[quote=“Dr_Paprika, post:4, topic:938264, full:true”]
Most Canadians know 10C=50F and every nine degree change in F is a five degree change in C, so 5C=41F=40, 15C=59F=60, etc.
[/quote] Ha! All Canadians need to know about temperature scales is that 40 below is the same in either scale. And that temp applies for 6-9 months of the year in Canada – just like here in Minnesota. 
And of course to further confuse things a 2x4 in not actually 2" by 4" - it’s usually 1.5" x 3.5" (2x4 is the rough dimension, 1.5"x3.5" is the finished dimension after surface planing). I assume it’s the same in Europe.
The really funny (at least to me) thing is how the units are distributed. Someone in the UK will drive 200 miles to look at a 3000m mountain but a Canadian will drive 320 km to look at a 10000 ft peak. I think of vertical heights in Imperial, horizontal measurements in metric, volumes in metric, masses in both, temps in both although I prefer metric.
FWIW, I was in grade school when the conversion happened so I had to learn both.
Before I retired I worked as an HGV driver for a haulage company. When we collected goods we had to record the size and weight in cms and kilos and most customers were pretty good at providing the details.
There was the odd dispatch guy who was less helpful though and I was surprised to find youngsters in their twenties, who had passed through all of their education using only metric, that wanted to use feet and inches.
Is joke. Your timid congresscritters have to actually listen to the voters, no matter how far out in right or left field the most vocal are. Because our prime minister in a majority government is effectively dictator for 5 years, Canada can do some bold steps like imposing metric, replacing a dollar bill or two with a coin, or in this case getting rid of the penny. The smallest coin we use is the nickel, every purchase is rounded to the nearest 20th of a dollar. (Unless it’s on credit card or debit, in which case they get you for every cent.)
good point. I too grew up in Canada during the conversion. I think the road measurement thing here is mostly metric because the road signs have completely gone metric. Even the advertising billboards are metric (Last gas for 200km). have learned to do driving distance in metric, though I still convert to “how many hours drive?” which is trivial in metric. And yet mountain heights in metric? I have to convert to feet. But then, rarely do we consider height in miles (unless you happen to be in Denver) it’s usually in feet because miles are nowhere near precise. (And flying is still done in thousand-foot levels. The famous “Gimli Glider” was a result of attempting to convert gallons to litres and running out of fuel halfway across Canada)
I know you worked as a long haul driver, but what’s an “HGV”?
FWIW, I learned to fly at the Gimli airfield when I was in Air Cadets. The CFI watched the GG land on the drag strip! Had the pilot lined up on the inner instead of the outer he would have greased it in with no damage at all.
Ah, I get it. It would have been better to have called it the vigesimal and not duodecimal. Duodecimal is base 12; vigesimal is base 20. Don’t feel bad though. I had to look up the word for base 20, so I can understand you not using it.
Yes and the smallest bill is $5, also vigesimal. A visitor once complained that the US (also Canadian) currency is not decimal because a quarter is not a decimal unit.
How is measuring driving distances in hours more trivial in metric than in imperial? Since speed is given in distance units per hour in both metric and imperial, I would think the conversion is equally trivial in both systems.
Now it would be more trivial in metric if the hour were decimal itself; then it would be easy to convert between kilometres per hour (which is the typical unit of speed for travelling) and metres per second (which is the typical unit of speed for scientific purposes). But with a non-decimal hour of 3,600 seconds, you get the uncomfortable conversion factor of 3.6.
Converting (highway) travel time to hours is a decimal operation in metric, but not imperial. Converting travel time to minutes is a decimal operation in imperial, but not metric.
I live in the US. I’m familiar with Celsius, Kelvin, and Fahrenheit. I like ºf for indoor and outdoor temps. It’s more precise (smaller degree intervals), and the limits make sense from what you feel, i.e. 100ºf feels hot, 0ºf feels cold. ºK works for science. I don’t see the point of Celsius. If it’s 100ºC outside, you die. 0ºC it’s kinda chilly.
That’s because you’re assuming you’re going 60mph on the highway, which is roughly 100kmph?
Ah, I see, now I realise while it took me longer to get it. I’m German, so I’d be going considerably faster than this on an Autobahn.
We don’t train our drivers well enough to allow for that sort of thing over here.
Throw in “Rankine” and you can collect the full quartet. (It’s the imperial system’s version of Kelvin).
ºR. Thank you, I learned something today. I’ll make sure to drain the hoses and bring in the sensitive plants when it’s going to get below 491.67 ºR. I had never heard of this temp scale.
More “interesting” temperature scales:
Very interesting link. I think I’ll stick with ºf for the temp I feel (inside and outside) and ºK for science. It’s interesting that there is always a lower limit to temp (0ºK) but no upper limit.
While I get 70F is room temp 100 is hot, 32 is cold, Fahrenheit makes less sense to me. 0C means water freezes, 100C is water boiling, and 20C is room temp, 30 is a warm summer day and anything 40 and up is time to get in the shade and drink beer. 