Comment on Measurements
ssj2marx@lemmy.ml 4 months agoconvert inches to miles
When will you ever convert inches to miles? One of these is for measuring things that you can pick up with one hand, the other is for measuring traveling distances.
The useful thing about standard measurements is that base-12 is much more useful in daily life than base-10, which is only easier to work with on paper. Make a footlong object and you can very easily make 1/2 1/3 1/4 1/6 and 1/12 versions of it, make a decimeter long object and you can only easily do 1/2 1/5 and 1/10.
MindTraveller@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Yes, obviously dozenal metric is better than decimal metric, but decimal metric is better than imperial.
Where Metric really shines is conversion between unlike units. In Metric, the equation for voltage is V=IR, and it’s so convenient Imperial didn’t bother to make their own version of it, so americans use metric for electricity. I can use kilograms and meters to calculate force, while you silly americans have to convert inches and pounds into different pounds using a conversion factor. Then I can use meters again to get pascals, or I can use meters differently to get joules. You’re stuck using a conversion factor to get calories. Then I can use seconds to get watts, and we’re back in electricity territory where you fools have to convert over to our measurements to keep up. Metric is awesome!