Imperial System... oh how i loathe theee!

[GerritJ9]

Where is the logic in THIS Imperial measurement: 22 yards = 1 chain. It only makes some sense when you know of its origin- but how many (or perhaps how FEW) do????
Or why Imperial gallon (4.54 litres) and US gallon (3.785 litres)?

[gutted]

ever bought a cord of lumber for firewood?

heheeheh.. silly americans.

[Iron Budokan]

Originally Posted by gutted

LOL

Ok first off.. let me just say this up front. Im an American construction worker... and despite using it all my life... i fugging hate the Imperial System.

I much prefer metric. It's simple and intuitive and straightforward. Can't beat that combination, imo.

[Rockin Robbins]

The facts will never sway those whose minds are already made up. Ease of calculation in the base 10 system is the ONLY advantage of the metric system. Aside from that its units are the wrong size, the mathematical relationships are not in correspondence with the numerical relationships between sizes, frequencies, weights or temperatures in the real world as I have described carefully in the posts above.

Bald statements of "this is better" do not substitute for reason, example and proof.

[DarkFish]

I don't agree with you that the metric system is harder to use because the units would be too far apart. I can estimate pretty well how long a meter is, just as easily as someone who grew up in the US can estimate the length of a feet/yard/inch/mile/whatever. The imperial system might be based on human measures, but I'm positive my feet are a lot bigger than yours
Besides, because we've got 10 fingers to count with our natural counting system is base 10.

BTW, Fahrenheit VS Celsius has nothing to do with metric, the only difference between them is that celsius is based on the freezing (0°) and boiling (100°) point of water while fahrenheit is based on brine (0°) and the body temperature of a human (98.6°).
They both make sense, they are only based on other values. It's not like a fahrenheit is divided in 14 feirenhahts which is divided in 8.36 hahrenfeit or something

[Rockin Robbins]

Actually the way I was taught way back in elementary school, Mr. Fahrenheit was very scientific about it. He made himself up a mercury thermometer and one day he went outside and said "It's DAMN cold. I don't think I remember any day as cold as this. I'm going to call this temperature zero." and he marked his tube of mercury.

Then in the summer one day he said, "It's DAMNED hot. I don't remember any day as hot as this. I'm going to call this temperature 100. He marked his tube of mercury.

Then dividing the difference into hundredths, he arrived at the size of a degree in Fahrenheit. That 32º ended up being the freezing temp of water was just an accident.

It was a charmingly human way to reckon temperature and one which divided rough extremes of human tolerance into 100 gradations, a great size for the degree in relation to the human being. That's the essence of imperial and traditional measurements. As the Greeks said, rightly or wrongly, "man is the measure of the universe." According to their way of thinking, only the presence of man makes the universe worthwhile at all. I happen to agree with them that our very existence bears with it a validation of our appropriateness and worth in the universe we inhabit.

Our modern (that should be in quotations, I doubt it is in any way enlightened) way of thinking is that man is inherently evil and the universe would be much better off without us. Tree huggers live their lives with the aim of killing off the vast majority of us and forcing the rest of us to live in the stone age. And they act as if THAT were some kind of a service to the planet, which spawned us as the pinnacle of its accomplishments.

So we adopt systems of measure which have no relationship to man whatever, as man is supposedly irrelevant to the universe he measures. Doesn't the Heisenburg uncertainty principle imply that the act of measurement changes the qualities of that which is measured?

[Frederf]

Meh, Fahrenheit does start at absolute zero. You confuse the start of a scale and the zero of a scale. Oh absolute zero is cold it would hurt your hands... chuckle, chuckle... is that a logical point or are you just trying to distract?

Music is in base ten, just fractionally. So what if you break a measure up into 8 parts. A half note is 4/8 of a measure. Again you confuse fractions with base. You completely changed topics between talking about how music is composed to the physical composition of tones in order to make me seem wrong. Yeah octaves are based on 2^N math, we all knew that. Base-2 math is not owned by either measurement system.

