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Originally Posted by Sailor Steve
Range is always in yards. Ship dimensions are always in feet.
Metric is easier, and does make more sense. That's exactly why we don't use it.:rotfl:
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I'll grant you that using decimal portions of a unit is more convenient than using halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths, but nothing keeps you from using decimal portions as 4.5 yeards, 4.5 inches, 4.5 miles. It is in converting from one unit of measurement to another that the metric system was better up until now. But we have computers which care not whether they divide by 10 or 16.
The real difference between metric and imperial measurements is their relationship to the things we measure. Everything we build is intended to fit the humans who use them, submarines, buildings, roads, automobiles, airplanes, everything is based on the size of a human being. Well guess what? That is also the origin of the imperial measurement system. The foot is too obvious. The inch is the length of the second segment of your index finger. The cubit is the distance from the elbow to the end of a clenched fist. A yard is the distance from your chin to the tip of an outstretched upturned thumb. After the move to standardize humans was rejected by King Henry VII, who liked his women slightly smaller than he was, imperial measurements were standardized. But they still roughly correspond to the length of their origins. Human derived dimensions are much more accessible and make great sense for making items designed for human use. If man is the measure of the world, then imperial measurements rule!
Now let's take the meter. It was supposed to be a nice even fraction of the distance between the equator and the pole of planet Earth. First of all, why do we give a rip about that?
Secondly, they blew the measurement, leaving us with a meter based on......... Well, they did make a standard meter bar and it seems to be shrinking.:rotfl:
If metric is such a great idea, why do we measure latitude and longitude in degrees, minutes and seconds? I don't hear anybody clamoring for their ouster. How about time? Same deal. As we abandon job titles that actually contain any description of our function, it only makes sense that we abandon an intuitive and human based measurement system for one that bears no relationship to anything we care about! Onward, into the fog!
