Metric vs Imperial Units

LOL, I never said there were 2.4cm in an inch. I said boards are ordered in 120cm x 2.4cm because meters are a pain in the ass for construction. It's still inferior to inches, however, because the ratio between the two is 50 which doesn't factor well. Metric simply blows for construction.

I'll break down why fractions of an inch are base 2 one last time:

Fractions of an inch are halves, quarters, eighths, and so on. In other words 1/2^1, 1/2^2, 1/2^3, 1/2^4, 1/2^5, etc. Now, we adopted the stupid arabic decimal system instead of a dozenal system, so 2^5 is represented as 64, but it's still counting by powers of 2.

If you can't understand this by now, you never will and we should just drop it.

What these pseudo-intellectual masonic scientists should have done to get rid of fractions in their work is either just use thousands like machinists ended up doing and base all other units on that (someone mentioned metric has many different units because, surprise surprise, people use whatever units are best for the task at hand....well unless you're a poor pleb grocer in which case you have to use meters and liters as mandated by law). They even tried to force everyone to use a base 10 clock and calendar!

If they wanted to foist a new system onto the world, they should have chosen the dozenal/duodecimal system. This way those old base 12 measuring systems would divide evenly and we would all enjoy the benefits of even factoring (not to mention the ease of counting up to a gross with your hands). There are some languages which already do this (and have done so since pre-history). No doubt many european tribes used base 12 prior to the conquest of Rome. Do a times table in base 12 and it becomes almost trivial to memorize it.

Can we get back on topic about cooking and baking, please?

Kyle Tarry wrote: Some real gems here! The fact that you don't know how many centimeters are in an inch (hint: it's not 2.4) makes it even more amazing. Also, can you explain why 2.4 cm is base 24? Shouldn't it be base 2.4, by your new-age mathematical rules? Presumably feet are in base 5280, because 5280 feet = 1 mile? Oh crap, 3 feet = 1 yard though. So maybe feet are in base 3? Ah, screw it, feet are base 3 and base 5280 at the same time! This conversation is like arguing with a brick. You may continue your mathematical and scientific ignorance without me. Sorry America, I tried. Oh, and by the way, the reason they sell food by the weight/mass is because measuring many food products by volume is between unreliable and impossible. "Some settling may occur."

Apart from the wierd maths concepts it would probably freak Ball out to know that there are two official inches and feet in the USA, they are different lengths and some states use one, some the other and some don´t care. Hey, with a system based on the length of three grains of barley who´s bothered anyway, dividing by three is easy!
And that some people had 11 inches to the foot is going to be challenging to explain:-)

All you really need to know is that if you use metric or imperial and you don't have a stopper knot and your rope is to short...Ur gunna die!!!

Nuff said.

Ball wrote:I said boards are ordered in 120cm x 2.4cm because meters are a pain in the ass for construction.

It is a wonder how all the builders in the rest of the world cope. I have worked with metric for construction not once has it been of a "pain".

Ball wrote:Metric simply blows for construction.

How so? Not once have I ever heard an old builder (now using metric) long for the good old days of non metric.

Ball wrote:What these pseudo-intellectual masonic scientists should have done to get rid of fractions in their work is either just use thousands like machinists ended up doing and base all other units on that

So millimeters then?

Really this thread is hilarious.

patto wrote:So millimeters then? Really this thread is hilarious.

Thousands of an inch are millimeters?

The point is the invention of the meter has been a pointless diversion. It was supposed to be related to the dimensions of the earth (with absolutely no relation to actual navigation, for which they were clearly clueless) and they got that wrong, too (despite taking, I think, 4 years to decide on the length).

Originally, they just wanted to get rid of fractions when doing calculations, which could have easily been done with any existing length. The meter was a mistake.

Ball wrote:Originally, they just wanted to get rid of fractions when doing calculations, which could have easily been done with any existing length.

