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Gonna take a shit on this idea like a good American and say dealing with fractions is easier than irrational decimals. I do like the metric system tho and I wish we would switch at least some things like temp and road speed over.
I doubt that very much. Just yesterday I checked out the product page of the new DJI Air 3 and compared it with the Air 2. One of the new features is a bigger sensor compared to the old one. So I wanted to see how much bigger it got. For some reason though DJI only lists their sensor sizes in fractions. The Air 3 has a sensor size of 1/1.3 Inch and the Air 2 1/2 Inch. To be honest. I thought shortly about that and then concluded I would have to do math to compare those two and did something else with my life. I know how to convert between different bases but honestly - why should I? This is weird! Why use random switching fractions for anything? Fractions are only useful to display numbers that would be hard to express in decimal. And that is mainly 1/3 and 2/3! Which to be honest I dont encounter that much in my life.
I’m steel-manning the argument for sticking with US Standard. I think there is a lot more precision inherent in how the system functions that you don’t really get in every day uses. Even so, I would rather deal with meters and liters because I hate having to convert between the two systems and metric seems to have won anyway.
I really dont get why it should be more precise… Precision is dependent on my measurement and calculation. How can it be dependent on units? (if you smaller units as needed by your measurement and calculation)
I’ve never seen metric units represented with fractions
Well, sometimes, because writing 1,3333333333333 is shitty :P, in those seldom cases I rather write it as 1,1/3
Those aliens have 3 fingers. A decimal system to them is like a system based on 14, 196, 2744, 38416, … would be like to us - probably worse than US Customary
14, 196, 2744, 38416, … would be like to us - probably worse than US Customary
I mean if they had a base 14 numerical system then a base 14 measurement system would make perfect sense.
Contrary to that, the US does use a decimal system for numbers while the various units in the US customary system do not have any common base.
Oh my god get a new joke. The U.S. uses both systems just like everyone else.
Very few countries use both systems.
True. The U.S. is one of them.
In reality, while most countries don’t use metric and imperial, they do use metric and some other local system of measurements. Many countries use both metric and their historically preferred system.
What non-metric system does Germany use? What non-metric system does France use? What non-metric system does Poland use?
No. Also ur fat and eat hambugers
Ah nice, this should be a constructive dialogue between open minded and empathetic individuals.
grabs popcorn
how many ounces of popcorn?
Which ounce are we talking about?
How many liters?
What’s that in cups?
Could I get that in buckets?
Nautical or normal buckets?
A truly logic system would be entirely designed around a base-12 number system. But we were born with an imperfect set of 10 fingers and that doomed us.
Those aliens have 6 fingers. It’s an absolutely ironic twist that their discussion on measuring systems is super illogical for them, and yet logical is the verbiage they use.
Base 10 is the most easy to scale, you just move the coma and add 0s. Base 12 doesn’t allow that easily
You can just assign digits to ten and eleven?
Yep. In computer science you sometimes need to calculate with hexadecimal numbers where 10-15 are the letters A-F. You just use another factor for scaling “easily”.
In hexadecimal 10 is 16 in decimal. So if you do C * 10 it’s C0 but that is 192 in decimal (12 * 16, remember the base is 16).
Whats cool though is that (all hexadecimal):
10 / 2 = 8
10 is 2 to the power of 4 which means 10 is divisible by 2 4 times.
Similarly (and arguably even cooler) with a base 12 system 10 is divisible by 2 AND 3!
10 / 3 = 4
10 / 2 = 6
Ah yes, the weirdos who insist on using dozenal
I mean, base 12 or 16 is definitely better than 10. Not saying imperial is better but a system like metric that uses base 12 or 16 would be best, as it’s divisible by more numbers.
That is an unfortunate name for a numbers system
I’ll just leave this here: https://youtu.be/iJymKowx8cY
TLDW: metric is better because all the different kinds of units were designed to work together.
Where as imperial units developed organically, within specific trades/use cases. They’re not all supposed to work together.
I use imperial because that’s what I was raised with, but I recognize metric is better in many ways. My only gripe with metric is the gap in units between Centimeters and Meters. A foot is convenient size for most things.
My only gripe with metric is the gap in units between Centimeters and Meters. A foot is convenient size for most things.
Doesn’t seem to be an issue though, the decimetre is rarely used. Sometimes you find dL, decilitre, for 100 ml. It seems that 1, 100, and 1000 are convenient enough for most things.
Yeah, if you’ve got a measurement like 54 cm and you’d like that in decimeters for estimating how big it is, you literally just have to move the decimal point: 5.4 dm
You don’t have to actively convert it to dm for that. You just see a number of cm and will immediately know how much it would be in steps of 10 cm…
Problem with a foot is, that it creates a reference, to well a human foot. But my feet are 11" whereas my gfs feet are 9.4" and my fathers feet are 12".
So four foot for my gf would be three foot for my dad. That is a terribly inaccurate references.
