Convenience of the metric system

[Sand crab]

My favorite girl from Texas is Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks and I'm not a fan of country music.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Yeah, whoever invented the slot head screw should be drawn and quartered!

Now here's something we can all agree on. I hope there is special place in hell reserved for any mechanic or engineer who uses these cursed things. And why, oh why, are they always used in the most out-of-the-way location. I'd rather calculate how many cubic inches there are in wriggling python than have to deal with some of my slotted screws

BTW, that python calculation would be far easier in Metric

[Hoofsmit]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

As a Canadian who was in school during our transition to metric, I can reasonably move between the two systems with some ease. There is no doubt Metric is far easier to work with when making any sort of calculation beyond the most basic.



For me, some measurements for me are more natural in Imperial (person height or keel lengths), and some are clearer to me in Metric (0 degrees Celsius vs 32 Fahrenheit). A cm is as useful as an inch, a meter is as good as a yard, and a litre works for quart and pints. Millimetres are far better that fractions of inches for machine bits, and km are more obvious to me than (statute) miles. However, I still think more in pounds when it comes to human and boat weights.



Neither system is inherently more "intuitive" than the other. It depends on what you've been brought up with. But there's no way you can argue Imperial is easier to work with for complex measurements or calculations than Metric. Its no accident that even in the USA, scientists have long operated in Metric.



It's only a matter of time before Liberia, Myanmar and that other hold-out country will join the rest of the modern world .

These are my findings, I was also schooled in metric but spent five years as an apprentice using imperial
It brings back memories of family friends who grew up in Tanzania with an English father and a mum from Luxembourg.

They argued in German told jokes in Swahili but generally asked questions and chatted in English !!



Sent from my iPad.......i apologise for the auto corrects !!!

[Hoofsmit]

Slot head are still the preferred use in the best quality brass screws because I presume of the softness issues, something's are just meant to be


Sent from my iPad.......i apologise for the auto corrects !!!

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

The problem with the metric system is based on 10. Why 10, what a stupid number to base a number system on, what is that? Because we have 10 fingers!!! Dumb.

What would you rather base it on? 16, 12 or 8?

All 3 have reasonable arguments for them and against them.

8 would be the easiest to change to, no new digits to agree upon. Makes working with computer binary much easier.

12 allows you to use single digit "decimals" expressing halves, thirds, quarters, and sixths. However it requires two new digits and creates a problem when teaching kids how to count. However much you want to dismiss the last one as inconsequential, it really is a big deal.

16 gets you closer to the number base that computers use but now needs 6 new digits and is even harder to teach kids. Basically this is a more computer friendly version of base 8, with bunch of serious drawbacks.

[Canibul]

una uaa kiSwahili B'wana?

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Sand crab

My favorite girl from Texas is Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks and I'm not a fan of country music.

...and we're very glad they're back (after that nonsense in 2001 - when they were right!)

[conachair]

Originally Posted by idylours

Liberia, Burna and the US the last 3 counties yet to adopt metric ...just saying

If only they had the balls to go for it back then instead of running scared from industry....

(dives for cover,, )

[Sand crab]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

...and we're very glad they're back (after that nonsense in 2001 - when they were right!)

Great minds think alike.

[Benz]

The argument that the US, and all others still using Sensible measurements, should switch to Metric because the entire rest of the world is using it is specious. Why should we jump on the bandwagon of something that is patently idiotic because everyone else is? The whole world has been wrong before, after all. There is the well-documented incident of one man who was ridiculed for decades, by everyone else, while he built a boat. Until the flood came. Turned out the entire world at the time was wrong. Except for Noah. What arrogance to say now, "the entire world MUST be right this time because I happen to agree with them." My dear metric-loving friends, even if you could come up with a metric day (ten hours? a hundred hours?); even if you could figure out celestial navigation in metric (bet you can't); even if you could express so simple a concept as one-third (a very exact measurement, by the way) without forever chasing an infinitely repeating decimal (that little bar at the top of whichever the last decimal you cared to go to is, after all, a resounding admission of failure); even if you figured out a better global graticule than that ridiculously innacurate UTM grid; we would not need to switch to Metric, since we have a beautiful system that works perfectly. So it sometimes takes a little thought. Shouldn't scientists, especially, have no problem with thinking? Thinking won't kill you--try it sometime. No, this foolish attempt to hijack a perfectly workable measurement system and replace it with something "easier" or "more accurate" (how can anything be more accurate than a fraction? one sixty-fourth of an inch is exactly that) is doomed to end up as the other much-hoped-for universalization scheme: Esperanto. Where is that now? Metric belongs there as well.
Ben

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by Enrique100

My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!!!

I prefer 'furlongs per fortnight' A professor challenged us, "I don't care what units you use as long as they are correct". He spent a long time inventing conversions in order to correct the exam.

Use of metrics by us old farts, including us old-fart-engineers is a good way to crash land your spacecraft into Mars - a proven fact.

BTW, the reason for not converting as I see it - the US is packed with machinery & machine tools built to last or be rebuilt indefinitely, that have SAE scales and mechanisms made 10 or 100 turns to the inch. The conversion would obsolete billions in machine tools and cause the purchase of trillions in foreign made machines. I work in a machine shop making custom machinery. Its not happening. The inertia is too great. We buy (rarely) new machines that are programmable for multiple scales.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Benz

(...) Why should we jump on the bandwagon of something that is patently idiotic (...)

Why will the metric system is patently idiotic?

b.

[dpddj]

I have an engineer's tape measure that I love to pull out for others to use. It is in tenths of feet. You want to watch someone scratch their head?
But then ....I love RPN, too.

[avb3]

My uncle was a civil engineer who emigrated to Canada in the mid-50's from Germany.

Of course, he was not used to the Imperial system used then in Canada. One of his first jobs was to estimate concrete requirements for a large public works program.

Back in the day of the slide rule (which I now have), he converted the specifications to metric, did whatever magic engineers do, and once he had he result, converted that end result back to Imperial measurements.

His company won the bid. He often talked about that before he passed away.

[Canibul]

The old dude with the boat used cubits, anyhow. Nothing SAE or metric about him. lousy sailor too. Ran aground as I recall.