He is wrong. He mentioned “People think the metric system has something to do with science. It doesn’t” … and others have commented that “It doesn’t matter which standard is used.”
But metric is a ‘coherent’ system - imperial isn’t. This makes a massive difference in science. Compare:
E = MC²
That’s one of the most famous equations in science. But it’s true in the metric system, but it not in the imperial system. … it would have to be 'E=AMC² in the imperial system. (Using calories, pounds and speed? I have to say speed because in the imperial system it isn’t even clear if the base unit is in miles/hr or yards/second)
The fact that metric is a coherent system of measurement is why it is a better system … it’s not simply because of historical reasons.
It’s not like we stopped using what we call “Imperial” units here in the UK.
We still measure roads in miles, but distances to junctions in metres. We buy petrol in litres, but calculate our efficiency in miles per gallon. Building materials are available in in both metric and imperial, and I can chat to my dad about needing a bit of wood that’s two inches thick and 50cm long. Beer will always be served in pints, but shots are 35ml (used to be 25ml), and almost every tool kit will have a set of imperial spanners, and a set of metric ones. Anecdotally I almost never use the imperial ones, they’re only for old things.
However, if I have to do any maths, then everything will be getting converted to SI units.
“That’s the biggest misconception,” Marciano says. “The metric system
has everything to do with capitalism. It’s all about a selling system.”
Clapfuckingtrap. Socialist nations pushed the metric system.
It’s much easier to use. We learn decimal math.
The imperial system - why would Americans wish to use it? It is IMPERIALISTIC! Came from the old masters - who you kicked out!
Anything with odd terminology like “hectares” is capitalistic - it pushes the understanding of those sub-economies - like property, commodities, weed - into the hands of fewer people, concentrating control of the industry.
Even a gallon isn’t a gallon - comparing MPG of USA cars to UK cars is all but impossible. How stupid. Segments markets and allows maximisation of revenues in each, so the industry benefits - not the consumer.
Metric actually democratises economies. And the math is easier.
Crispy fried Jesus on a stick - let’s get with the goddamn program. How fing stupid imperial is.
I remember having to work with some US rocket systems. The rate of ascent was given in feet per second, and the horizontal speed was given in nautical miles per hour. It took quite a bit of calculation to work out what angle it was travelling at.
It is true in imperial if you choose the right units. Calories are metric, by the way; the imperial unit of energy is the foot-pound. To match, the speed of light should be expressed in feet per second- I make it 983571056. As the pound is a unit of weight, rather than mass, you should use the slug instead; under Earth gravity, this is weight in pounds divided by 32.174049.
Then it all works out nicely. Try it for yourself, if you don’t believe me.
I don’t really buy that - there’s a lot of places in the world that regularly go above 100°F, and likewise enormous sections of the world that never get close to 0°F. My suspicion is that Fahrenheit works well if you live in Chicago, but less well for many other places.
The UK is a bit weird like that, but I think (almost) full metrification will probably happen eventually. The schools nowadays work entirely in metric and my children are less familiar with the old imperial units than I am. Even I struggle with some of them; I have no intuitive feeling of how much a pound or an ounce weighs, for instance.
David Cameron recently suggested that he’d like it if the UK went back to the imperial measures, which I found odd; he’s only a few years older than me and when I grew up we were using metric units in school, and most goods have been labeled in metric units for most of my life.
I was recently in England and was dismayed that in public houses spirits are no longer measured out in sixth of a gill, but pints are still 568 ml though the top 68 ml is lost to foam and spillage.
An interesting fact is that even on metric vehicles the seat-belts are attached using 7/16" UNC bolts.
At less than $200 for a QP, it ain’t worth breaking it down. No one wants a 1.5 gram bag of dirt weed, because it’d be shameful to sling all day and come out with a roll of one dolla bills.
I don’t think so. I can find no mention of it. There was the Mars Climate Orbiter, which failed in 1999 because of an error in units, but that’s the only one I know, and I think someone else mentioned that. I remember the report quoting energies in foot-poundals, which were quaintly archaic when I was at school.
It is not the particular system of units that is a problem. The problem with the Imperial system is that there are many units of length - inches, feet, yards, rods, chains, furlongs, miles, nautical miles. It is this proliferation of different measurements that gives plenty of room for errors to hide. I remember having to calculate whether I could take out enough heat through a glass microscope slide to stop what I was depositing in a vacuum chamber from curling up: the only measurement I could find was from a building manual which quoted window glass heat conduction in BTU’s per hour per square foot per degree Fahrenheit temperature difference per mm glass thickness. It took me a good 20 minutes before I got the same answer twice, and even then it was probably wrong.
That was just in BC, and the BC government upped the maximum service size from 500 mL (about 17.5 oz) to 680 mL (about 24 oz) in 2010. That was specifically in response to that article, and the general public’s reaction of “You can’t buy a pint of beer in BC? That’s ridiculous!”
The fact remains that, throughout Canada, bar operators seem largely unaware that the pint is an actual unit of fluid measurement, not just a word for a glass of beer.
It’s not supposed to be that way. By law, all bar pint glasses must have a line printed on them showing where the pint comes to. The glass is meant to be filled to the line with actual beer - there is some head space between the line and the lip of the glass, which is where the foam belongs.
…and a tripod screw is 1/4-20 (1/4" diameter, 20 threads per inch) Whitworth thread. That’s even older than UNC, and almost impossible to find, unless you are looking through your old bolts tin for a UNC.
Happy days. The old lettered drill bit sizes had more steps then most modern metric drill sets so you could usually get a hammer fit, a tight fit, and a rotating fit for most shafts.
