Imperial and Metric systems. - General

I'm used to imperial because of being in the USA and all but when I am not doing schoolwork, I always use metric.

I was taught metric by parents and teachers who are used to imperial, I'm absolutely useless with both systems.

In sweden a quarter-pounder is called a QP cheese. heh. [QUOTE=space1;32480567]You don't say you want a liter of milk, you say you want a gallon.[/QUOTE] Says you. In many countries including sweden we buy our milk in one liter cartons. [QUOTE=Bert the Turtle;32483246]Do you really say "I'm 1 and 70 tall"? When people ask me how tall I am I just say "170" and they know what I mean.[/QUOTE] Not really "1 and 70 tall", but I had to write it like that to make it obvious. In sweden I'd say i'm "1 och 70" which sounds like "1 o' 70" and translates to "1 and 70". [QUOTE=AK'z;32489888]You people don't get it do you?[/QUOTE] Come on, AK'z. Not trying to be an ass, but every single post you've made in this thread has been saying how what you're used to is better because it "sounds right" and it's "culturally acceptable". No mention of what's the most logical or practical. If "1 and 70" sounds worse than "5 foot 7" is just a matter of what your used to but things would certainly be alot easier globally if the few stubborn-ass countries that still use imperial would change it.

Metric is not practical, compared to imperial. Imperial measurements were invented by merchants and were widely used precisely because they were practical. You might say metric is easier, but quite frankly, that is because calculators have destroyed our mental arithmetic abilites.

[QUOTE=Capitulazyguy;32512052]Metric is not practical, compared to imperial. Imperial measurements were invented by merchants and were widely used precisely because they were practical. You might say metric is easier, but quite frankly, that is because calculators have destroyed our mental arithmetic abilites.[/QUOTE] Imperial measurements used to be practical, but these days they're not. [editline]28th September 2011[/editline] Also, I think this is related to what you're used to.

[QUOTE=Capitulazyguy;32512052]Metric is not practical, compared to imperial. Imperial measurements were invented by merchants and were widely used precisely because they were practical. You might say metric is easier, but quite frankly, that is because calculators have destroyed our mental arithmetic abilites.[/QUOTE] How is it not practical? What kind of nonsense is that?

[QUOTE=Ond kaja;32502896]There's a huge difference between 120 km/h and 120 mph.[/QUOTE] I never said there wasn't. 120 km/h is 74.56MPH, 120 MPH is 193.1 km/h. I was talking specifically about much lower speeds such as 40 MPH (which is the speed limit on the road I live on) which is 64.37 km/h and 40 km/h which is 24.85 MPH. Getting stuck behind someone doing 25 MPH on the road I live on is pretty much a daily occurrence. [editline]27th September 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Capitulazyguy;32512052]Metric is not practical, compared to imperial. Imperial measurements were invented by merchants and were widely used precisely because they were practical. You might say metric is easier, but quite frankly, that is because calculators have destroyed our mental arithmetic abilites.[/QUOTE] It's far more practical to use metric since it's a base 10 system rather than the random mess imperial is. The human mind naturally wants to group things by tens.

[QUOTE=Within;32454625]Anyway. How do you Americans "deal with" science? This question, of course, is primarily aimed at people actually having experience with any mid-high level physics, mathematics and/or chemistry so that they have actually spent a significant time with their calculator. Surely you need to paraphrase any imperial unit to metric, or how does that work?[/QUOTE] I haven't been a professional scientist, but my freshmen Physical Science teacher (pretty awesome guy, by the way, I think I've said stuff about him on facepunch before) said that "if you decide to be a scientist, you won't be using the Imperial system. Everything will be in Metric. We won't even talk about the Imperial system in this class." And so we didn't. We never even mentioned a mile or inch, we only used metric units for everything we did in physics and chemistry. It just made so much sense, too. Anything greater than a density of 1 sinks, you can just shift the decimal point to convert things, and there's so many cross conversions (1 cubic cm of water equals 1 cubic centileter of water or something like that).