Ease of calculation is not the only benefit. How about having one bloody unit per unit of measure? What's the sense in having inches, feet, yards, miles for distance instead of a single measure? And Imperial are more convenient? How about a measuring a brake rotor? Are inches or millimeters more natural? How about a film thickness on the order of green light's wavelength? Would you pick mils or nanometers?

I also don't buy this egotistical thing about "man is the measure of all things" where you make it into a choice between a man-based system and a human-abhorrent system. How about the system that isn't based on man but is merely indifferent to man. You don't have to be a tree hugger or some humans are evil type to simply get over the ego about everything being man-centric and get on with it.

The Heisenberg measurement changes the world is hardly man-centric. A measurement doesn't mean a guy in a lab coat with a ruler, it just means any time there is an interaction which requires a definite value. The idea that it takes a person to enact that law... ouch my brain. I guess there's a reason Fark.com has a Florida tag.

[Hitman]

[/joking mode on]

I don't know about other countries but here in Spain we are divided in high school in two groups, according toour preferences: Humanities, and Sciences. Those who choose "Sciencies" go on studying maths, physics, chemistry and suhc, while those who -like me- chose humanities get philosophy, latin and history. And it's a classic here to discuss against the sciences guys what is more useful, philosophy or maths/physics. In the end, we always beat the science guys because we are better at argumentation, and do you know what? This discussion you are having here is actually a philosophical one, even if you were not aware of it

Yes, gentlement, you are actually joining one or another of the big sides in philosophy: Realism vs. Idealism

Realistic are those who think that the world is what it is, independently of what we think of it (Imperial measurements), and idealists are those who think that the world is what we think it is (Metric system). Who is right? None of you! Only us guys from humanites , who have learnt since long that the discussion yoru are having is actually futile if you want to get the real measure of knowledge

[/joking mode off]

[Frederf]

Heh, we at Subsim should throw out all previously made systems and let's make our own.

I think Silent Hunter 5 will be out in 37:12.6 and 3/4 soups!

[Ouch!]

I was educated in the UK in the 1970's and due to the government's mania about the metric system I was taught to think in Meters, Centimeters, Kilometers, Grammes and Kilos, only to find that when I left school everybody was working in feet inches yards miles pounds tons and gallons.

To say the least, I was confused!

Even now, they sell petrol in litres but we still talk about miles per gallon. If I see a man in the street I could describe him as 6 feet tall or 5'9" and about 14stones, but I couldn't estimate his height & weight in meters & Kilos. Milk is still sold in pints the construction industry works in millimeters and aviation estimates their height in feet. You can buy a kilo of flour or sugar or a pound of sausages.

I am messed up! I wish we had a standardised system that everyone really uses.

Rant over!

Ouch!

[Morpheus]

you guys make up your heads for nothing...

if its called quarter pounder or cheese royal, after i eat it - its gone!

thx for you understanding

i drive with both measurements in sh4 (us and german campaing) and have no problems with that, its just a questions of logical flexibility *cheers*

[Rockin Robbins]

Knowledge is a little bird that tweets in your ear and tells lies.

Frederf: please have a good time while we are talking ideas that have no handles on them.

[Munchausen]

Originally Posted by Ouch!

If I see a man in the street I could describe him as 6 feet tall or 5'9" and about 14stones, but I couldn't estimate his height & weight in meters & Kilos.

My wife uses both systems to her advantage. If she's gaining weight, she uses a scale calibrated in kilograms. If she's on a diet, she uses a scale calibrated in pounds.

You do the math.

[DigitalAura]

It's worse in Canada, gutted.
Here we claim to be metric, teach everything in metric, learn everything in metric, and then get in the real world where no one uses it because everything we buy comes out of the US and everyone we sell to expects it to be SAE.

LOL. We're neither and both and so dang confused about the whole thing!

[SteamWake]

LOL when I was in elementry school / high school we were taught and told that the 'world' including the US would standardize on the metric system within 10 years... that was a lot longer than 10 years ago