We used to have the same thing for cloth, where the length was measured with your underarm. Guess the shorter traders got rich off it.
In this thread: people bending over backwards to defend their insane, non-logical unit of measurement
Logical, mathematically convenient, but not practically convenient. Without a measuring tool, there’s no good way to estimate anything besides a centimeter.
Every imperial unit of measure can be estimated whilst naked (but preferably clothed).
An inch is your distal thumb phalanx. A foot is your foot. A mile is, or was at one point, roughly 1,000 paces.
The weather can be estimated by going outside. Is it too hot? It’s in the upper third of the 100 degree scale. Too cold? Lower third, might snow. Cool enough to fully dress, but not too cold, right in the middle.
A healthy, big person is about 200 lbs. A very small person is about 100 lbs.
Converting between these units is useful in science, which is why science uses metric. But you could live your entire life on earth and never need to know how many distal phanages are in 1,000 paces. It literally never comes up. Who cares?
It’s why units are divided into fractions, rather than into a decimal system.
By the way, the only reason we use a base 10 numbering system in the first place is because we have ten fingers and it was easier for early mathematicians to count. But I digress.
If you’re dividing a length of rope, and all you have is the rope, it’s simple to divide it in half, and then half again, and then again in half. You could even divide into thirds, if you were feeling frisky. You just fold it over itself until the lengths are even. There are two friendly numbers that are difficult to do that with, though. Can you guess what they are? If you guessed 5 and 10, you nailed it, good job.
Same with piles of grain or hunks of beef or chunks of precious metals.
But what about units of volume, you ask? I don’t have a part of my body that holds roughly 8 oz of fluid to pour out. No, for that you’ll need a cup. Just a cup. Not a graduated cup with a bunch of little lines down the side. 1 cup. Or half a cup, or a third, or maybe a quarter cup. Again, easily divisible for easy measuring without any special tools.
But a gallon, you protest. A gallon is 16 cups! What the fuck is 16 cups good for? Why not 10 or 100, or create a decigallon for simple math? Because 16 can be divided in half 4 times. Measuring out portions of the whole is as simple as pouring out equal portions into similarly sized containers. Divisible numbers are easier to use without graduated equipment.
And that’s why time is measured in 24 hours, each hour is 60 minutes, each minute is 60 seconds. There’s a ton of history there, and we’ll ignore for this discussion the inaccuracy of measuring a day or a year. If the metric system is entirely superior, why don’t you demand we all switch to metric time? A year will still be roughly 365 days (again, setting aside the inaccuracy) but we could divide the day into 10 equal metric hours, or mours, and those mours into 100 metric minutes, or metrinutes, and then those metrinutes into 100 metric seconds, or meconds. 1 mecond would be 0.864 seconds, and a metrinute would be 1.44 minutes, which to most people would be an imperceptible difference in time. Hey, how many seconds is 1.44 minutes? You don’t know without a calculator because we don’t use metric for time, and it probably never bothered you once before now. What an insane, non-logical unit of measure time is.
Yes, metric let’s us convert millimeters to kilometers, or helps us determine how many calories it take increase 1 cubic centimeter of water by 10 degrees kelvin. It helps with those things because the units are arbitrarily defined to make the math easier, not to make the measurement easier. But that’s it, there’s no additional sanity, no additional logic. It’s easier to convert between units via math, because it was designed to be easier to convert between units via math. There are no additional benefits to the metric system.
A foot is a foot. Fantastic. Glad to know everyone has the same sized feet.
And the same length on their legs so we all pace the same distance.
I would say good troll, but it just seems too long to be ironic.
There aren’t many instances in normal life where accuracy and precision are that important. Modern humans can measure distances with lasers and satellite coordinates. You probably own a tape measure and at least one type of scale. But unless you’re building something, baking something, or selling something by weight, estimates are almost as good as knowing something precisely.
We see the same in countries that us metric. Most people estimate how many meters, kgs, or liters things are because taking the time to accurately measure isn’t necessary. Maybe your phone tracks your daily jog, but that’s only going to be accurate to within a few meters, and most people would round off to the nearest significant digit anyway.
There aren’t many instances in normal life where accuracy and precision are that important […] unless you’re building something, baking something, or selling something by weight
Yeah, because building, baking, or selling something by weight are totally not important and absolutely common “instances in normal life” 🤡
Good fucking grief…
Correct, the vast majority of humans won’t build, bake, or sell anything that requires scalable units of measure. A cup of milk doesn’t need to be precisely 237 mL of milk, nor would most people need to scale their recipe to feed 1,000. If you’re building a shed, dimensional lumber is plenty precise, and it doesn’t require converting the height of a ceiling into miles.
Jesus wept 🤦♀️
You do understand that precision has absolutely NOTHING, at all, to do with the units you’re using? Right?
And yes, when you’re baking, you need precision. Try making consistently good bread just by rule of thumb, I’ll wait for your results.
BTW, measuring things by weight is not just more precise by far, most of the time it’s also easier and faster.