Which means the meter could work as well as the yard, or the mil. Between the millimeter and the meter is a factor of the base to the third power (i.e. 1000), just as between the gram and the kilogram, and so on. You can also do that with a duodecimal system, in which case you get your precious divisability as well as standardized units.

Unfortunately feet are counted in a mix of base 10, with their fractional parts in base 12, and then those fractional parts in binary fractions. Which means when doing sums like 3′ 4 3/8” + 2′ 1 1/4” + 4′ 10 9/16” you are doing math in base 10, base 12, and base 16, while also converting from base 8 and base 4 in order to reach a common denominator.

In case you missed it: for the fractions of inches you end up working in base 16, for the fractions of feet you work in base 12, and finally you sum up the feet in base 10 to get 10₁₀ feet, 4₁₂ inches, and 3₁₆ fractional inches. Isn't that fun, and we didn't even include yards in the mix!

The problem is, switching to a duodecimal system won't make that any easier: the US customary units use mixed bases. Your beloved binary fractions guarantee mixed bases. As you say, you could switch to mils as a base unit to avoid them. I'll go ahead and turn that argument around and suggest that millimeters are a far better base unit, as they offer about the most precision you can reasonably expect for most construction. Machinists can in turn use microns instead of those imprecise mils (1000 mm = 1 μm, of course).

I don't disagree with any of that, Jeremy (other than the 'beloved' remark). I'm not trying to make an all-size-fit-all solution to the world's measurement requirements. Fractions work well for construction and cooking. They suck for science and engineering. Weights (or mass) suck for cooking. Base 10 sucks for almost everything.

The American system is awesome: I love that you can tell what the material is by the units. If the thickness is in gauge, you know it is steel. Gauge has the added unique property of the higher the number the thinner the metal. If it is measured in decimal inches (like .040") you know it is aluminum, in ounces (per square foot) and you know you're dealing with copper. Pounds (per square foot) equals lead. Mils might be polyethylene. And mils are super non-confusing with millimeters.

Less snarkily: I would support listing all pitch lengths and rappel lengths in meters.

Kyle Tarry wrote:You're confused. 4₁₂ inches is the same as 4₁₀ inches, which is also the same as 4₁₆ inches (and really, almost any other base you care to prescribe, like 4₆ or 4₁₀₀₀).

Not confused. What I was trying to point out is that the inch-foot-yard system is a mixed-radix system. Once you get to 12 inches you increment the foot unit; once you get three feet you increment the yard unit, and if you're using sixteenths for the fractions of inches, then you increment the inch value once you hit 16 fractional inches.

For example, a y:f:i:s value could be written as 12:2:4:B to represent 12 yards, 2 feet, 4 inches, and 11 sixteenths. I assume many here aren't handy with hex, so it's simpler to stick with decimal notation for each place value.

We do the same thing with hours:minutes:seconds, which is a sexagesimal (base 60) system written using decimal notation for each sexagesimal digit. (Just as the Babylonians did, because having 60 unique glyphs can get annoying fast.)

Arlo F Niederer wrote:I was looking through the Red Rocks Open Space (Colorado Springs) climbing guide to plan out what routes I want to climb in the nice fall weather. All of the rappel/lower distances are in feet. This is true of every guidebook I've seen in the US. However, I find it ironic that all the ropes are sold in meters - 50, 60, or 70 meters, with a few 80 meter ropes creeping in. blah blah blah blah

Hey, here's an idea. Why don't you take the time to figure it out, some like us Americans have already had to do. Convert the measurement.

Kyle Tarry wrote: Too bad humans have been using base-10 for almost everything for approximately the last 4,000 years (give or take, with a few exceptions). Probably due to the fact that we have 10 fingers.

Yes and no. It's actually easier to count using the segments on four fingers using your thumb to keep track. You can easily count to a gross this way. Supposedly some tribe (sorry I don't have a citation) still does this.

Jeremy B. wrote: We do the same thing with hours:minutes:seconds

OH NO! How could I possibly keep track of time! If only the metric-ists had succeeded in replacing the clock with their metric version!

