Why is the metric system better than the imperial system?

[GorillaMan]

The metric athletic measurement are based on imperial replications on a thoroughly inaccurate assumption of what might have happened in the ancient Olympics.

At least the marathon gets a new measurement for thoroughly incongruous reasons. 26 miles 285 yards is the distance from Windsor Castle to White City.

(Hey, isn’t three marathons per hour a good measurement of cruising speed? “Avoid tiredness - Take a break every six marathons”??)

[Aeschines]

@Gorsnak

Really, it’s just what you’re used to. Seriously.

Interesting theory, but I never hear people talk about kilometres. They talk about klicks or Ks.

Oh, but it does offer an advantage. It just might not offer an advantage compelling enough to incur the initial cost of switching.

I’ve never heard of “k’s.” Must not be a US thing.

Metric on the macro side, yes, does offer an advantage or two, but also disadvantages. Such as the lack of a suitably chunky unit for distance like the foot, etc.

[scr4]

@Aeschines

The “meta” argument is that we should convert to base 12.
People talk as thought the metric system is ideal simply because it’s base ten. But we can one-up that argument by pointing out that base 10 is not ideal in the first place.

There’s a huge difference between changing something that’s already a world standard, and changing the practices in one country to match what the rest of the world has adopted as a world standard.

It is, after all, a system that was designed in the 18th century. It’s sole original virtue was the use of base ten and the relation of one unit to another …

I can’t think of more important qualities for a unit system. It also has the advantage of having unified, standard qualifiers for 10[sup]3[/sup], 10[sup]6[/sup], etc.

For example, the gram was rejected as the main unit of weight because it’s too small; science went with the kilogram. Sometimes booze is labeled in cl, but for the most part the middling centi and deci units for macro items have remained unused. (Micro is another matter–see below.)

I admit it is a bit strange that the kg is a base unit, but the concept of a base unit is not something non-scientists usually need to deal with. kg and g are both valid metric units, and the modular system (tacking on prefixes to shift the quantity by 10[sup]3[/sup]) means you can pick and choose which of the metric units you want to use. It really is a flexible system.

In this thread people have said that it’s all a matter of what system you are used to, that neither is more intuitive. I disagree. Feet continue to be used, but why are decimeters not? Simple: the decimeter is too small to be useful for big things, too big to be useful for small things, and there is no nice chunky fraction (1/4 or 1/3, say) of a meter available.

Aren’t we lucky that the metric system provides with cm, which is small enough for small things, and m, which is big enough for big things.

My feeling is that people use cm for measuring, say, the height of people and whatnot simply because they are in a metric society and, although deci is in theory an option, cm is the lesser of the two evils.

As you just said, we use cm for this purpose because meters and decimeters are too large, requiring use of decimal points.

Chunkiness is important and explains why other almost wholly converted contries still use some old measurements. In Japan they still use tsubo (3.306 m[sup]2[/sup]) for land area because it relates well to plot sizes in Japanese cities. The gou and shou are still used for sake and shouchou volumes. Kimono silk is still sold by the tan. And if I’ve heard correctly, China still uses a ton of the old measurements alongside the metric units.

So if other countries haven’t converted, the US doesn’t need to either? That doesn’t prove anything. And besides, square meters is becoming very common in Japanese real estate ads.

Also, the weight of a person, and many everyday objects, are usually 3-digit numbers in pounds. Measuring a person’s height in cm results in similar numbers. So which is more appropriate?

Kilometer has probably not overtaken the mile for a very simple reason: it’s a long, cold-sounding word, whereas mile is short, familiar, and sounds good in literature and poetry. Branding is important. The same goes for kilogram and pound.

So call it a kilo. There’s usually no ambiguity between kilograms and kilometers. Or klick (however it’s spelled).

But metric simply isn’t needed for macro units, and never was. The reason is that the multipliers are useless. Once you have mile, ton, and gallon, you’re done and you don’t need another unit. Nor does anyone need megagram and gigameter: they simply aren’t used.

However, a macro unit that has a simple conversion factor to micro-units is extremely useful. Try calculating the mass of water in a ditch that’s 20 miles long, 2 feet wide and 3 inches deep.

[Gary_Robson]

@Ignatz

But seriously, one of the factors that canceled the most recent conversion in the USA was the cost of changing all the highway signs.

I seem to remember back in the 70’s that whenever they were putting up new road signs in Colorado, they listed both miles and kilometers. Given the life span of your typical road sign, if they had continued doing that, we’d pretty much have everything dual marked by now, except the “mile markers.”

@Ignatz

If the new distance reference (formerly mile) markers cost a $100 each to install, and there’s one on each side of the road, that’s $14,400, 000, just for them.

Where did the $100 estimate come from? And, BTW, none of the places I’ve lived have had mile markers on both sides of the road.