As someone who’s all about science and all the things that use metric as it’s standard, I understand why us Americans argue for imperial measurements.
We know them.
I can general look at something and relatively tell how big it is based on my experience with the imperial system.
I’m not saying metric isn’t better but there’s also different languages with some of them being able to express certain emotions or features better than others. Yet you don’t see people demanding we all adapt a singular language.
You should start by adopting metric in anything remotely scientific. Like
voltage ✔️
current ✔️
power ❗ - horses are no longer really relevant, not to mention this - at least appliances use watts
pressure ❌ - we got lucky that 10⁵ pascals is around 1 atmosphere so usePaorbar, notmmHgorPSI
BTW, PSI is a dumpster fire of an abbreviation, the correct one is lbf/in²
force ❌ - the lb/lbf confusion is not worth it when we have newtons
energy ❗ - joules and watt-hours are both fine, calories, electronvolts and TNT-tons less so, but don’t use BTU which nobody can really comprehend, or gasoline-gallon-equivalents that nobody knows how to translate to anything else
strange that motorcycle and gun enthusiasts are the few users of metric length & volume measurement in the US - too bad that these two measurements are never really used in calculations or conversion
torque ❌ - this post says Lb-Ft which is wrong on so many levels
data ✔️ - OK but data rates should be abbreviated MB/s or kb/s, not kbps, Kb/s, kbit/s or Mbit
wire diameter ❌❌ - holy shit, AWG is such a mess - larger wire is smaller number and the formula is so insane that people use lookup tables, also you’re afraid of decimal or negative numbers so large wires are 00, 000 etc.
Can you imagine having different units across the world for voltage or data? Like a 2¾-lemon battery or a 2 million floppy hard drive. That would be absolutely insane.
There is an awful lot of inconsistency in the imperial system too, like pound being abbreviated lb, P (in PSI) or even £, or miles being mi or M in MPH
About torque though: If my memory doesn’t betray me, one Newtonmeter is 100 grams hooked to a one meter long lever. Is that really different from one pound hanging off a one foot lever? I might be wrong, since I was born metric and have no clue in general.
As simple as 1 pound at 1 feet to be fair, the bad part is that pound is used as a measure of force as well as of mass. It works on the surface of the earth but not anywhere else.
You acknowledge what they really mean is ft lbf right? Usually pronounced foot pounds. It’s a common unit of torque in the imperial system. I feel like people are just jumping on the bandwagon. This is coming from a diehard Nm preferrer, we need to choose our battles. How bout we die on the hill of bite force being measured with units of pressure? Like really? Fucking pressure? Utterly meaningless as a unit of comparison between bite strength of animals, since all you need to get a bigger number is SHARPER FUCKING TEETH.
“Accurate” is probably not the correct word anymore. It was when technical limitations dictated power-of-two capacities. Commodore 64 came out with 64 kiB = 216 B of memory, and FAT32 cannot handle file sizes ≥4 GiB (232 B). However, RAM/ROM/Flash chips manufacturers no longer make exclusively powers-of-two capacities, instead opting for (decinal) GB to save 7 % of the cost (and other fake capacity shenanigans). I prefer binary too but the two unit systems can coexist, people just need to label them correctly.
As someone who’s all about science and all the things that use metric as it’s standard, I understand why us Americans argue for imperial measurements.
We know them.
I can general look at something and relatively tell how big it is based on my experience with the imperial system.
I’m not saying metric isn’t better but there’s also different languages with some of them being able to express certain emotions or features better than others. Yet you don’t see people demanding we all adapt a singular language.
You should start by adopting metric in anything remotely scientific. Like
Paorbar, notmmHgorPSIPSIis a dumpster fire of an abbreviation, the correct one islbf/in²lb/lbfconfusion is not worth it when we have newtonsBTUwhich nobody can really comprehend, or gasoline-gallon-equivalents that nobody knows how to translate to anything elsecm³orml, notccFFS)Lb-Ftwhich is wrong on so many levelsMB/sorkb/s, notkbps,Kb/s,kbit/sorMbitCan you imagine having different units across the world for voltage or data? Like a 2¾-lemon battery or a 2 million floppy hard drive. That would be absolutely insane.
There is an awful lot of inconsistency in the imperial system too, like pound being abbreviated
lb,P(inPSI) or even£, or miles beingmiorMinMPHAbout torque though: If my memory doesn’t betray me, one Newtonmeter is 100 grams hooked to a one meter long lever. Is that really different from one pound hanging off a one foot lever? I might be wrong, since I was born metric and have no clue in general.
It’s 1 Newton at 1 meter.
As simple as 1 pound at 1 feet to be fair, the bad part is that pound is used as a measure of force as well as of mass. It works on the surface of the earth but not anywhere else.
Pounds are a measure of force, not mass. The imperial unit for mass is Slugs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(unit)
I wonder what you’ll get when you ask for 0.02 slugs of ham at a butcher’s. Probably nothing but a horrified look.
You acknowledge what they really mean is ft lbf right? Usually pronounced foot pounds. It’s a common unit of torque in the imperial system. I feel like people are just jumping on the bandwagon. This is coming from a diehard Nm preferrer, we need to choose our battles. How bout we die on the hill of bite force being measured with units of pressure? Like really? Fucking pressure? Utterly meaningless as a unit of comparison between bite strength of animals, since all you need to get a bigger number is SHARPER FUCKING TEETH.
Yeah, you can make really great pressures easily with sharp things, making an atomically sharp point is surprisingly easy.
But my favorite hill is this.
Recommended units for data have been mibibytes (MiB), gibibytes (GiB), etc. for a few years now
They’re more accurate because they use powers of two (actually 1024 instead of 1000)
“Accurate” is probably not the correct word anymore. It was when technical limitations dictated power-of-two capacities. Commodore 64 came out with 64 kiB = 216 B of memory, and FAT32 cannot handle file sizes ≥4 GiB (232 B). However, RAM/ROM/Flash chips manufacturers no longer make exclusively powers-of-two capacities, instead opting for (decinal) GB to save 7 % of the cost (and other fake capacity shenanigans). I prefer binary too but the two unit systems can coexist, people just need to label them correctly.