But hey, be my guest trying to gauge that cup on your beaker that’s 10% off.
And yes, if your butcher sells you meat, you would like to pay what you bought, and not 5% more.
And it doesn’t matter if that’s g, lbs, oompah loompahs or whatever. 5% of something is 5%.
FFS is this a knuckle-dragging contest here?
For someone so belligerent about something so inconsequential, you’re also entirely wrong about almost everything. Ice your britches.
You do understand that precision has absolutely NOTHING, at all, to do with the units you’re using? Right?
Baldercrap. One of the primary advantages of the metric system is that it can scale down for additional precision as necessary. Metric easily scales infinitely in both directions, so you only need one unit of measure for each type of measurement. Imperial units don’t easily scale, so the level of precision is tightly bound to the unit you select. You’re not going to get the same precision from miles that I will from inches. So that was a stupid thing to say angrily.
And yes, when you’re baking, you need precision. Try making consistently good bread just by rule of thumb, I’ll wait for your results.
Yeah, that’s why I brought up baking as an example. But the cool thing about baking is that recipes exist in both metric and imperial units. I can measure my flour in ounces if I want, and take a teaspoon of salt, half a cup of milk, one large egg, and there’s never any reason to convert between those units because who cares? I’m not making dough for 1,000 loaves, nor would I ever need to figure one one-thousanth of a loaf, so metric doesn’t provide any advantages for the typical home baker.
BTW, measuring things by weight is not just more precise by far, most of the time it’s also easier and faster.
With a digital scale, sure. I have one and it’s great. I highly recommend it especially for baking. But digital scales weren’t always widely available or inexpensive, and most people don’t own one. Nearly everyone who uses a kitchen to cook will have access to measuring scoops. And not for nothing, but my grandma never measured anything and was an excellent baker. It took years of trial and error but she could adjust her recipes to a humid day to make perfect baked goods.
And yes, if your butcher sells you meat, you would like to pay what you bought, and not 5% more.
And it doesn’t matter if that’s g, lbs, oompah loompahs or whatever. 5% of something is 5%.
That’s why butchers use scales. Grocery stores also use scales for produce and deli produces like cheese. Would it surprise you to learn that the vast majority of humans in America are not butchers or grocers? Their math might be easier with metric, especially when ordering bulk quantities, but for the typical customer, they want an 8 oz steak and a half pound of cheese. So why don’t butchers and grocers use metric?
Because their customers don’t use metric, and there are more customers than butchers or grocers. The conversion between units of measure, the entire reason metric exists, just isn’t a daily consideration. It makes no difference if the steak and the cheese weigh the same, or if you can scale up and down.
Also, another tangential point, most of the math today is handled by computers. Figuring the unit price of a side of beef or a pallet of cheese isn’t something people need to do in their head anymore. The inventory database will effortlessly convert between pounds and ounces and stones and tons. It can even convert everything to metric if you like.
FFS is this a knuckle-dragging contest here?
Gosh, you’re rude. Maybe spend less time attacking me personally and try to think of a valid argument. Or better yet, just go back and actually comprehend what I wrote, and maybe you’ll understand that our positions aren’t really that far apart.
Looking forward to your new animated series!
“Why do they use the much more complicated system?” “Nobody actually knows.”
I’m not defending it, but it’s because 12 has more factors than 10
10 has 2 and 5
But 12 has 2,3,4,6
So 1/2 ft, 1/3 ft, 1/4ft and 1/6 ft all have a whole number of inches
Using a base12 system would only make sense if we all started counting in base12 too.
If enough people want that, i’d be down to start counting in base12, but i don’t think many people will lol.
Technically the metric system is “the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce” as per the Metric Conversion Act of 1975.
You’re just also allowed to use lbs and feet and stuff and most people do.
And in the sciences and drug dealing and the military, we use metric exclusively.
But for some idiotic reason, construction engineers often use imperial units and I have no idea why. Like buildings are built in pounds and feet and stuff, with half inch bolts and 2x4 (ish) lumber and half inch plywood. It’s idiotic.
I don’t generally defend imperial, but feet and inches are actually really useful in construction. Base 12 is easily divisible by 2, 4, and 3. You often need to divide architectural elements in thirds.
As a former structural engineer who lived on a Jobber 5 all day, that’s still pretty niche overall. Easier because it’s what your used to maybe, but outweighed by situations where it’s not. Try doing trig with fractions and then tell me imperial is better.
Does it matter whether you punch 3/8 or .375 into a calculator? Don’t tell me you calculate stuff by hand…
The only thing I still like Fahrenheit for is temperature. There’s a wider range for the human livable temperature, so you get more persision. For everything else metric all the way.
And yes, it’s 100% my American brain can’t figure it out in Celcius no matter how hard I try lmao. 10’s are chill, 20’s are nice, 30’s sind heiß. But in the end, I end up thinking Fahrenheit and going from there every time.
