My what?
(today post must be at least 9 characters.)
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I work in an industry that does some of its projects in the US. It is quite difficult to constantly be working in two sets of units. All our corporate and engineering systems are metric as that is what the world, to a first approximation, uses. Working on US projects is slower, more costly and more error prone due to the constant conversions and risk of mix-ups.
I lived in the UK for a while. Like Canada, where I live now, the practicality is that much of everyday life is conducted in weird measurement systems. But professionally, there is no confusion. Everything is metric.
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Professional – engineering and science – ought to be done in metric. Even as an American I don’t always have the intuitive sense of grams or hectares or centimeters, but if I need to ease my mind about a unit, I do it off the books in a momentary day dream. Metric is the only thing that goes on the page.
That said, if you try to take away my acre-feet, there will be blood. Megalitres. Good christ. Next thing you know you’ll deny me my miner’s inch of volumetric flow.
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For native Canadian speakers, measurement systems are heavily context dependent.
A person’s height is measured in feet and inches, but lateral distances are measured in centimeters, feet, yards and kilometers. Weight of a person is in pounds; weight of a thing is in pounds or metric tons (if heavy) and in grams if light. Volume is liters.
We have no way of measuring area at all. Many refuse to even acknowledge the concept, except when bragging about how big Canada is.
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Not even with a long enough lever?
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Well, if your whole industry can’t keep up with children educated in America’s inner cities (thanks @DevinC!) for math skills, I wouldn’t guess your products are likely to be very innovative.
OK, to some extent I’m ribbing y’all. But the whole “metric system is superior” thing is so laughably reductionist I just can’t help it!
Maybe so, but I for one would greatly prefer it if I only needed one goddamned set of wrenches plz n thx.
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Let’s get this out there as a new expression of annoyance: “GOD IN A TRUSS!!”
I have about five sets, so I find this line of argument very persuasive!
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Well quoting an Onion article is indeed fair evidence that you’re “ribbin” us. Not sure what’s “reductionist” about it, though. Using the metric system does simplify engineering calculations in comparison to other systems, but the primary issue is of consistency. Melding two systems to account for 3 countries recalcitrance is simply inefficient.
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Sure, agreed, in vacuo.
But what about when three countries are leading the way and the rest are recalcitrant? The system of measurements used in the USA was implemented well after the creation of the metric system, and the reasons why the metric system was rejected for weights and measures, but implemented for money, were explained at quite some length by none other than Thomas Jefferson.
I have to warn you, because I’ve read the bloody things, that Jefferson’s treatise and the various contemporaneous commentaries on it may well be the most boring texts ever written. But if you want to know why Americans in the late 1700s stopped weighing things in “stone” it explains… in great and unnecessary length.
Yeah, I enjoy @FFabian’s posts well enough, but he does tend to look on USanians with a jaundiced eye, so I occasionally feel obliged to play the Ugly American. I have both qualifications!
And I actually can argue either side, because the metric system is superior for many things, and the SAE and Farenheit systems are superior for different things. You just cherry-pick your use cases and argue based on that. Assuming that one tool is appropriate for all jobs is reductionism - in the modern terminology it’s the Golden Hammer anti-pattern, a manifestation or corollary of the Dunning-Kruger syndrome to which we are all subject.
most of it already is. I’m sure there are some weird hold outs, but all my medicine volume measurements are in L or ml. Doses in g to mg to ng etc… (except those goddamn drugs that are in drug specific “units” F YOU!). Weigh patient in pounds so as not to mess people’s heads up. Do conversion to Kg, then get on with the science.
The tight relationship between the physical characteristics of water and the metric units of volume, weight and density makes metric a very good fit for medical treatment of mostly-water meat-bags. So, perhaps surprisingly, the USA uses metric for medicine these days; by law our version of the Apothecary system was superseded in 1971. I haven’t taken a medical potion mixed by drams and scruples since I was a very small child.
Anyway, the absolute worst mash-up of dueling measurement systems has to be automobile tires. @nixiebunny’s classic Chevy probably came with size F extra wide whitewalls on a 14x6 inch rim with about a 3½ inch backspace and no offset. To get a modern tire for that rim… oh, wait, there actually isn’t any tire that size any more. So we first convert the alphabetic size designation to SAE, that will be 7.50x14, no problem. What modern tire is closest to that? Well, the P205-75-14-87S is a little small, but the P215-75-14-87S is a little big, and may rub the inner wheel well on tight turns. A P225-70-14-87T would be nice looking, very ZZ Top, but you’d have to upgrade to a 6" wide rim with appropriate offset and backset measurements. And of course those numbers are for bias-ply construction, which isn’t readily available in most shops, so in reality the Nixie is probably running either pricey specialty tires or P205-75-R14-87S. What do these confusing numbers mean? I thought you’d never ask!
P = passenger car. Does not actually mean what you would think.
205 = is the cross-section width in millimeters.
75 = ratio of sidewall height to cross-section width (75 percent).
R = fibers embedded in the rubber Radiate outwards from the rim.
14 = diameter of the rim in inches.
87 = per tire load rating, 853 pounds (from lookup table).
S = top speed rating at full load, 180 km/h (another table).
Admittedly, although the load ratings are originally determined in pounds and speed ratings are done in klicks, they’re both lookup tables, so it doesn’t really matter in practice. There’s a column in each table that has the equivalent metric/SAE translation.
Among the less obvious madness in this method is that true cross sectional width, which is measured in mm, is somewhat dependent on rim width and backset (which are not even specified directly in this code) which are measured in inches. And since one of the critical dimensions - sidewall height, which determines total tire height - is a ratio, it will slightly vary with rim width (again, not specified) and vary a lot with cross sectional width. So trying to determine the actual size of a real tire on a real car is a mathematical process that requires unit conversion, regardless of which system you want the final measurements to be in… it’s like the auto engineers got tired of listening to arguments about systems and just decided to screw everyone.
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Living next to a cannabis enthusiast in a legalized cannabis state taught me what 3.5 grams looks like.
so there is that.
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