Metric vs Imperial Units

Gunkiemike wrote: Rational, cogent analysis

You there, stop that! Thks is the Internet, we'll have none of this reasonable, measured verbiage you're peddling.

Gunkiemike wrote: It seems no one taught it as: A milliliter of water weighs one gram A cm^3 in also a milliliter of volume The density of water is one A liter of water weighs one kg Moving WITHIN the metric system is super, super easy.

That's exactly how I learned it in highschool. The teacher that had us work in metric also gave us assignments to build a reference to the world in metric, rather than build a reference to imperial in head. Shift the paradigm so that I know what an inch and centimeter look like, not that I know what an inch looks like an convert that to cm in my head. Learning that all the units relate to each other (assuming density of one) and learning the paradigm shift to think in metric the whole way through were both super useful.

Am I as proficient in metric guesstimations as I am in imperial? No. The frequency of use for imperial is higher.
Am I proficient enough to get by in guesstimating circumstances? Absolutely.

Gunkiemike wrote:Neither system is fundamentally better for the average Joe on the street.

I somewhat disagree, and I think you mentioned part of the reason in your answer: moving within the metric system is easy. Now, as Jim mentioned up-thread, decimalization and metrication are actually two separate matters. I'll pretend to ignore that here, since each system has a preference for or against decimalization.

Working with fractional or mixed units is a bother once you get beyond a single measurement. You don't want to be adding up 5¾' + 2⅝' + 1⅓' if you can avoid it. Swapping to feet+inches (5'9" + 2'7½" + 1'4") only makes it worse. There are far greater opportunities for mistakes to be made, and extra waste. Swapping to whole numbers means simple math like 1750 + 800 + 400, part of why construction in metric countries is based around the millimeter. You can't misplace a decimal if it's not there to begin with.

Someone wants to claim an inch is more easily divisible because they're using a geometric sequence of halves? Well, I'm still missing my ⅓ inch marking. And that reminds me, why are highway signs given to the nearest ¼ mile when my odometer doesn't show fractions? Nothing stops metric countries from posting distances to the nearest ¼ kilometer, except for common sense.

I'll give another example of the problem with mixed units. How many people here are completely unable to relate GPS coordinates to locations and distances on a paper map? I'll guess that outside of a few, the closest some will get is "well, I see a 38° latitude mark and marks for 5' increments, and the guidebook says 38.1346° North, oh wait...." On the other hand, someone using the UTM system should have an easy matter of tying the two together and telling you how far apart two pairs of coordinates are. But, they'll tell you it in meters or kilometers.

Well put Jeremy B. The Imperial system is a pain in the butt for all concerned. Most people just don't realise it.

Gunkiemike wrote:Neither system is fundamentally better for the average Joe on the street.

Unless the average joe never measures/adds calculates anything. Average joe road worker still often has to measure things, maybe they need to add it too.

For average joe metal worker it is far easier to work out how to add a offcut to a 9112mm girder to reach 11655m rather than: 29foot 10 1/4 inchs to reach 38 feet 2 7/8 inchs.

Ball wrote:What base 2 looks like if you're unable to think outside base 10:

Except it isn't base-2. Base to only has two digits, (typically 1 and 0).

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't.

David Hous wrote:There are only 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Nice! ;-)

Back to climbing.... Honestly feet/meters doesn't really matter much. Though with ropes measured in meters it would be a refreshing change to see some leadership by guidebook authors. (Though given the hostility I'm not surprised there is no change.)

Climbing grading has a bunch of systems across the world most of them are fairly clunky. The Ewbank system and bouldering grades are the most straightforward. But again none of these matter because climbing grades are neither additive or multiplicative.

When I travel to another part of the globe I quickly get a gauge of local grading and speak/think in that grading.

Faulted Geologist wrote: Don't you mean tolerances in hundredths of a millimeter? You may have measured something, but that has little to do with performing complex calculations. One cannot do chemistry in 'Murican standard. I would assume the engineers and metallurgists are working in different units than the machinist. There is not a single reason for using 'Murican Standard, just people excusing themselves. Guidebooks are no different. The problem is all the kids are raised not knowing how to function scientifically in this country.

