6 ms·

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 2

by 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?
        bronson 12y ago
        Oops, I'm sorry for the edit. You & I had the same thought: singling out 2.4 was just muddying things. Calling the unit the "2.4" sounds great. But that doesn't sound very metric to me...
        phaemon 12y ago
        Perhaps not to you, but most folk I know (in the UK) aren't quite so hung up about it. I'll sometimes refer to a half-liter as a pint, or a liter as a "couple of pints", or a meter as a yard. Though the pint is by far the stupidest unit. Why on earth wasn't it standardised at 500ml? It would have fixed pints, quarts and gallons all in one go! I know, you can think up immediate objections, but having 568ml to the pint and 4.546 litres to the gallon, is just wrong!
        vidarh 12y ago
        > Why on earth wasn't it standardised at 500ml? Because you'd have a revolution on your hand when people realized they were being served less beer.
        bronson 12y ago
        Nah, I just couldn't picture anyone doing woodwork in hundreds or thousands of units (now, where did I get that idea...?), or dividing base 10 units. Since it sounds like wood is sold and worked in base 12, I'd use metric no problem. But that makes the difference between imperial and metric pretty arbitrary, doesn't it?
        NickNameNick 12y ago
    - henrikschroder 12y ago
      > More precision than necessary. What? The precision of $2.40 and 240 cent is exactly the same. Two significant digits. It's kinda funny, every time this debate comes around, I see that the people advocating imperial are always confused by the concept of precision, which is handled very naturally in the metric system, but people advocating metric are confused about the way the imperial system uses subdivision. For a metric person, a measurement such as 13/64" looks weird, and for an imperial person, a measurement such as 5.2mm looks weird, when in reality they are very close, and of the same precision.
  - rasz_pl 12y ago
    I think this is his argument. It would actually be harder for him to handle more digits, even thought they mean the same thing.
- _ZeD_ 12y ago
  You miss the base-10 point: you can switch in zero time from 240cm to 2.4m and vice-versa, as you can switch in zero time from $2,40 to ¢240 when you expect ¢60 in return. And you can totally ignore the "2", and focus on the "40" part, if you care about the precision, in zero time, and switch back to a global view.
  - kazagistar 12y ago
    The real problem then is our counting system. If base-12 is the most convenient, then we could count in base 12 too. That, however, is clearly never going to happen, so we are stuck with the less efficient base 10 system.
  - vacri 12y ago
    The other thing is that if everything is in powers of 10, then complex calculations are done that require multiple units, it's much easier to calculate. You don't need to keep a dictionary of 'conversion factors' to have these complex calculations make sense.
- bronson 12y ago
  Would be nice if one of the many downvoters would explain how working in the hundreds of centimeters is easier...?
  - shdon 12y ago
    Not one of the downvoters, but working in (hundreds of) centimetres (240cm) as opposed to meters (2.4m) is not as crazy as it sounds. Tape measures or carpenter's rulers will have centimetres on them all the way. Also, people consider it a matter of precision. If I ask for a piece of wood that's 2.4m long, I am probably less concerned with the precise length than if I ask for one that's 2400mm long.
- xkiwi 12y ago
  I am implementing imperial system on our currency. 12 cents = a dime. 12 dimes = a dollar, 12 dollars = a thousand dollar. 12 thousand dollars = a million dollar. 12 million dollars = a billion dollar. can you tell me how much is a billion dollar in a dollar unit now?
jwecker 12y ago
Give 240cm or 360cm a name (like STL for "standard-timber-length", 1 stl = 240 cm) and you're effectively doing the exact same thing as the imperial system. Then it's just a popularity contest (which is fine and appropriate and metric wins except for wrt time) but at least conceding the fact that base-10 scaling of units is not intrinsically superior for all units & situations. Edit: If the argument is that metric is more intuitive (less memorization because of consistent scales) then I think that's a great argument. If the argument is that it's more standardized and more widely adopted, I think that's also a great argument. But I think that the argument that the metric-system is somehow superior intrinsically because only scales of powers of 10 are worth naming (as the name implies) is a poor argument, as you've helped illustrate.
- phaemon 12y ago
  I'm afraid your argument is circular. You're claiming that the ability to divide evenly is an intrinsic quality of Imperial, and then when I point out that actually it can be done in any measurement system (including metric), you claim that this makes metric like Imperial, because...well, because dividing evenly is a property of Imperial. Unless you're suggesting that timber should only be available by 1 inch, 1 foot and 1 yard measurements in the US and by 1 cm, 1 meter, ermm...I kilometer(?) in other countries? Edit: I didn't claim metric was better at all (it is, but I didn't claim it!). You claimed that Imperial was better for dividing up lengths of timber. I explained why it wasn't.
  - jwecker 12y ago
    I guess the real issue is which units get names. Yes, you can do with 12cm exactly what you can do with 12in- but the latter gets its own named unit. The Imperial system has a preference for scaling its units by some slightly more practical number of sub-units- 12, 60, etc. I can imagine someone saying, for example, "why name 1000 centimeters as another unit? Can't I say 'thousands' using the same number of syllables? What's worth naming a different unit is 240cm since that's used a lot with timber..." Someone strictly advocating the metric system would say "that's the point, kilo is another way of saying 1000 no matter where you live in the world or what you're measuring. Feel free to call 240cm a 'frob' if you like, but please, only do so in private- don't order 14 frobs of lumber, order 33.6 meters." (edit: which is a perfectly valid point. It's the slow accumulation of frobs that made the imperial system untenable. We trade a little bit of efficiency at a local level for greater global efficiency when we adopt metric.)

