The metric system sucks
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From: Andrew Usher on 4 Feb 2010 13:54 On Feb 4, 12:35 pm, "Mike Dworetsky" <platinum...(a)pants.btinternet.com> wrote: > It was a sort of joke and not meant seriously. But only sort of; I do think > one of their long term goals is to land a man on the Moon, if for no other > reason than prestige. It may be sooner than you think. Compare where > America was in 1960 with 1969. It only took 9 years. If they put their > minds to it, don't you think they will find a way? I suppose they will, when we still can't. Andrew Usher
From: Andrew Usher on 4 Feb 2010 14:02 On Feb 4, 12:23 pm, "Bob Myers" <nospample...(a)address.invalid> wrote: > ALL such systems of measurement are to some degree > arbitrary; there is no inherent advantage in that regard, > for most applications, to either system. Precisely; metric is not, as vulgarly asserted, more scientific than English. > But if we're talking > about what system to use in the future, I would submit the > following: > > 1. The current situation, wherein persons (mostly in "English unit" > countries) basically HAVE to keep tools, etc., in both > versions, is not optimal. It leads to inefficencies and errors > (as in the famous case of the "Gimli glider," in which an > airliner ran out of fuel in mid-flight, in large part due to confusion > between the two systems of units). The 'Gimli glider' case, like the Mars climate orbiter, was really caused by an attempt to convert where the old units had been working just fine (as well as other mechanical problems, of course). > 2. It is admittedly costly to switch from a "both systems" > situation to using one only, or to switch from one to the > other. But tools and tooling does wear out and have to > be replaced over time, and you can take advantage of > this to minimize the cost of transition either way. We > should also note that many, many currently available > electronic measuring devices (scales, calipers, etc.) > are easily switched from one system to the other by the > press of a button. This weakens your first point, and seems to me an argument against wwitching. > 3. The question, then, assuming that we do not wish to > continue using two systems in parallel forever (and I have > yet to see any justification for doing THAT) is simply > which one makes more sense to switch to, worldwide, > for the future. As Bart keeps pointing out, this logic applied to languages would justify forcing everyone to switch to English now. We accept that language diversity will continue for an indefinite length of time, why not for measures as well? > It is readily apparent that the "metric" > or "SI" system is the logical choice here, as it is already > the most popular system worldwide (and thus the overall > cost of transition is minimum going in that direction), plus > it has the advantage of being, once learned, a simpler > and more intuitive set of units. I don't agree that metric is more intuitive the way people actually use it. Why would you think that? - There's nothing inherent about the meter, liter, and kilogram that makes them intuitive. > Given the above, there would have to be a significant > justification for continuing with the "English" system, and > again, I have seen nothing offered here beyond "it's just > too hard for me to learn a new system." Then you haven't read my argument (It doesn't seem anyone has). I argue, first, that (as much as I love science) politics/philosophy is ultimately more important, and hence I would have to oppose metric even if I thought it superior, which I don't. Andrew Usher
From: Andrew Usher on 4 Feb 2010 14:04 On Feb 4, 12:05 pm, Bart Goddard <goddar...(a)netscape.net> wrote: > > If you mean non-technical people, they get through most of their > > lives without doing any calculations at all. Engineers, on the > > other hand, have to deal with the density of water quite a bit. Things > > get submerged in it, containers are built empty and later filled > > with it, it can end up standing on the roofs of buildings if you > > didn't design them right, etc. > > "Deal with" is not "calculate." Nobody calculates the > density of water. Pardon me, but what do you mean here? How would you get the density of water in pounds per cubic foot? Andrew Usher
From: Andrew Usher on 4 Feb 2010 14:09 On Feb 4, 11:18 am, nos...(a)nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote: > >> What is the density of water in pounds per cubic foot? > > >As usual, the decimaphile offers us a calculation that > >1. is already known and 2. nobody ever does. Against > > If you mean non-technical people, they get through most of their > lives without doing any calculations at all. Engineers, on the > other hand, have to deal with the density of water quite a bit. I can't believe he couldn't tell you. The density of water (I know in my head) is about 62.4 pounds per cubic foot; 62.3 if correcting for the bouyancy of air (a detail the metric-philes always omit!). Of course it changes with temperature as well; it's rather fortunate that water has a much lower thermal expansion than any other liquid at normal temperatures. Andrew Usher
From: Gerry Myerson on 4 Feb 2010 17:09
In article <hkeig101lnd(a)news3.newsguy.com>, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv(a)aol> wrote: > I grew up in the US and cannot think in metric terms so I > always have to do a conversion to make guesstimates. > For some strange reason, kilometers seem to take "longer" > to drive than miles when I drove from Buffalo to Port > Huron, Michigan. :-) Probably because of those metric Canadian hours, what with each one being 100 minutes long. -- Gerry Myerson (gerry(a)maths.mq.edi.ai) (i -> u for email) |