It's irrelevant what units you operate in. If the guys at the mill or on the assembly floor or driving the backhoe can't undestand your units, then you must convert.

I thought metric was pretty sharp until I started having to consistently translate between cubic meters and cubic centimeters. Sure, it's only 100^3, but there is no practical difference between "multiply by 1000000" And "multiply by 654732900" if you're doing the calculation correctly.

Brian Scoggins wrote: Sure, it's only 100^3, but there is no practical difference between "multiply by 1000000" And "multiply by 654732900" if you're doing the calculation correctly.

You can multiply something by 654732900 in your head??

Brian Scoggins wrote:I thought metric was pretty sharp until I started having to consistently translate between cubic meters and cubic centimeters. Sure, it's only 100^3, but there is no practical difference between "multiply by 1000000" And "multiply by 654732900" if you're doing the calculation correctly.

I'm glad you made this comment! As a side bit of trivia, an easy way to tell if a metrication program is likely to go well or crash and burn is to look for the presence of the centi- prefix. The exact nature of "the why" is probably a bit much to go into, but a short version is that it breaks the simple principle of "multiples of 1,000". So, if the program includes "centi-", look out!

Discarding the cubic centimeter would leave you with cubic meters and liters. 2345 liters would then be 2.345 m³, and 432 m³ is 432,000 liters. Easy to check too: the decimal slides by 3 places, and the values of the digits don't change.

Edit: I fixated on the "centi-", completely ignoring that those are milliliters. In any case, the liter provides a much more convenient middle step between that and the cubic meter, each being a multiple of 1,000.

Kyle Tarry wrote: Original quote was "fractions are base 2." That's wrong. End of story. You can't possibly argue that "fractions are base 2." It doesn't even make sense. Fractions are just one number on top of another, they can be any base. You can have base 2 fractions, and base 10 fractions, and base 45 fractions. However, the fractions that we use for measurement on a daily basis are base 10. This is inarguable. If 1/2 of 1/8 is 1/16, it's base 10. The Dunning-Kruger is strong in this thread.

LOL! I don't know what your problem is Kyle. Either you're unwilling, or unable to understand.

I'm obviously not talking about fractions in general, as in all rational numbers. I'm talking about fractions of an inch (duh). Fractions of an inch are always one number over a rather specific number, namely a number which is a power of 2. Thus the fractions, the actual fractions Kyle, not the nomenclature, are base 2. You don't have to represent 1/64th in binary (i.e. 0.000001) to make the fraction itself base 2. The fact we use arabic numerals is an artifact of history and has nothing to do with fractions of an inch.

We're discussing standards of measurement, not standards of notation, yeesh.

But again, to pull this away from the autistic technocratic wrapping paper, the real argument here is how practical the metric system is outside of science and engineering. One of the more classic rants on the subject I'll link to here:

Joan Pontius's excellent rant on the metric system

Not that a better system could have been created than the existing imperial system, but the metric system was designed by autistic physicists who spent years trying to decide on the length of a meter (and getting it wrong) and then shoe-horning everything around their metric fetish regardless of practicality. Someone on this thread mentioned that foodstuffs in the EU are measured by weight. How ridiculous! Do you weigh your spices and butter when cooking? Ounces, pints, and cubic inches aren't as arbitrary as you've been led to believe. They were designed for the task at hand, and I doubt any chef knows the specific gravity of butter. Same with carpentry—in order to get around the ridiculousness of a metric system foisted upon them, in the EU they order by the 120cm instead of the meter and a thickness of 2.4cm. They simply don't use meters at all! They may work OK for distance (but so could have yards or feet), but base 10 blows for making 3rds.

(and don't start Kyle on not understanding that 2.4cm isn't really base ten. Its base 24)

Even celcius kinda blows. The degrees are too far apart for typical use like setting a hot tub's temperature so you have to use half-degree increments. Water only boils at 100° at sea level, and it's a kinda useless factoid like saying a building is exactly 100 meters tall. So fucking what? When temperature is of a real concern most scientists and engineers seem to use kelvin anyway.

