Comments on: 6 Crazy Things I just learned about the Metric system

By: Tony Franzetto Guggliano

Tony Franzetto Guggliano — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:31:27 +0000

Imperial is a measurement for human beings to use in day to day life. Metric is baloney, trying to enforce rigid, scientific rules on human activity. Imperial measurement is organically grown, and very suitable for most daily purposes. Metric may well be better for scientific experiments, and feel free to use it for that, but when I’m working, I don’t want to be cutting lengths of pipe in decimeters, or saying that you should put up a support every meter and 15 centimers.

If I’m out in my garden, what’s the advantage of planting seeds 4 inches or apart or 10.2 cm? Am I forwarding science by using such a wonderfully convertible and precise unit of measure?

And yes, that map is inaccurate. The Brits share our sentiment.

By: Andrew J. Winks

Andrew J. Winks — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:20:49 +0000

Addressing the Fahrenheit scale, an encyclopaedia article concludes: “…our adherence to obsolete methods which entail grave inconvenience to scientists and others is on a par with our retention of a … weights and measures system which are not only far behind the times, but which are awkward and unsuitable for commercial use.”

Cassell’s Cabinet Cyclopedia, 1906

By: Luke

Luke — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 07:45:19 +0000

I think the best support of the metric system is that most people who have had the experience of using both say they prefer metric.
Imperial really only remains only because of itself – USA we love you, but please join the metric system!

By: Metric Imperialist

Metric Imperialist — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 20:46:20 +0000

A quotable quote:

To those who still adhere to Imperial measurements we say: “Give it up. The war is over. You lost. Come out of the jungle and surrender your rulers, weights, and your conversion tables.”

— Export English study guide
(Andrew J. Winks and Helmke Hennig)

By: crocostimpy

crocostimpy — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:35:56 +0000

I knew this would devolve into a bunch of self-righteous opinionated comments. One thing everybody seems to be forgetting though is that the U.S. is already using SI in some areas. The last time I got a prescription drug it was measured in MILLIgrams. And when I gave blood it was in LITERS. Most marathons or ‘runs’ are in KILOMETERS.

And RECON, when Will shows up to shove a yardstick down your throat you should threaten to shove a meterstick somewhere else in his body. After all, it is 3.937 inches longer than his yardstick. : )

By: Bert

Bert — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:02:12 +0000

Estimation is all about familiarity, and knowing a few simple conversions. Four inches is approximately 10 cm, about the width of your hand. A metre is a few inches more than a yard. A Mile is a little over a kilometre and a half.

Trust me, I’m an engineer in Canada and as a consequence I have had to familiarize myself with both systems (and speak for yourself Wayne, I’m definitely an expert in metric and am quite well versed in imperial). Metric is so much easier.

FYI – there are two imperial units for mass – the slug, and the pound-mass (lbm, which is different from the reqular pound-force, lbf). I’m serious. Yet another reason to send imperial the way of the dodo.

By: Lucas

Lucas — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:50:28 +0000

I use to work on a survey crew in Ontario. We often had to work with old surveys which were in Imperial, and much of the modern stuff was in Metric.

It is much easier for me to visualise in Metric and I learned to do it much more quickly than I learned to visualise Imperial.

My stride is very close to one metre though so if I ever needed to estimate a distance I just walked there and counted my strides.

But I can estimate kilometres, metres, decametres, centimetres, and millimetres fairly accurately and I can convert between them without even thinking. I have no idea why gmsc thinks visualisation is easier and better in Imperial.

Plus Metric is relatively easy for estimating travel time when I’m driving (although it would be really easy with a 10 based measurement of time). Most of the time you are going around 100km/h (approx. 60mi./h). So whether a place is 400km or 50km you know exactly how long it should take to drive there.

If you told me a place was about a 3hr drive away, I would know right away it’s about 300km or vice versa.

By: dave

dave — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:49:50 +0000

@Will – nice one, but it should be noted that those extra letters represent the socialization of our alphabet, and a silent typetax on Canadians.

Before everyone tosses their Tim’s in outrage, remember that those u’s and re’s were what protected our economy from the sub-prime mortgage fiasco.

Soon you’ll all be happy to drive a Fourd or Chevre-o-let, measure in 10′s and your industries will realize the cost savings of manufacturing with the best screw head known to science, the robertson. (seriously the phillips head is probably the reason your labour costs are so damn high)

By: Worldwalker

Worldwalker — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:45:05 +0000

P.S.

Remember:

1,803,000,000,000 furlongs per fortnight: it’s not just a good idea; it’s the law.

By: Worldwalker

Worldwalker — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:41:56 +0000

I’ve never quite understood the British thing for measuring weight in “stones” … someone weighs as much as X number of rocks? Yes, I know, it makes just as much sense as feet, hands, and candles; it’s what you grew up with.

And that’s the key: what you grew up with. You could teach kids a system based on prime numbers and units named for flavors (7 chocolates in a basil?) and it would make more sense to them than either the US or metric systems. It’s adults for whom the transition is a bit rocky. Well, as the song says, nobody ever promised you a rose garden; we can deal. Seeing the kind of people for whom the choice of measurement system is based, not on practical considerations, but on a kind of hyper-nationalism — though, given that NEITHER system was invented here, I can’t really understand that — makes me want to prefer SI out of sheer spite.

Due to online games and forum activity, I have friends from all over the world. Since I don’t generally mention my nationality, a lot of them just use whatever system they’re familiar with (which is generally SI). So, I’ve learned to think in both and use whatever the discussion calls for. I just have two different sets of baselines: for example, 30 degrees is a comfortable temperature, 1 kilometer is about how far I can walk in 10 minutes, my hand-span is roughly 20 cm, a kilogram weighs about yea much *hefts*, like my netbook, and of course a liter is the size of one of those bottles from the convenience store. When you come right down to it, that’s the same system most of us use for US measurements. We don’t relate them to other measurements, they’re just “yea much” and we work from those baselines.

And a hand is almost exactly 10 centimeters, which has to matter for something!

(yes, I already know I walk fast, like it hot, and have small hands)