soccermad
Member
25.4 mm
How many inches of rain are we talking about?
Half an ankle.
My children went to school in the 1980s/90s and learned only metric units, only to find that the world outside still loves its feet and inches, pounds and stones, pints and gallons … and of course miles! I think the unending use of two parallel sets of units is the source of much more confusion than centimetres and millimetres ever create. And of course with increasing Americanisation post-Brexit, the problem is likely to get worse.
If I'm making something I never measure in mm. It's always 1m 34 and a half cm,I only add the mm to be accurate,134cm and 6mm. It may be daft but it works for me. I can do it in imperial too. Like DerekC mentioned,I went to school in the 70s/80s learning metric whilst all around me used Imperial.
And of course with increasing Americanisation post-Brexit, the problem is likely to get worse.
However:The U.S. government passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, which made the metric system "the preferred system of weights and measures for U.S. trade and commerce". The legislation states that the federal government has a responsibility to assist industry as it voluntarily converts to the metric system, i.e., metrification. This is most evident in U.S. labeling requirements on food products, where SI units are almost always presented alongside customary units.
Although:According to the CIA Factbook, the United States is one of three nations (along with Liberia and Myanmar) that have not adopted the metric system as their official system of weights and measures.
Metric units are standard in science, medicine, as well as many sectors of industry and government, including the military
To be honest, I can relate to imperial and for long distances, weight and height, understand it more.
If somebody says to me that somebody is 6ft, I can picture 6ft, but if they tell me somebody is 1.82 metres tall (even though its the same height), without any reference to feet and inches, its a shrug of the shoulders from me.
Somebody is 20 stone, I can imagine that, but 127Kg, nope.
See gradians, and decimal time.(In fact that's an anomaly in that we don't have a metric equivalent of 360 degrees, nor a metric equivalent of 12/24 hour clock or 7 days in the week or 28 day "month", etc).
Extracting 2oz of flour from a 1lb bag isn't any easier, but I largely agree with the rest of the post.That's because the whole point of imperial was that it came from an era without everyone having accurate methods of measurement, hence we had measures loosely linked to body measurements where a yard was very roughly a stride, and measurements had a symmetry (i.e. often based on the 12 times table, divisible by 3 and 4, etc). Like cooking, you could halve and halve again to get a quarter of a pound if needed for cooking and you have a bag of a pound of flour. 360 degrees, can be halved to 180, halved again to 90, etc. (In fact that's an anomaly in that we don't have a metric equivalent of 360 degrees, nor a metric equivalent of 12/24 hour clock or 7 days in the week or 28 day "month", etc).
Try extracting 150g of flour from a 1kg bag without a kitchen scale - virtually impossible to do it accurately as neither weights relate to anything tangible - you can't halve and halve again, etc.
It's only readily available scales and other measuring devices that facilitated the metric measurements which are, of course, based on the ten times table, which makes manual calculations very easy and avoid logarithms etc that were needed for complex calculations a century ago. Ironically, now we all carry a high powered computer in our pocket, there's no longer a need for metric as we could all do calculations based on imperial measures at the click of an app!
I was raised with Canadian (baking) recipes, where most ingredients are measured by volume. Scooping 1/2 cup of flour out of a bag is dead simple to do (if you own a set of measuring cups & spoons). The unit that catches me out is the "stick" of butter: it isn't packed in sticks over here, so I have to remember to translate it to 1/2 cup.Extracting 2oz of flour from a 1lb bag isn't any easier, but I largely agree with the rest of the post.
The degree is such an ancient unit of measurement its origins are probably lost in time. But 360 degrees in a full rotation does tie in nicely with 360 (or so) days in a year, so it may be from that.However I do wonder why we ended up with 360 degrees in a circle - 240 would mean that 10 degrees of longitude was an hour of time difference.
That's a curious one, when US and Imperial fluid ounces are nearly identical (~29ml). The fault is probably with the pint. Both systems have 8 pints to a gallon, but there are 20 fl.oz in a US pint, while the UK pint only has 16.And why is a gallon a different size in the US?