The whole thing was an intellectual fetish from the beginning wrought with horrible execution and zero humility in a time when people believed all science would boil down to physics and all activity would boil down to science, including the law and humanities. What a nightmare.

Edit:

reboot wrote: 1/3 cannot be represented in base 2 or base 10 w/o rounding error (though computers don't have much trouble storing extra digits). Probably why there are 12 inches to a foot, 60 seconds to a minute, 24 hours to a day, or 360 degrees to a circle. Mathematicians understood that well before engineers decided everything should be in base 10.

and 12 shillings to the pound, which more useful for making change (back when a shilling was worth something unlike our current dime which can't buy shit) than increments of 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25, and 0.5 (although thankfully that's base 2 unlike requiring everyone only use pennies).

To hammer home the point that this is base 12:

Base 12 units

Ball wrote:Someone on this thread mentioned that foodstuffs in the EU are measured by weight. How ridiculous! Do you weigh your spices and butter when cooking?

I already commented on the metric ruler, so let's talk cooking. On occasion, I'll bake, which often implies measuring flour (or brown sugar, nuts, etc). So, consider a recipe that calls for a cup of flour. How you get that cup of flour matters. Do you scoop it with the measuring cup or pour it into the measuring cup? Do you tamp it down or use a sifter? Depending on what you do, and what the recipe author had in mind, you might be off by 50% (and people often are).

Using a scale isn't a requirement of metrication, but it's one of those side benefits that tends to crop up. When many ingredients are specified by weight you get more consistent results and it becomes much easier to scale recipes. It might also help with shopping; if I know the recipe calls for 300 g of chopped tomatoes, then I know how much to buy at the store. They even have scales in the produce aisle, how convenient!

You can do the same thing on the US system of course, just don't get fluid ounces confused with the unit of weight. Oh, and you can still use volume units (e.g. 5 mL to the teaspoon, 240 mL to the cup) when they actually make sense for the ingredient.

P.S. Twenty shillings to the pound, so 1£ split three ways would be 6ſ8d. Very tidy that.

Brian Scoggins wrote: It's irrelevant what units you operate in. If the guys at the mill or on the assembly floor or driving the backhoe can't undestand your units, then you must convert. I thought metric was pretty sharp until I started having to consistently translate between cubic meters and cubic centimeters. Sure, it's only 100^3, but there is no practical difference between "multiply by 1000000" And "multiply by 654732900" if you're doing the calculation correctly.

Huh? Really?

I can be on the factory floor and calculate roughly how heavy a section of steel is in metric in my head.

Take the first rounded digit of each dimension and multiply them as needed and multiply by 8. Then take off digits as appropriate. Dimensions can be in meters, centimeters or whatever..... The resulting answer will have the right first significant digit (+-1).

Ball wrote: Someone on this thread mentioned that foodstuffs in the EU are measured by weight. How ridiculous! Do you weigh your spices and butter when cooking? Ounces, pints, and cubic inches aren't as arbitrary as you've been led to believe. They were designed for the task at hand, and I doubt any chef knows the specific gravity of butter. Same with carpentry—in order to get around the ridiculousness of a metric system foisted upon them, in the EU they order by the 120cm instead of the meter and a thickness of 2.4cm. They simply don't use meters at all! They may work OK for distance (but so could have yards or feet), but base 10 blows for making 3rds.

Some of the barmier claptrap I´ve heard for years, you ever bought a bit of wood in Europe? Or a pound of butter in the USA for that matter.

Jim Titt wrote: Some of the barmier claptrap I´ve heard for years, you ever bought a bit of wood in Europe? Or a pound of butter in the USA for that matter.

Its good for a laugh though surely! :-D

How have we gone 5 pages without someone telling poor Arlo to NOT climb at RROS?