[QUOTE=Capitulazyguy;32512052]Metric is not practical, compared to imperial. Imperial measurements were invented by merchants and were widely used precisely because they were practical. You might say metric is easier, but quite frankly, that is because calculators have destroyed our mental arithmetic abilites.[/QUOTE] How the hell...? The imperial units all were based in very inexact real life objects, the length your foot literally a foot, and a grain was literally a grain of wheat or barley, it wasn't until the international foot was declared (The length you use nowadays) that it became a standard unit, and this was only possible because it was [I]pegged against the meter[/I]. Without the introduction of the meter as an exact unit of length relying on something unequivocally of the same length, the imperial units would have fluctuating values, depending on the place it is used. The metric system units, are however, defined by set, unmodifiable real world measurements, for example: The metre is defined as the path travelled by light in vacuum in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second. The exact speed of light, defined by the constant [I]c[/I], is well known to be exact up to very few picometers, therefore making the meter a constant too. The litre is defined as the volume of 1kg of water in it's average density of 1kg/m^3. Speaking of water, almost all of the values of water are, according to the metric system unitary, that is to preserve the notion that water is the most basic of fluids. The kilogram is not only the mass of one litre of water, thus making the value of the litre and the kilogram redundant, there is also a prototype kilo made of a platinum-iridium alloy stored securely in a vault to preserve its exact measurement as a kilo. The International Committee for Weights and Measures is currently working on converting the weight of the kilo in a constant. I suppose it also goes without saying that the conversions in the metric system are incredibly easy to do as all the units are simply powers of 10, thus the only thing that needs to be done in order to convert units is to add or remove zeroes, a process much simpler than dividing by arbitrary numbers. So how is the imperial system any more practical?

[QUOTE=Big Bang;32522213]How the hell...? The imperial units all were based in very inexact real life objects, the length your foot literally a foot, and a grain was literally a grain of wheat or barley, it wasn't until the international foot was declared (The length you use nowadays) that it became a standard unit, and this was only possible because it was [I]pegged against the meter[/I]. Without the introduction of the meter as an exact unit of length relying on something unequivocally of the same length, the imperial units would have fluctuating values, depending on the place it is used. The metric system units, are however, defined by set, unmodifiable real world measurements, for example: The metre is defined as the path travelled by light in vacuum in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second. The exact speed of light, defined by the constant [I]c[/I], is well known to be exact up to very few picometers, therefore making the meter a constant too. The litre is defined as the volume of 1kg of water in it's average density of 1kg/m^3. Speaking of water, almost all of the values of water are, according to the metric system unitary, that is to preserve the notion that water is the most basic of fluids. The kilogram is not only the mass of one litre of water, thus making the value of the litre and the kilogram redundant, there is also a prototype kilo made of a platinum-iridium alloy stored securely in a vault to preserve its exact measurement as a kilo. The International Committee for Weights and Measures is currently working on converting the weight of the kilo in a constant. I suppose it also goes without saying that the conversions in the metric system are incredibly easy to do as all the units are simply powers of 10, thus the only thing that needs to be done in order to convert units is to add or remove zeroes, a process much simpler than dividing by arbitrary numbers. So how is the imperial system any more practical?[/QUOTE] He doesn't like it.