They aren't different units!And that's the beauty of metric - switch between units by just moving the decimal point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_unitsAnd why is a gallon a different size in the US?.
The United States customary system (USCS or USC) developed from English units which were in use in the British Empire before the U.S. became an independent country. However, the United Kingdom's system of measures was overhauled in 1824 to create the imperial system, changing the definitions of some units. Therefore, while many U.S. units are essentially similar to their imperial counterparts, there are significant differences between the systems.
If there were only 240 degrees it would leave a big gap.However I do wonder why we ended up with 360 degrees in a circle - 240 would mean that 10 degrees of longitude was an hour of time difference.
Because of abominations like "10 and a half cm" would be one good reason.
One of the issues is unnecessary precision. If you round the mileage to 180, and ignore fractions, or furlongs or yards, then you shouldn’t be converting using 2 decimal places....180 miles (Chester le Street to Leicester Forest East motorway services, when I was a kid), yep, but 289.69Km, not a chance
One of the issues is unnecessary precision. If you round the mileage to 180, and ignore fractions, or furlongs or yards, then you shouldn’t be converting using 2 decimal places.
So “about 180 miles” becomes “about 290 km”...
But today's kids are terrible at handling fractions because they think in 10s - they get taught them several years after working in decimals and so struggle to conceptualise them.Kids today, getting all their arithmetic in base10 don't know they are born.
Now that's splitting hairs! Yes, the meter is the only actual unit of measure, but for all practical purposes they are different units. After all, cartographers rarely work in μm and carpenters rarely work in km.They aren't different units!
In fact all SI units are written in lower case when written in full, even those that are named after people or where the abbreviation is upper case, and very many people get that wrong. My physics teacher maintained it was so the unit could be distinguished from the person.edit: and yes, the metre is always written in lower case. I used capitals to emphasise the word as I can’t find bold on my phone. Now I can
And both exist in auto-correct.The meter is a device for measuring things.
The metre is the internationally accepted unit of length.
It's the other way round, a UK pint is the larger one, therefore the US gallon is smaller. This is especially important when refueling an aeroplane and you need to be really sure how much volume you are really taking on.The fault is probably with the pint. Both systems have 8 pints to a gallon, but there are 20 fl.oz in a US pint, while the UK pint only has 16.
I recall watching an episode of Air Crash Investigation where this was the main cause of the crash.It's the other way round, a UK pint is the larger one, therefore the US gallon is smaller. This is especially important when refueling an aeroplane and you need to be really sure how much volume you are really taking on.
So it seems it is an easy mistake to make mixing up gallons/pints and litres and and metric in general is superior.
I seem to recall it was a metric / imperial conversion rather than a UK vs US gallon issue?I recall watching an episode of Air Crash Investigation where this was the main cause of the crash.
If you're thinking of the Gimili Glider, then yes it was. The FMS gave them a figure in kgs, and the ground staff loaded that number of pounds.I seem to recall it was a metric / imperial conversion rather than a UK vs US gallon issue?
Yup. That would be Mars Climate Orbiter. Lockheed Martin engineers were working in imperial and NASA JPL were working in metric. This resulted in the orbit injection burn being too long, and the probe went too deep into the atmosphere and either burned up or skipped back out into a heliocentric orbit.I think there was also a probe that was sent all the way to Mars then failed to do whatever it was planned to do because the people who set it up were working in the wrong units.
It's the other way round, a UK pint is the larger one, therefore the US gallon is smaller. This is especially important when refueling an aeroplane and you need to be really sure how much volume you are really taking on.
So it seems it is an easy mistake to make mixing up gallons/pints and litres and and metric in general is superior.
In fact all SI units are written in lower case when written in full, even those that are named after people or where the abbreviation is upper case, and very many people get that wrong. My physics teacher maintained it was so the unit could be distinguished from the person.