BigNobody wrote: Hey, here's an idea. Why don't you take the time to figure it out, some like us Americans have already had to do. Convert the measurement.

Sigh... I'm an American and I did do the conversion (Are you paying attention?):

Arlo F Niederer wrote:"60m gets you to the ground" or "need a 70m to get to the ground," not "a 196.85 ft rope gets you to the ground" or "need a 229.67 foot to get to the ground."

I wasn't complaining about either measurement system, just thought it ironic that we mix units, and that it has the possibility to cause accidents. Most of the climbs in Red Rocks can be lowered on a 60m, but the few which can't are labeled in the book in feet.

There was an accident in Red Rocks this summer where a climber lowered off the end of the rope and was seriously injured. Not an error on the part of the guidebook author, but climbers not paying attention. Errors in the sense of not paying attention to the guidebook, not knowing how long their rope is in feet, and not tying a knot in the end of the rope.

I am surprised how viral this thread has become. It reminds me of threads about anchors - people get all agitated if people use a system other than the one they use, as if it's a personal attack.

People use either or both systems accurately. Use whatever system works for you - I really don't care. What I care about are climbers paying attention and not getting injured or killed because they aren't paying attention...

Arlo F Niederer wrote:Seems there are many lowering accidents where the rope wasn't long enough. If everything was metric would there be less (or more?) accidents?

I think the measuring unit probably had nothing to do with lowering accidents.

Arlo F Niederer wrote: Sigh... I'm an American and I did do the conversion (Are you paying attention?)

Nope. I read your first few sentences ( I AM an Merican after all, short attention span, instant gratification, you know the sort) and figured if you were an American you'd already know the conversions. So I guess that makes this post seem even more worthless and a waste of time. My bad...

FrankPS wrote: I think the measuring unit probably had nothing to do with lowering accidents.

I can almost assure you this is the case. Again Frank PS for the win!

Arlo F Niederer wrote: . . . I wasn't complaining about either measurement system, just thought it ironic that we mix units, and that it has the possibility to cause accidents. Most of the climbs in Red Rocks can be lowered on a 60m, but the few which can't are labeled in the book in feet. . . .

Irony cop here (posting since this is the second time you've invoked irony). Mixing units may be be a bad idea, but no irony is involved, unless you've constructed some complicated psychological profile of the guidebook author that isn't immediately apparent.

pfwein wrote: Irony cop here (posting since this is the second time you've invoked irony). Mixing units may be be a bad idea, but no irony is involved, unless you've constructed some complicated psychological profile of the guidebook author that isn't immediately apparent.

The American Heritage Dictionary's secondary meaning for irony: "incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs".

incongruous
[in-kong-groo-uh s]
adjective
1.
out of keeping or place; inappropriate; unbecoming:
an incongruous effect; incongruous behavior.
2.
not harmonious in character; inconsonant; lacking harmony of parts:
an incongruous mixture of architectural styles.
adjective
3.
inconsistent:
actions that were incongruous with their professed principles.

Arlo F Niederer wrote: The American Heritage Dictionary's secondary meaning for irony: "incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs". incongruous [in-kong-groo-uh s] adjective 1. out of keeping or place; inappropriate; unbecoming: an incongruous effect; incongruous behavior. 2. not harmonious in character; inconsonant; lacking harmony of parts: an incongruous mixture of architectural styles. adjective 3. inconsistent: actions that were incongruous with their professed principles.

So in other words using metric in construction or cooking is ironic?

What is slightly ironic is someone defending the american units using the bastardized unit of a "thousandth of an inch" That is simply machinists that realized that the american system sucked. They simply started applying the metric system with the standard unit of an inch in place of a meter.

Mike13 wrote:What is slightly ironic is someone defending the american units using the bastardized unit of a "thousandth of an inch" That is simply machinists that realized that the american system sucked. They simply started applying the metric system with the standard unit of an inch in place of a meter.

Amen!

Any machinist worth their salt that I have worked with have all been proponents of the metric system.