I'm horrible at visualizing distances. 20 centimeters is about as far as I can go, then it goes crazy. One meter I can visualize with a pretty lax definition, give or take 20 centimeters. 20 meters is hard and a hundred meters is impossible. For this reason you could think the Imperial system would fit me better, but I'm still not sure how wide an inch really is. Is it about as wide as my thumb? Is it closer to two centimeters? Two and a half? I forgot what I was trying to tell here but arguing with "it feels right" or "a pint makes more sense" is just another way of saying "it's better because I say so". If you honestly think the Imperial (or Standard or w/e you call it) system is better, why don't you dish out some arguments against using the Metric system. I don't see many cons to it myself. I won't argue that "mile" rolls of the tongue better in English than "kilometer" though. [QUOTE=Cuel;32487215]In Sweden we use "mil" (guessing it would translate to mile) for distance (10 000 m = 10 km = 1 mil) while most other countries (I think Finland and Russia is still using something similar) settled with only using kilometre.[/QUOTE] There's still old terms like "peninkulma" that are occasionally used by older folk. I have no idea how much it really is, seven kilometers I think. No wait just checked, it has been equalized with the Swedish mil so it's ten kilometers now. [QUOTE=Ond kaja;32493870]I think there would be a risk of drivers mixing up the numbers, so they accidentally drive faster or slower than the speed limit.[/QUOTE] Paint them in different, easy to distinguish colors. You can even have the Imperial measurements on a larger font.

[QUOTE=Runar;32512167]Imperial measurements used to be practical, but these days they're not.[/QUOTE] What changed?

[QUOTE=Capitulazyguy;32526733]What changed?[/QUOTE] Metric was invented.

[QUOTE=Big Bang;32522213]How the hell...? The imperial units all were based in very inexact real life objects, the length your foot literally a foot, and a grain was literally a grain of wheat or barley, it wasn't until the international foot was declared (The length you use nowadays) that it became a standard unit, and this was only possible because it was [I]pegged against the meter[/I]. Without the introduction of the meter as an exact unit of length relying on something unequivocally of the same length, the imperial units would have fluctuating values, depending on the place it is used. The metric system units, are however, defined by set, unmodifiable real world measurements, for example: The metre is defined as the path travelled by light in vacuum in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second. The exact speed of light, defined by the constant [I]c[/I], is well known to be exact up to very few picometers, therefore making the meter a constant too. The litre is defined as the volume of 1kg of water in it's average density of 1kg/m^3. Speaking of water, almost all of the values of water are, according to the metric system unitary, that is to preserve the notion that water is the most basic of fluids. The kilogram is not only the mass of one litre of water, thus making the value of the litre and the kilogram redundant, there is also a prototype kilo made of a platinum-iridium alloy stored securely in a vault to preserve its exact measurement as a kilo. The International Committee for Weights and Measures is currently working on converting the weight of the kilo in a constant. I suppose it also goes without saying that the conversions in the metric system are incredibly easy to do as all the units are simply powers of 10, thus the only thing that needs to be done in order to convert units is to add or remove zeroes, a process much simpler than dividing by arbitrary numbers. So how is the imperial system any more practical?[/QUOTE] Pegged against the metre - have you never heard of Weights and Measures Acts? The International Foot is just the latest in the long line of feet. [img_thumb]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/ImperialStandardsOfLength1876TrafalgarSquare_Copyright2005KaihsuTai.jpg[/img_thumb] The metre was initially defined as a fraction of the circumeference of the Earth - and they buggered up the calculations. Now it's based on a division of the speed of light, measured in metres per second - I'm sure you can see the logical twists and turns needed to make this. [editline]28th September 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=mobrockers2;32526743]Metric was invented.[/QUOTE] It wasn't more practical for the good few centuries we didn't use it.

[QUOTE=Zezibesh;32523007]For this reason you could think the Imperial system would fit me better, but I'm still not sure how wide an inch really is. Is it about as wide as my thumb? Is it closer to two centimeters? Two and a half?[/QUOTE] 2.54cm=1 inch

1 inch is about the thickness of a grown man's thumb. It is three barleycorns, which are about the length of a corn of barley (and is still used for shoe sizes). It is a twelfth of a foot, which is about the size of a UK Size 11 shoe. One foot is a sixth of a fathom, the distance between two outstretched arms. A yard, three feet, is the length of your fingertips to the centre of your chest. There are 22 yards in a chain, which is the distance between the wickets in a cricket pitch. Ten (hey! maybe you'll get this!) chains make a furlong, and 8 furlongs make a mile. Three miles is one league, about an hour's walk.