Don't do it. There are a thousand better options.

patto wrote: Its good for a laugh though surely! :-D

Had to check it wasn´t posted by Donald Trump:-)

Jeremy B. wrote: I On occasion, I'll bake, which often implies measuring flour (or brown sugar, nuts, etc). So, consider a recipe that calls for a cup of flour. How you get that cup of flour matters. Do you scoop it with the measuring cup or pour it into the measuring cup? Do you tamp it down or use a sifter? Depending on what you do, and what the recipe author had in mind, you might be off by 50% (and people often are). Using a scale isn't a requirement of metrication, but it's one of those side benefits that tends to crop up. When many ingredients are specified by weight you get more consistent results and it becomes much easier to scale recipes. It might also help with shopping; if I know the recipe calls for 300 g of chopped tomatoes, then I know how much to buy at the store. They even have scales in the produce aisle, how convenient! You can do the same thing on the US system of course, just don't get fluid ounces confused with the unit of weight. Oh, and you can still use volume units (e.g. 5 mL to the teaspoon, 240 mL to the cup) when they actually make sense for the ingredient.

Anyone serious about baking uses weight. Any serious recipe for baking these days uses weight. As Jeremy here says, measuring by weight here is actually a benefit. Volume units can (and are) still used when they make sense, although outside of baking cooking is generally much less exact. I know very few cooks who bother to measure ingredients for something like say a soup or an omelet. They just eyeball it. Especially since we're often given ingredients in units like "1 small onion" or "juice and zest of one lemon" or "season generously". Because outside of baking, cooking is rarely exact and rarely needs to be. And for baking weighing is superior because it eliminates differences from measuring technique.

patto wrote: Huh? Really? I can be on the factory floor and calculate roughly how heavy a section of steel is in metric in my head. Take the first rounded digit of each dimension and multiply them as needed and multiply by 8. Then take off digits as appropriate. Dimensions can be in meters, centimeters or whatever..... The resulting answer will have the right first significant digit (+-1).

One of the more fundamental rules of communicating numbers to people is that your calculations must be transparent. If you're doing a calculation in your head for anything but true back-of-the-envope stuff, you're doing it wrong.

My point was that since powers of ten *aren't* binary, it takes a computer just as long to run a metric-to-metric unit conversion as a metric-to-imperial conversion. So rather than introduce an extra conversion step late in the game to satisfy my powers-of-ten fetish, I'm going to start on the units the guy on the floor (or my machine) is written for.

In general, I have to deal with 4 different metric systems anyway (mks, cgs, ergs vs janskys, lumens and candela), so losing sleep over another unit conversion is just stupid.

I design in millimeters for the 3d printer, and inches for the cnc machine, and the boards always fit. So who cares?

Jeremy B. wrote: How you get that cup of flour matters.

Uuuh, we just use a cup. It's in every cub scout camping kit, let alone every kitchen.

Jeremy B. wrote: You can do the same thing on the US system of course, just don't get fluid ounces confused with the unit of weight.

Nobody gets confused here because we don't measure with weight unless we're buying dry goods. Recipes call for a teaspoon of basil or a tablespoon of butter, not grams. Volumes are easier to measure in the kitchen.

JK- wrote:And for baking weighing is superior because it eliminates differences from measuring technique.

There are no differences in measuring techniques unless you're a special needs kid who isn't going to be in the kitchen anyway.

In the US this is taught in school (home economics) in case any children have really useless parents. Dry goods are always level with the measuring device using a flat edge like a knife. Liquids are filled to the level in a clear measuring cup (which always has a spout). At no time do you need to measure the weight of any ingredients . It's accurate, and it's a lot faster and convenient.

Ball wrote: It's accurate, and it's a lot faster and convenient.

No, it's not, especially with flours. How much flour is in that cup will depend on if the flour was sifted first, how long it's been settling in its container, the humidity of the day, how deep you scooped (deeper scoops compact it more). There is a reason every serious baker uses weight when measuring, and why almost all modern baking recipes list ingredients by weight. Pull up an older recipe, before kitchen scales were commonplace and you'll end up with things like "6-12 cups of flour" (measurement from an actual recipe in an actual 1980s cookbook in my moms kitchen). Use the 12 cup end of that with settled flour and you're baking bricks. Use the 6 cups with fresh, sifted flour, and you're baking goop.

One of the (many) places that this was taught to me? Home economics, which wasn't even particularly recent for me.