Being English and reasonably young, I was brought up with both systems and the metric system is 10* easier to use, using the the imperial system (english equivalent of US standard) for physics just leads to so many extra complications.
The english system has absolutely no advantages at all over the metric system, the point about having more factors is bunk, if metres, feet etc. where some sort of fundamental constants rather than completely arbitary lengths this might come into play, but as they are not it doesn’t really matter.
The only reason why anyone would prefer the english system is that they were brought up with it and find it easier to visualize.
if we used gils or whatever us ‘merkins use for little bits o’ liquid, our lab would have to buy new pippetters. And those ain’t cheap, so we ain’t changin’! (i will, however, use miles per gallon until i die, cuz i fear change)
Yes, I agree. I was brought up with the Imperial system, then had to change over to metric when I moved to Italy. Now that I live in the UK, I just can’t bring myself to change once again, especially because I find metric so much easier and more logical.
I mean, over here, people tell you their weight in stones… which is 14 lbs. And already my head is spinning in trying to do the arithmetic.
Exactly. The English system is useless in most scientific applications, not because most people use it, but because measurements simply don’t exist beyond what people see everyday.
How many ounces is a smallpox virion? How many inches is the diameter of a DNA double helix? Pfft.
When you have really large or really small numbers, you’re dealing with powers of ten anyway. It’s much easier to say 3.6x10[sup]12[/sup] than 3600000000000. You might as well have a measurement system that plays along.
That being said, force-feeding Americans the metric system won’t get us to shift. The change is happening already, in the most ingenious way possible. Associating the metric system with things Americans love:
Food: calories, grams of fat, liters of Mountain Dew, watts in the refrigerator light bulb
Weaponry: 9mm handguns
Drugs: kilos of cocaine
Face it. Once the metric system conquers the last love, that being the automobile, you can say all but say goodbye to the last vestiges of the English system. BTUs notwithstanding…
U.S. liquid gallon, U.S. dry gallon, or Imperial gallon?
International foot or surveyor’s foot?
Remember, boys and girls, the way the Troy-weight and Avoirdupois-weight systems work:
An ouce of gold weighs more than an ounce of feathers, but a pound of gold weighs less than a pound of feathers!
No, really! I’m not making this up! Honest! You can look at any American-made socket wrench set, and see socket wrenches with sizes like 7/32", 1/4", 5/16", etc…
Honestly, the biggest everyday exposure most Americans get to the metric system is in the form of 2-liter plastic bottles of soda pop. (And even those are less common than single-person-sized bottles and cans of soda, which come in 12 fluid ounce, 16 fluid ounce, and 20 fluid ounce varieties. Or 32 fluid ouces, if you get a Big Gulp from 7-11.)
On reflection, drop the extra .06 off of my acceleration due to gravity numbers. I don’t actually remember it beyond the first decimal place. I was getting the numbers confused with human body temperature in the gloriously non-metric Farenheit scale
I was raised on the English system fractions and all. I had a passing familarity with metric as I worked on European cars and all that.
Anyway when I went to put some rear deck spoilers on the back of some new Volvos I got an object lesson in which is easier to use.
Basically I had to measure forward a small amount from the rear edge of the deck lid. Then across the lid to find the width. Divide that in half to find the center and then back out part way to drill holes for the outer edge of the spoiler.
Width measurement 56-3/32"
Distance to measue back out from center 26-7/8"
Quick do the math.
Oh yeah if you drill the holes in the wrong place you have to buy and paint a new deck lid.
Or compare that to width of lid 1426mm
center is at 713 mm
measure back 680mm
Childs play, even my three watt brain can do it.
You miss the point. The point is to match a measuring system with the decimal system that is already in place. A foot might look better on the surface, but how would it deal with a nanometer? Bloody messy innit? However, it is very simple with the SI system.
Furthermore, there are a whole lot to the metric system than just length. For starters: mass, force, energy, power, etc. All units in the SI system are very simply related, this cannot be said with your silly Imperial system.
Besides, you can’t divide 12 by 5 or 10. If you want a system that can be divided by the most numbers (10 or below), join the Babaylonians and use a base-60 system.
Neither system is perfect, but I think that everyone has to realize that when you are used to one system, you get very good at making up the deficiencies in that system, and what seems complicated to you, is not so complicated to another, such as measuring a trunk for a spoiler in SAE.
Nonetheless, I’m going to whine a little. I hiked 500 miles in Europe, and it was a holy hell of a royal pain in the ass to figure out where I was, given them metric maps. 1000 paces of mine is a nautical mile, or one minute of arc. That makes sense to me. It made sense to the Romans, too. Trying to figure out where the hell you are by counting paces in metric is a bitch and a half, thank god there is no real wilderness in Europe, because pacing out metric does not come out in base 10.
I grew up with both systems, but my main point is this: Metric was created by elites, and one of its consequences was the elimination of the workers ability to measure his output with something tangible, which I find to be alienating. Yeah, the old systems used a variety of standards, but once you get to know them, its not that bad. Plus, you can visualize a barrel, a foot, a mile, a cup, a teaspoon… and these standards were real, not abstract, and a common man could relate to them better. I still do. I’m sorry that this has been lost. As in my example above, not only does this have a bit of a negative psychological effect, it still has a negative practical effect.
When I moved to the UK for school (OK, OK, “university”), I stepped on a scale and found out I weighed “11.” I bounced up and down on it like a f*****in’ moron trying to figure out why I weighed “11” It took me about twenty minutes to figure out that a) I am not crazy b) the scale works c)this must be some English thing – after all, they’re the ones who gave us Whitworth as well as standard.
Hell, I thought I was in a real live scene from Spinal Tap.
I imagine you’d use decimal inches. Just because fractions work well with the English system doesn’t mean you have to them… I see measurements in decimal inches all the time on schematics, and you can get decimal rulers and calipers.
H.G. Wells had people doing this in the future in his novel The Sleeper Wakes. Because of the easiness of the system, everyone has gone to base 12, with “myriad” being a common large number in place of (I think) 100.
If you think subtracting fractions is bad, try doing compound addition to add old Britisdh currency in pounds, shillings, and pence. Makes you happy America started out with decimal currency.