[QUOTE=Capitulazyguy;32527220]1 inch is [B]about [/B]the thickness of a grown man's thumb. It is three barleycorns, which are [B]about [/B]the length of a corn of barley (and is still used for shoe sizes). It is a twelfth of a foot, which is [B]about [/B]the size of a UK Size 11 shoe. One foot is a sixth of a fathom, the distance between [B]two outstretched arms[/B]. A yard, three feet, is the length of your fingertips to the centre of your chest. There are 22 yards in a chain, which is the distance between the wickets in a cricket pitch. Ten (hey! maybe you'll get this!) chains make a furlong, and 8 furlongs make a mile. Three miles is one league, [B]about [/B]an hour's walk.[/QUOTE] You do realize that this makes it a highly impractical measurement method.

Yeah, what's practical about outstretched arms? A platinum rod is where it's at.

[QUOTE=Capitulazyguy;32527765]Yeah, what's practical about outstretched arms? A platinum rod is where it's at.[/QUOTE] Meaning, it doesn't work in real life. Oh sure, a farmer or such could maybe measure some rope with that, for binding a trailer to a truck or something like that. That's good enough. But what if he wants to sell wood? Don't you think he'd like to know exactly how much wood he's selling? Or from the point of the buyer don't you think he'd like a way to controll that? If you measure with your arms or your thumb, everyone will have a different size. That's what's impractical about it. A platinum rod is at least always the same size.

Imperial units are standardised, they're just based on those measurements. If you measure with your arms or your thumb, you won't have an exact value, but you'll have a rough answer, which is certainly more practical than hauling a great big ruler everywhere. Time for bed, said Zebedee.

[QUOTE=Capitulazyguy;32526912]Pegged against the metre - have you never heard of Weights and Measures Acts? The International Foot is just the latest in the long line of feet. The metre was initially defined as a fraction of the circumeference of the Earth - and they buggered up the calculations. Now it's based on a division of the speed of light, measured in metres per second - I'm sure you can see the logical twists and turns needed to make this.[/QUOTE] That's a contradiction by itself, you're claiming the meter is an inexact measure, but in the paragraph above you claim the foot has gone through several iterations and different lengths. Must I remind you that the imperial measurements were different in each country, even in the same places of each country? Don't believe me? Oh just look up, the foot was depending on the place a value oscilating between 10 inches and 13 inches, up until recent time. In terms of marketing, an inexact measurement can make quite a difference, assuming you asked for a hundred feet of thread, depending on the place you would get almost 20% less or more of what you paid for, so how is this any practical for merchandising. The meter uses a logical, constant length, not an arbitrary unit made up on the go, so what if it wasn't as precise as it used to be before the measurement of the speed of light in vacuum? The foot was in no way, and in fact is still not an accurate measurement. It's funny that you posted that image, actually, that was the measurement of the foot in 1876, based on an entirely different length than the current American imperial measurement system. Guess you should read the Wikipedia metadata. It's also funny that you mention the Weights and Measures Acts. There had been 11 different revisions of the system, each reducing the measurement, until metrification in the second half of the twentieth century, after which the only modification done to the meter was to set its definite, exact value, which never quite deviated as much as the foot in terms of length. What are you trying to say here? Are you trying to demonize the metre? Give me just one good reason why the imperial system is superior in any way that isn't related to your personal upbringing and your OWN personal preference? [QUOTE=Capitulazyguy;32528339]Imperial units are standardised, they're just based on those measurements. If you measure with your arms or your thumb, you won't have an exact value, but you'll have a rough answer, which is certainly more practical than hauling a great big ruler everywhere. Time for bed, said Zebedee.[/QUOTE] If you're measuring a foot, and you use your forearm (The foot is almost never the actual length of someone's foot), you're actually measuring roughly 30 centimeters, the length of a ruler, if you use your thumb, you could as easily said 2.5 centimeters. Two steps are usually the length of a metre, or if you're particularly tall, a leg length would suffice. See how that whole argument doesn't make sense because the metric colloquial equivalent is about the same damn thing?

