Holding your Breath

[yle]

I forgot that the computation in imperial units would be more complicated (and not trivial)

But it's not really... computation is basic math, and uses the same ten digits that everyone's been using since they learned addition and multiplication, regardless of the units. It's only because people are told it's difficult that people think it's difficult.

I spend a fair amount of my time demonstrating to my students how to manipulate numbers using basic math (i.e. 3rd grade or lower) to accomplish accurate mental calculations.

As for pressure and depth calculations in imperial... pretty easy to chop 100 feet into thirds (33, 66, 100) and interpolate for any depth in between. One atmosphere for every 33 feet. Mental calculations, like anything, take just a bit of practice. But the first step is to avoid propagating the myth that they're complicated.

 

[tbone1004]

But it's not really... computation is basic math, and uses the same ten digits that everyone's been using since they learned addition and multiplication, regardless of the units. It's only because people are told it's difficult that people think it's difficult.

I spend a fair amount of my time demonstrating to my students how to manipulate numbers using basic math (i.e. 3rd grade or lower) to accomplish accurate mental calculations.

As for pressure and depth calculations in imperial... pretty easy to chop 100 feet into thirds (33, 66, 100) and interpolate for any depth in between. One atmosphere for every 33 feet. Mental calculations, like anything, take just a bit of practice. But the first step is to avoid propagating the myth that they're complicated.

base 33 is a lot more complicated than base 10. Granted it's a lot less bad than indirectly measuring tank volume in imperial units vs. directly measuring in metric, but still.

 

[yle]

base 33 is a lot more complicated than base 10. Granted it's a lot less bad than indirectly measuring tank volume in imperial units vs. directly measuring in metric, but still.

<<Sigh>>... and so the myth propagates.

Any base is the same as any other base by using a simple logarithm.

Seriously though, as I wrote in my post above, people believe "33" is more difficult than "10" because that's what they've been told, and it's usually from someone they trust, so they believe it. There's nothing inherently more complicated about doing 3rd grade math with 33 than with 10. Just takes a little practice.

As I explain to my students, we all got lots of practice in 3rd grade... and then sometime between then and becoming adults we were encouraged to forget about it.

The tank volume thing is a separate issue, because (as you mention) it's two different measurements and not just a matter of different units. That "11 liter" vs "80 cu ft" can cause confusion. Would be much simpler if the industry adopted the direct measurement in cubic inches, i.e. 11 liter tank is a 670 cu inch tank.

 

[tbone1004]

<<Sigh>>... and so the myth propagates.

Any base is the same as any other base by using a simple logarithm.

Seriously though, as I wrote in my post above, people believe "33" is more difficult than "10" because that's what they've been told, and it's usually from someone they trust, so they believe it. There's nothing inherently more complicated about doing 3rd grade math with 33 than with 10. Just takes a little practice.

As I explain to my students, we all got lots of practice in 3rd grade... and then sometime between then and becoming adults we were encouraged to forget about it.

first off, your statement that it takes a little practice means that it is in fact more complicated because 4atm's=40m takes no practice, but in imperial it's 132ft is not a calculation you know off the top of your head for anything other than scuba diving.
On paper it doesn't matter, but to conceptualize and perform calculations in your head, metric is infinitely easier and that is a fact with no room to negotiate.
I say all of this as an engineer for reference...

 

[yle]

first off, your statement that it takes a little practice means that it is in fact more complicated because 4atm's=40m takes no practice, but in imperial it's 132ft is not a calculation you know off the top of your head for anything other than scuba diving.
On paper it doesn't matter, but to conceptualize and perform calculations in your head, metric is infinitely easier and that is a fact with no room to negotiate.
I say all of this as an engineer for reference...

lol... if it makes you feel better, I will concede. Because I long ago accepted the futility of my quest to convince people that 3rd grade math is not complicated. Besides, I couldn't hope to match your qualification "as an engineer", for this debate. I've met a lot of engineers (and aspiring engineers), and learned long ago that they know everything and that it's impossible to convince them otherwise.

Only people worse in that respect are physics professors.

 

[BlueTrin]

It’s not complicated but some people will have a block and refuse to try it