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gastroglizzy@piefed.social ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Metric is great for scientists in a lab with equipment to measure things.

Imperial was created during a time when peasants in the middle of nowhere needed to measure something “close enough” to trade with others, even without tools or measuring equipment, which was only owned by scribes and other members of the nobility.

This is why all imperial length measurements relate to parts of the body and why all volume and weight measurements relate to containers that were commonly used to store the thing you’re measuring (a bushel of grain, for example).

The US agreed to switch to the metric system centuries ago, but the ship carrying the official units sank on the way over.

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lauha@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Metric is great for scientists in a lab with equipment to measure things.

Metric is just as great for everyday life as imperial units.

Also, a foot can be divided equally into 2, 3, 4, or 6 equally-sized pieces without resorting to estimation or irrational numbers; a meter cannot.

While I agree in principle, I also enjoy the chaos that imperial system causes when you try adding up 1 1/8 inches + 5 27/32 inches + 7 3/64 inches instead of just using decimal numbers.

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- surewhynotlem@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Metric is just as great for everyday life as imperial units.
  
  This is what the metricians say to feel better about themselves, but they never mean it.
  
  “Oh yes, I’ll have a 236.588 milliliters of tea, thank you for offering”
  
  “The kids are out playing in the back 0.914 meters”
  
  “Doctor, I think I broke my left 30.48 centimeters”
  
  Do you see how silly you would sound if you didn’t use imperial?
  
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  - TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I was co confused until I got the joke lol
    
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- aMockTie@piefed.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  1 1/8 inches + 5 27/32 inches + 7 3/16 inches
  
  1/8 = 4/32 3/16 = 6/32 4 + 6 + 27 = 37 37/32 = 1 5/32 1 + 5 + 7 + 1 = 14 Total: 14 5/32
  
  I wouldn’t call it chaos, it’s a straightforward algorithm:
  
  Identify the largest denominator
  
  Multiply each other fraction by [largest denominator divided by current fraction’s denominator]
  
  Determine the sum of every numerator
  
  Divide and simplify the number if necessary
  
  Determine the sum of the integers, including any integers added in the previous step
  
  This works for every measurement because the denominator is always a power of 2.
  
  With that said I absolutely prefer metric.
  
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  - tempest@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    In practice you would just use decimal inches. Doesn’t really make it better but you can machine something without ever seeing a fraction if you want to since everything will be in thousandths of an inch.
    
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    aMockTie@piefed.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Maybe in your particular industry, but I reckon most people using imperial units aren’t using measuring devices with decimal inches or needing the precision of .0001”
    
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- JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Having done my share of automotive and carpentry work, I’ve never in my life had to go down to 64ths. 32nds is the smallest fraction I’ve ever had to use and the amount of times I’ve had to get that small could probably be counted on one hand.
  
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  - mkwt@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    In US machine shops if they’re getting down to that level of measurement, they’ll switch over to milli-inches.
    
    Yes, milli-inches are an actual unit in use.
    
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  - lauha@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Are you saying adding 8ths, 16ths and 32nds is trivial and having 64th in my example made it unrealistic?
    
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    JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’m saying that if you knew what you were talking about you wouldn’t be working in 64ths in the first place. You picked 64ths because “hurr sure Americans dumb” and you know it.
    
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- JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  If someone were adding those figures they would switch to decimal. I built furniture for 2 years, 64ths are almost never used over thousands of an inch. If you need to be finer than 32nds you use thou. And that pretty much only for wood. Machine shop I worked in used thou exclusively.
  
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  - starik@lemmy.today ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    thousands of an inch
    
    Which is called a “mil”, a name that has never caused confusion
    
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  - lauha@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    While in theory it is like that, I as a non english speaker have come across people trying to add up inch fractions more time than I remember.
    
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- taiyang@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Wheeeeeeee fractions!
  
  But after multiplying, 8 + 54 + 3 over 64 is just clean fun, you end up with 14 1/64 inches and wanna die because you accidentally cut the material at 14 inches and now your whole day is ruined.
  
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im_fine_sandy@nord.pub ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Metric allows you to convert between length volume and mass in your head. Someone smarter than me could probably take a reasonable estimate of how long a kettle will take to boil just by knowing it’s wattage and estimating its volume.

You’re right that “pounds” may have e been a practical measurement back when people didn’t have calibrated and everyone’s hand weighed a pound. However, that advantage ceased once everyone standardised those measurements.

A metre is equally divisible by 50, 25, 20, 10, 5, and 2. There arr numerous advantages to a base 10 system.

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Krudler@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The last bit of rationalizing is hilarious .

We can figure out what 70% of a meter is.

Good luck with your peasant system

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TheTechnician27@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
“Decimalized currency is great for all those labcoats, but for us regular ol’ normal folk, it’s much easier to use real, easily divisible livres, which can be divided into 20 sous and subsequently into 12 deniers.”

“In fact, imperial is so great because duodecimal invites so much divisibility! What’s that? You’re saying it goes 12 –> 3 –> 1760 for length, 16 –> 2000 for units of mass, that and units of volume aren’t even consistently multiples of 4, and that pounds, short tons aren’t cleanly divisible by 3? And that not a single unit of volume is divisible by three unless you bring it down to the level of teaspoons?”

“‘Why not just switch to a fully duodecimal system if divisibility is so important to you’, you ask? Well fuck you, a foot is about as long specifically as my forearm, and there’s no way my poor, emaciated monkey brain would ever have found something similar to latch onto with SI units. ‘How many square inches is a 300 x 300 foot room?’, you ask? Well fuck you again.”

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- Darkmuch@lemmy.world ⁨48⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  I hate imperial. But I do think it would be neat if we had also changed our common numeral system to base 12 when making metric. Dividing by 3 and 4 is WAY more common than dividing by 5.
  
  But no way that would happen unless we had a massive linguistic shift occur as well. Base 10 is too rooted in our culture.
  
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- PattyMcB@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?
  
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  - TheTechnician27@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I thought I was responding to a tired Gish gallop of flimsy, ad hoc justifications for imperial/US customary.
    
    Any concerns over anything I said in particular?
    
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    PattyMcB@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    No… I was just joking
    
    knowyourmeme.com/…/jesse-what-the-fuck-are-you-ta…
    
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AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Every country used a system based off body parts or similarly easy-to-measure parts. When the metric system was invented, most of them switched because it was the logic thing to do. Some just decided that the dumb system was better who knows why.

Spain adopted the metric system in 1852 and by the time, they weren’t the most advanced country.

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- adarza@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Spain adopted the metric system in 1852 and by the time, they weren’t the most advanced country
  
  perhaps when the u.s. finally reaches the level of 1852 spain, americans will switch too.
  
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Morotsgubbe@sopuli.xyz ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
What do you mean you can not divide a meter without estimations or irrational numbers? Do you mean fractions or decimal? 1m/3=3.33… dm ( repeating, which means it is a rational fraction)

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save_the_humans@leminal.space ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
So pounds can be either a mass or a force, or context dependent, or a slug might be the unit for mass derived from the pound force. The foot pound force is a unit for energy.

Honestly the system shouldn’t exist.

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SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Also, US Customary units share many of the same terms as Imperial, but the actual quantities differ.

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