From my point of view in the UK, both imperial and metric systems have their advantages. The UK went metric in the early seventies, but it wasn't complete. The argument that the metric system is easier to use due to the 10 base system and our 10 fingers and thumbs, is only partially true. There are many other parts of our bodies that are pretty handy too, our arms are a yard, the ends of our fingers are inches and our feet are 'foots'.
I would never use the imperial system for any form of scientific work, as it is hopelessly messy to use in calculations. But in conversation, it works well for expressing distances, weights and volumes and in sizes people can relate to. For that reason, it has been used when people are involved, such as road distances (miles), liquid quantities (pints) and in weight (pounds). I still find it hard to relate to these metric quantities in Europe, having to constantly convert them to imperial. As well as the latter forcing of Liters of fuel and Kilos of food that has been introduced in this country 'recently'.
As I understand it, Americans work under this method also, Imperial for the people and metric for machines. Nasa have long since dumped the imperial system for all of their work, as have most or all American scientific institutions. So where it counts, America is an metric country already.
Also, I have been told that in America it is infact technically illegal to use imperial weights and measures, and has been since independence. With George Washington adding it to law early in his presidency.
Originally posted by IhavenoideaQFT
From my point of view in the UK, both imperial and metric systems have their advantages. The UK went metric in the early seventies, but it wasn't complete. The argument that the metric system is easier to use due to the 10 base system and our 10 fingers and thumbs, is only partially true. There are many other parts of our bodies that are pretty handy too, our arms are a yard, the ends of our fingers are inches and our feet are 'foots'.
I would never use the imperial system for any form of scientific work, as it is hopelessly messy to use in calculations. But in conversation, it works well for expressing distances, weights and volumes and in sizes people can relate to. For that reason, it has been used when people are involved, such as road distances (miles), liquid quantities (pints) and in weight (pounds). I still find it hard to relate to these metric quantities in Europe, having to constantly convert them to imperial. As well as the latter forcing of Liters of fuel and Kilos of food that has been introduced in this country 'recently'.As I understand it, Americans work under this method also, Imperial for the people and metric for machines. Nasa have long since dumped the imperial system for all of their work, as have most or all American scientific institutions. So where it counts, America is an metric country already.
Also, I have been told that in America it is infact technically illegal to use imperial weights and measures, and has been since independence. With George Washington adding it to law early in his presidency.
Re: Should the US go metric?
Originally posted by Afro Cheese
The United States of America is the only industrialized country in the world that hasn't adopted the metric system, do you feel that we should convert from our standard system to the metric system like the rest of the developed world?On one hand, the metric system is much easier in the fact that there is no memorizing random numbers for measurement (16 oz in a pound, 12 inches in a foot, etc) because everything is based around 10. I bet many people here couldn't say how many feet are in a mile off the top of their head, and to figure out how many inches in a mile would take a bit of math. But most people know off the top of their head that there are 1000 meters or 100,000 centimeters in a kilometer. It is said that it could make international trade easier as well.
On the other hand, we've all grown accustom to having thing displayed in pounds, miles, feet, etc. Honestly if I looked at my dashboard and saw I was going 100 km per hour I wouldn't know what the hell that meant. And if I am driving on the highway and see "68 km to New York" I would be sitting there trying to figure out how that converts to miles because that's what I'm used to thinking with. What do you guys think?
We may not be able to tell you how many inches are in a mile off of the top of our heads, but yeah, we can tell you how many ounces are in a pound. Metric system users may be able to recall certain measurements easily but Americans have a system of measurements that can be recalled easily as well which may take users of the metric system a bit of math to figure out.
As someone who works in the medical field it does seem strange that we have never adopted the metric system but it's really not a big deal. We still know our measurements or at least know how to figure them out. Figuring out measurement conversions is not nearly as difficult as say...,figuring out monotary conversions. Changing to the metric system for the single purpose of making trade easier seems very ridiculous to me. That's like an American saying that the rest of the world should change to Dollar because it would make trade easier.
It got a bit ridiculous in the UK when shopkeepers were being prosecuted for showing weighted items and lbs and oz's but it's calmed down now. The UK does reasonably well with a kind of mixed system...A lot of food while weighed in lbs and oz's is displayed in metric..So a half lb is 454g. Most milk is done in litres now although some producers still do it in pints...Street signs are in miles rather than kilometres. Even if you do get stuck all you need to remember is that a km is 6/10 of a mile and you'd be close enough.
Why metric? The more intuitive units of measurements are c for speed, Planck lengths for length, and so on.
Anyway, there's no need to really change it. It doesn't take a genius to convert one cubic inch to (25.4)^3 cubic millimeters. Besides. The most difficult part is the mathematical modeling which is purely mathematical, where you work with unitless measures to constructs methods to then construct reliable formulas.
Originally posted by Astner
Why metric? The more intuitive units of measurements are c for speed, Planck lengths for length, and so on.
Planck units have margins of error large enough that measurements using them would probably change considerably as we refine our estimates. Using the speed of light to measure speed in real life is moronic.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Planck units have margins of error large enough that measurements using them would probably change considerably as we refine our estimates. Using the speed of light to measure speed in real life is moronic.