The metric system sucks
in [Math]
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From: Matt on 12 Feb 2010 23:40 On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:02:11 +0000 (UTC), Michael Stemper wrote: >In article <joo1n55f1f4is2notocvi6elvku27ar5q9(a)4ax.com>, Matt <30days(a)net.net> writes: >>On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:39:37 -0500, jmfbahciv wrote: > >>Electricity and fields don't care what units we use. >> >>The engineers who design the equipment may care; or they may be more >>interested in the project than a religious war about systems of units. > >Of course, all electrical engineering units are metric. Volts are >joules/coulomb, and a joule is a kg-m^2/s^2. An Ampere is (or was) >defined in terms of Newtons of force per meter on conductors separated >by one meter. > >No pounds, slugs, or BTUs involved. > >>They may dismiss the metric crusaders as noise. > >Electrical engineering is already metric. We look with pity upon our >brother (and sister) mechanical engineers, who through no fault of >their own, still need to deal with BTUs and Farenheit degrees. Are wire diameters universally measured in meters? How about insulation thicknesses? Cabinet sizes? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_in-line_package Commonly found DIP packages that conform to JEDEC standards use an inter-lead spacing (lead pitch) of 0.1 inch (2.54 mm). Row spacing varies depending on lead counts, with 0.3 in. (7.62 mm) or 0.6 inch (15.24 mm) the most common. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector#NEMA_1 All NEMA 1 devices .. have two parallel flat blades... spaced 1/2 inches (12.7 mm) apart. Perhaps electrical engineering is not so pure after all.
From: Matt on 13 Feb 2010 00:09 On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 03:19:04 -0800 (PST), Andrew Usher wrote: >On Feb 8, 8:56�pm, Matt <30d...(a)net.net> wrote: > >> >It can't have been that useful, as it became obsolete. Is there even a >> >cubit in English units? I suppose it would just be half a yard, >> >following the Romans. >> >> If the pro-metric crowd gets their way, English units will become >> obsolete. Would their demise mean they "can't have been that useful?" > >I meant that it became obsolete without any bureaucratic compulsion. Do you have a cite for that? Perhaps not so many bureaucrats when the cubit was abandoned. If it became obsolete through a royal edict, does that affect its historical utility? If some egomaniac king wanted to change everyone else's way of measuring things for his convenience, that says nothing about how useful others found the cubit to be.
From: Matt on 13 Feb 2010 00:26 On Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:23:31 +0000, Martin Brown <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote: >Matt wrote: >> On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:39:37 -0500, jmfbahciv wrote: >> >> A (aqueous) chemistry lab is a cherry-picked environment for arguing >> the merits of the metric system. The density of water is quite >> important there. Not so much in a metallurgy lab. The density of iron >> is expressed no more conveniently in metric (7.874 g/cm^3) than >> English units (491.6 lb/ft^3). > >The relevance becomes very obvious if you want to work out the weight of >a larger or smaller amount. In metric 1km^3 or 1mm^3 requires only a >quick shift in the decimal point. Why do you assume that this "larger or smaller amount" is scaled by a factor of ten? How often do you say, "That piece of pie is too big. Please cut me piece one-tenth that size?" What if you want a "smaller amount" that is 2/3 the original amount? How useful is your "quick shift in the decimal point" then? >>> Are you also advocating dropping the US money which is based >>> on decimal? >> >> Currency is decimalized; it isn't metric. And its base unit isn't >> rigidly defined, else prices wouldn't change over time. > >I reckon you should be forced back to English money too with 240 pennies >in a dollar 12 pence in a shilling etc. It is much more in keeping with >these other arcane units of measurement. Forced? So this is a religious argument and the fundies are advocating forcing others to adopt their Truth?
From: Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr. on 13 Feb 2010 05:58 On Feb 12, 6:02 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv(a)aol> wrote: > Andrew Usher wrote: > > Darwin123 wrote: > > >>> The truth is, the leftist machine has gotten people's minds to feel > >>> sorry for our measuring system, just like they've gotten white men to > >>> feel sorry for being white and male. > >> Your metaphors are gang raping the English language. > > > My assertion is not a metaphor here. It's entirely literal: Americans > > now feel they must apologise for having a 'backward' system of > > measure. > > I'm an American and I have never felt the need to apologize. Why > do you? > I think he is referring to the famous demand from Bin Laden: "America must apologise for having a backward system of measure - or else we shall blow up the Rockafeller Center!".
From: J. Clarke on 13 Feb 2010 07:35
Matt wrote: > On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 03:19:04 -0800 (PST), Andrew Usher wrote: > >> On Feb 8, 8:56 pm, Matt <30d...(a)net.net> wrote: >> >>>> It can't have been that useful, as it became obsolete. Is there >>>> even a cubit in English units? I suppose it would just be half a >>>> yard, following the Romans. >>> >>> If the pro-metric crowd gets their way, English units will become >>> obsolete. Would their demise mean they "can't have been that >>> useful?" >> >> I meant that it became obsolete without any bureaucratic compulsion. > > Do you have a cite for that? > > Perhaps not so many bureaucrats when the cubit was abandoned. If it > became obsolete through a royal edict, does that affect its historical > utility? If some egomaniac king wanted to change everyone else's way > of measuring things for his convenience, that says nothing about how > useful others found the cubit to be. It became officially obsolete when various European governments imposed their systems of measurement on the Arabs, as for example the French imposing the metric system on the Tunisians in 1885. |