by phaemon 12y ago

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?
        bronson 12y ago
        Oops, I'm sorry for the edit. You & I had the same thought: singling out 2.4 was just muddying things. Calling the unit the "2.4" sounds great. But that doesn't sound very metric to me...
        phaemon 12y ago
        Perhaps not to you, but most folk I know (in the UK) aren't quite so hung up about it. I'll sometimes refer to a half-liter as a pint, or a liter as a "couple of pints", or a meter as a yard. Though the pint is by far the stupidest unit. Why on earth wasn't it standardised at 500ml? It would have fixed pints, quarts and gallons all in one go! I know, you can think up immediate objections, but having 568ml to the pint and 4.546 litres to the gallon, is just wrong!
        vidarh 12y ago
        > Why on earth wasn't it standardised at 500ml? Because you'd have a revolution on your hand when people realized they were being served less beer.
        bronson 12y ago
        Nah, I just couldn't picture anyone doing woodwork in hundreds or thousands of units (now, where did I get that idea...?), or dividing base 10 units. Since it sounds like wood is sold and worked in base 12, I'd use metric no problem. But that makes the difference between imperial and metric pretty arbitrary, doesn't it?
        NickNameNick 12y ago
  - henrikschroder 12y ago
    > More precision than necessary. What? The precision of $2.40 and 240 cent is exactly the same. Two significant digits. It's kinda funny, every time this debate comes around, I see that the people advocating imperial are always confused by the concept of precision, which is handled very naturally in the metric system, but people advocating metric are confused about the way the imperial system uses subdivision. For a metric person, a measurement such as 13/64" looks weird, and for an imperial person, a measurement such as 5.2mm looks weird, when in reality they are very close, and of the same precision.
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  I think this is his argument. It would actually be harder for him to handle more digits, even thought they mean the same thing.
_ZeD_ 12y ago
You miss the base-10 point: you can switch in zero time from 240cm to 2.4m and vice-versa, as you can switch in zero time from $2,40 to ¢240 when you expect ¢60 in return. And you can totally ignore the "2", and focus on the "40" part, if you care about the precision, in zero time, and switch back to a global view.
- kazagistar 12y ago
  The real problem then is our counting system. If base-12 is the most convenient, then we could count in base 12 too. That, however, is clearly never going to happen, so we are stuck with the less efficient base 10 system.
- vacri 12y ago
  The other thing is that if everything is in powers of 10, then complex calculations are done that require multiple units, it's much easier to calculate. You don't need to keep a dictionary of 'conversion factors' to have these complex calculations make sense.
bronson 12y ago
Would be nice if one of the many downvoters would explain how working in the hundreds of centimeters is easier...?
- shdon 12y ago
  Not one of the downvoters, but working in (hundreds of) centimetres (240cm) as opposed to meters (2.4m) is not as crazy as it sounds. Tape measures or carpenter's rulers will have centimetres on them all the way. Also, people consider it a matter of precision. If I ask for a piece of wood that's 2.4m long, I am probably less concerned with the precise length than if I ask for one that's 2400mm long.
xkiwi 12y ago
I am implementing imperial system on our currency. 12 cents = a dime. 12 dimes = a dollar, 12 dollars = a thousand dollar. 12 thousand dollars = a million dollar. 12 million dollars = a billion dollar. can you tell me how much is a billion dollar in a dollar unit now?

jwecker 12y ago

Give 240cm or 360cm a name (like STL for "standard-timber-length", 1 stl = 240 cm) and you're effectively doing the exact same thing as the imperial system. Then it's just a popularity contest (which is fine and appropriate and metric wins except for wrt time) but at least conceding the fact that base-10 scaling of units is not intrinsically superior for all units & situations. Edit: If the argument is that metric is more intuitive (less memorization because of consistent scales) then I think that's a great argument. If the argument is that it's more standardized and more widely adopted, I think that's also a great argument. But I think that the argument that the metric-system is somehow superior intrinsically because only scales of powers of 10 are worth naming (as the name implies) is a poor argument, as you've helped illustrate.

phaemon 12y ago
I'm afraid your argument is circular. You're claiming that the ability to divide evenly is an intrinsic quality of Imperial, and then when I point out that actually it can be done in any measurement system (including metric), you claim that this makes metric like Imperial, because...well, because dividing evenly is a property of Imperial. Unless you're suggesting that timber should only be available by 1 inch, 1 foot and 1 yard measurements in the US and by 1 cm, 1 meter, ermm...I kilometer(?) in other countries? Edit: I didn't claim metric was better at all (it is, but I didn't claim it!). You claimed that Imperial was better for dividing up lengths of timber. I explained why it wasn't.
- jwecker 12y ago
  I guess the real issue is which units get names. Yes, you can do with 12cm exactly what you can do with 12in- but the latter gets its own named unit. The Imperial system has a preference for scaling its units by some slightly more practical number of sub-units- 12, 60, etc. I can imagine someone saying, for example, "why name 1000 centimeters as another unit? Can't I say 'thousands' using the same number of syllables? What's worth naming a different unit is 240cm since that's used a lot with timber..." Someone strictly advocating the metric system would say "that's the point, kilo is another way of saying 1000 no matter where you live in the world or what you're measuring. Feel free to call 240cm a 'frob' if you like, but please, only do so in private- don't order 14 frobs of lumber, order 33.6 meters." (edit: which is a perfectly valid point. It's the slow accumulation of frobs that made the imperial system untenable. We trade a little bit of efficiency at a local level for greater global efficiency when we adopt metric.)