like equivalent) with the metric system- specifically what kind of ruler/tape they use and whether it has a special 1/3 and 2/3 mark on it (since you don't want to have to eyeball 0.33333....) or if they just avoid dividing things by three altogether. Because the truth is, your perspective is a political one more than a practical one. The whole idea of "officially" adopting either system is somewhat misleading- regardless of politicians or zealots decide, most craftspeople would use rules that easily divide into three, most programmers would often reference things in terms of base-2, and most people would still prefer 24 hours in a day. There is no general-case optimal winner that applies to all measurement and work-flow situations. In the case of base-2, international bodies have already found a nice dual-system ( http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html ). A simple solution for (for example) carpentry that would give the best of both worlds would be to define a unit that is exactly 1/60th of a meter. Let's call it a "sixer." Now someone crafting things can have all the convenience and easy division they need (here- cut this at 1/5 of 1/3 of a meter- no problem!) and still have it unified with the meter at some scale. There would be issues- but it's situational, which is my point.
- SeanDav 12y ago
  > I would love to hear from someone who does carpentry (or some craft-like equivalent) with the metric system- specifically what kind of ruler/tape they use and whether it has a special 1/3 and 2/3 mark on it (since you don't want to have to eyeball 0.33333....) or if they just avoid dividing things by three altogether. I would love to hear from someone that uses the imperial system how they determine exactly 1/3 of 10 inches and how they eyeball 1/3 of 5/6 of an inch.... My point is it is easy to find measurement scenarios that would make life a little harder for either system. 12cm (metric) for example is trivial to divide into 1/3, 2/3, 1/2, 1/4, 1/6 etc etc. 4.72 inches (imperial equivalent of 12cm) would be harder to do. Besides there are very easy geometric methods to divide a line exactly into any number of equal parts, even if you do not know its actual length precisely.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  You know, there's about 25 millimeters to the inch, and I've never seen anyone measure anything with more than 16th-inch precision for any construction job - maybe for very high-end cabinetmaking people use 32nds, but generally millimeters will give you more precision than you need, certainly if you're using a carpenter's pencil, which makes marks thicker than the smallest scale on a ruler. I have no problem dividing things by 3 in metric. Rounding up to the next millimeter is going to result in an error equivalent to a couple of human hairs. If I'm working with wood and I need a perfect fit I'm going to be using sandpaper long before that. Seriously, do you imagine that construction workers and craftsmen in Europe, Japan and the rest of the world spend their days ina state of helpless anxiety because of their inability to divide things with sufficient precision, or do you think they just get on with it and make buildings and furniture as good as any you can find in the US? The construction industry didn't collapse in the UK, Ireland, or Australia when they adopted the metric system.
nice_uname_nerd 12y ago
I strongly disagree. Using the right tool for the right job is worth far more than enforcing arbitrary universal consistency. In a math course, you'd measure angles in radians so you're dealing with nice small multiples of pi. I think it'd be downright dangerous to use radians in a fighter jet, say, when the precision you need is much better provided by degrees. Imagine if we enforced only one programming paradigm, since they're all equivalent. Or if we demanded that logicians and cs professors only prove things using turing machines, instead of picking the model of computation that best suits the problem. If there's a case where the english measurement system is more convenient, people should use it.
- guscost 12y ago
  "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Havoc 12y ago
  >Using the right tool for the right job is worth far more than enforcing arbitrary universal consistency. Except units of measure are not "tools"...they are ways of communicating information. And when each person feels the need to enforce their own version of "right tool for right job" then things like the mars orbiter incident happen. >Imagine if we enforced only one programming paradigm, since they're all equivalent. Hardly. A better analogy would be to enforce identical calling parameters for DLLs libraries across all languages. That would benefit all languages and improve interoperability.
  - nice_uname_nerd 12y ago
    >units of measure are not "tools"...they are ways of communicating information. How you communicate information is important and has real impacts. Given a graph, you could choose to encode it as an adjacency matrix or as a collection of adjacency lists. Both convey the same information, but nobody would say we should pick one and only one. I disagree with the assertion that measurement units aren't tools or that they are exempt from similar consideration. Sure, the Mars incident is a call for consistency, but it's a call for consistency inside NASA. That shouldn't affect carpenters who need divisibility by 2, 3 and 4 more than they need 5. Or those who like to use inches because theyre significantly larger than centimeters and consequently easier to approximate by eye.
sliverstorm 12y ago
The present is full of CNC machines, and yet cars are not milled out of billet aluminum. It's rarely worthwhile to fabricate something, when you can readily produce it from bulk forms like lumber or bar stock.
- arethuza 12y ago
  With the awesome exception of the Pagani Huayra: http://www.pagani.com/huayra/partners/aspa.aspx http://www.pagani.com/huayra/partners/aspa.aspx "Even the car's name tag positioned on the rear bumper, is carved in a 24 hour process from a solid block of aluminium. It is the Pagani way of reassuring its customers that their cars are built to their own standards exceeding the highest in the industry."
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    Great example really. Basically highlighting my message; it can be done (and can be awesome- machined parts are top-quality) but the Huayra costs $1.3M.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