I live america, so obliviously we use imperial, but I do use metric a lot.

[QUOTE=Big Bang;32522213]How the hell...? The imperial units all were based in very inexact real life objects, the length your foot literally a foot, and a grain was literally a grain of wheat or barley, it wasn't until the international foot was declared (The length you use nowadays) that it became a standard unit, and this was only possible because it was [I]pegged against the meter[/I]. Without the introduction of the meter as an exact unit of length relying on something unequivocally of the same length, the imperial units would have fluctuating values, depending on the place it is used. The metric system units, are however, defined by set, unmodifiable real world measurements, for example: The metre is defined as the path travelled by light in vacuum in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second. The exact speed of light, defined by the constant [I]c[/I], is well known to be exact up to very few picometers, therefore making the meter a constant too. The litre is defined as the volume of 1kg of water in it's average density of [B]1kg/m^3[/B]. Speaking of water, almost all of the values of water are, according to the metric system unitary, that is to preserve the notion that water is the most basic of fluids. The kilogram is not only the mass of one litre of water, thus making the value of the litre and the kilogram redundant, there is also a prototype kilo made of a platinum-iridium alloy stored securely in a vault to preserve its exact measurement as a kilo. The International Committee for Weights and Measures is currently working on converting the weight of the kilo in a constant. I suppose it also goes without saying that the conversions in the metric system are incredibly easy to do as all the units are simply powers of 10, thus the only thing that needs to be done in order to convert units is to add or remove zeroes, a process much simpler than dividing by arbitrary numbers. So how is the imperial system any more practical?[/QUOTE] All but the bolded part are correct. Water has a density of 1kg/litre which is 1kg/1000cm^3 (a kilogram per a volume of 1 decimetre, by 1 decimetre, by 1 decimetre). It's [b]1000kg[/b]/m^3.

I just realized how bad I am at estimating measurements. I honestly just read whatever is on the tool I'm measuring with. I guess I can use either equally poorly.

[QUOTE=sltungle;32550041]All but the bolded part are correct. Water has a density of 1kg/litre which is 1kg/1000cm^3 (a kilogram per a volume of 1 decimetre, by 1 decimetre, by 1 decimetre). It's [b]1000kg[/b]/m^3.[/QUOTE] Yes, I missed the d to make it a decimeter. Since it's a volume, thus, a squared length, the numerator weight must decrease or increase in terms of 10^3. Something I must also say it's not as easy to work with in the imperial system, by the way.

Has anybody tried metricating time by any chance? by replacing seconds/minutes/hours/days/weeks/months/years? sure, it fuck up a lot of stuff but I'm just curious.

Imperial system is dumb as hell. Metric system should be taught everywhere.

Americans keep the imperial system for engineering reasons. Because you can easily get a 1/3rd of a foot while a 1/3rd of a meter isn't exact on a cad program.

[QUOTE=The Decoy;32584808]Has anybody tried metricating time by any chance? by replacing seconds/minutes/hours/days/weeks/months/years? sure, it fuck up a lot of stuff but I'm just curious.[/QUOTE] There's a decimal system for time but no one uses it [QUOTE=Engie;32585321]Americans keep the imperial system for engineering reasons. Because you can easily get a 1/3rd of a foot while a 1/3rd of a meter isn't exact on a cad program.[/QUOTE] Metric is just as accurate for engineering than imperial. Actually even better, considering the rest of the world uses it.

[QUOTE=The Decoy;32584808]Has anybody tried metricating time by any chance? by replacing seconds/minutes/hours/days/weeks/months/years? sure, it fuck up a lot of stuff but I'm just curious.[/QUOTE] We're all used to the 60-minute system, which isn't as incredibly arbitrary as a lot of other imperial measurements. It could be a discussion about 12-hour versus 24-hour clock though.