sb057 12y ago

Here's a page featuring more examples like you mentioned. http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/metrix/pontius http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/metrix/pontius

phaemon 12y ago

It's hardly "glossed over". It's brought up every time metric/imperial is discussed and it never makes any sense. Standard lengths for timber are things like 240cm or 360cm. There is no difficulty dividing them into thirds, or quarters, or fifths, or sixths.

bronson 12y ago
You think that working in hundreds of centimeters is easier?? I guess the system one first learns is the system that feels easiest.
- phaemon 12y ago
  It makes no difference to me. If I described $2.40 as 240 cents, would you suddenly be incapable of dividing it up evenly?
  - bronson 12y ago
    Of course, but it would be a little harder, a little more to keep track of. More precision than necessary. People prefer to use dollars and not cents, don't they?
    - phaemon 12y ago
      They're usually referred to as 2.4m and 3.6m if that makes it easier for you to track. I converted them to cm as I thought that would be simpler for people.
      - bronson 12y ago
        Now THAT makes sense to me. I can picture being on a team using those units to build a house.
        phaemon 12y ago
        (replying to the wish for a name for 2.4m; edited out): Why for the 2.4m, but not the 1.8m or the 3.6m? Surely it makes just as much sense to refer to it as the "two point four" as anything else?

anigbrowl 12y ago

My house is 100 years old, and having some construction experience myself I take care of small maintenance issues. I'm European but I grew up with both imperial and metric systems side-by-side, so it was easy for me to pick up American standards on things like stud distances and so on. It is convenient to have some things like that standardized, although the particular standardized measures themselves are highly arbitrary. However, because my house is old nothing is perfectly standard any more - all the angles are off by a degree or two, different parts of the house have slightly stretched or compressed over the course of a century, and so on. So whenever I measure something I end up noting both metric and imperial - imperial because I am going to be forced to deal with it at the store/supply depot, metric because I want to get the numbers right and I would way rather work in base 10 that mirrors my 10 fingers than juggling fractions of an inch (a unit which is divided into 16ths instead of 12ths because...er...um...). Unfortunately, I don't expect this change any time soon.

JoshTriplett 12y ago

> 48 inches is the same as 4-feet but that it is also 3-stud-distances long (studs in walls are often placed 16 inches apart). To some extent that's an artifact of the units we use. We could just as easily put studs 40cm apart, which is approximately the same distance, or 50cm (0.5m) apart, which would be particularly convenient. From Wikipedia: "In the United States [...] typically placed 16 inches (406 mm) from each other's center, but sometimes also at 12 inches (305 mm) or 24 inches (610 mm)." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_stud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_stud) A quick search suggests that 400mm is common in metric-using countries.

yutah 12y ago

Carpentry is a bad example... 1/4 inch vs 6mm or 7mm doesn't make any difference in this low precision craft... it is far from being precise to the millimeter... Even if you were doing higher precision wood working, you could make your box-joint 6mm wide instead of 1/4" and it would still be a perfect fit.... Also, try dividing an inch into tenths using a ruler?

jpindar 12y ago
In fields where precision does matter - such as machining or PCB design - decimal inches are used. Calipers work in decimal inches and steel rules are often marked in tenths. PCB layout programs typically allow you to use either millimeters or mils.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

snarfy 12y ago

Ten has three factors: 1, 2, 5. Twelve has five factors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6. When dealing with fractions, twelve is more efficient. I agree imperial units still aren't worth the trouble of being different than the rest of the world.

xxs 12y ago
You shall count only the prime ones, both have only 2 prime divisors. Then 60 would be of real use (and it has been used in the past[1]... and still is in angular measurements with the famous 360 degrees) but it contains only 5 as extra prime divisor. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal

Taniwha 12y ago

I lived through the change in ZN a long time ago - really only two comments to make: - for most things a saw cut is ~1mm wide - measuring in mm is good enough for most things, it's a great unit for carpentry - a 2x4 (or 4x2 anywhere other than the US) isn't really 2x4, but then neither is a 5x10 (the exact same thing after you go metric)

NickNameNick 12y ago
It was 50x100 when I was building in Chch ~10 years ago. It was explained to me that the rough cut timber was closer to the stated size, and that the finished timber we used for framing was named after the unfinished dimensions. Of course, I don't know how true that actually is. Certainly the unfinished 75x50 we used for roofing purlins (spelling?) was noticeably thicker than the finished structural 100x50s