Metric versus Imperial System for Diving?

[victorzamora]

Digital, or just a dial you can tune up, like there is on some altimeters

Only problem with digital is that it's less to sell to people. Wait! You could make them obscenely expensive, there'd be no need to sell twice! The problem with the dial tuning, there's nothing to second sell. Wait! We could make it a specialty course. PADI Gauge-tuning specialty!

What I was thinking was to sell multiple faceplates, and we could then sell "Faceplate Replacement" specialty cards. The Pre-req could be "Advanced Equipment Specialty" so we could then sell 3 total specialties (including Equipment Specialist)! I think we're on to something!

Jokes aside, I will say I've never experienced any ill-feelings for being American from anyone but the French. Even most of them have been polite. While diving, though, I've never encountered anyone that was less than friendly over lack of certs. The only time I got a poor reaction was from someone calling me "Mr-frikkin-bigshot" for having a few certs and wanting to do a "better" dive than a 20ft reef dive in heavy surge. Only problem I've ever encountered with being under-certified was one shop required I be at least AOW for the night dive (despite having a dozen in my logbook at the time) and my wife was declined a wreck trip without an AOW card (company policy). The night dive was remedied by me going 10ft down the road and getting another shop to take me (Roatan) and the wreck trip was remedied by my wife getting her AOW (she had kinda wanted to, good excuse to do it).

 

[Bentley Hamm]

... Forget metric vs imperial... how about a BILINGUAL SPG? ... What could be simpler?

Fixed that for you...it would be so damn simple to end the argument with SPG's config'd like North American vehicle speedometers...have both units on the same gauge.

 

[Shasta_man]

What, no final decision at the end of this?!

If it wasn't for drugs, many of us would have no exposure to the metric system.

 

[Kevrumbo]

I must not be as smart as I think I am... because I don't even understand what you're asking for. You've asserted that it's easier to use metric than imperial in scuba diving. I've agreed with you. And now you'd like me to defend your position by explaining it to you? Or do you want me to prove to your satisfaction that I can do "X * 1 = X" first grade math?

For certain, at least ONE of us needs to do some work to "give some respectability back to us Americans" by reducing the impression of the arrogant, obnoxious American stereotype... but I'm not sure that we'd agree on who that is.

[/QUOTE]No, you don't get it. . .

In the multiplicative identity of 1 bar/min*ATA, the trick in getting a quick & useful SPG bar-per-minute value to utilize at depth, is to do the easy unit-factor label dimensional analysis that any middle school algebra student can do (i.e. "1 bar/min*ATA" multiplied by a depth in ATA).

How many more hints do you need, RJP??? Everybody in the rest of the Scuba world should understand the concept by now. . .

 

[oszillodrom]

I suggest a metric / imperial training gauge, which randomly switches between the two during the dive, keeping you on your toes and forcing you to get familiar with both systems. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Kevrumbo]

I suggest a metric / imperial training gauge, which randomly switches between the two during the dive, keeping you on your toes and forcing you to get familiar with both systems. What could possibly go wrong?

What every traveling American Diver should have:

ScubaPro Dual Scuba Pressure Gauge

 

[drbill]

I'm a scientist so I guess the dual system (the US/nearly the rest of the world) doesn't bother me much. Fairly easy to make the conversions except for temperature

 

[victorzamora]

I'm a scientist so I guess the dual system (the US/nearly the rest of the world) doesn't bother me much. Fairly easy to make the conversions except for temperature

Yup, I'm an Engineer and think the same thing. Nice thing about temperature is there's rarely a need to dive in Celsius. Bar/Meters/etc are nice for simpler math, but Celsius doesn't really do anything to make your life easier. I'd even argue that F is better due to higher resolution in one-degree steps.

 

[dfx]

Yup, I'm an Engineer and think the same thing. Nice thing about temperature is there's rarely a need to dive in Celsius. Bar/Meters/etc are nice for simpler math, but Celsius doesn't really do anything to make your life easier. I'd even argue that F is better due to higher resolution in one-degree steps.

You mean you can tell the difference between 77°F water and 78°F water? Or perhaps you would call both of them "upper 70s"?

 

[RJP]

You mean you can tell the difference between 77°F water and 78°F water? Or perhaps you would call both of them "upper 70s"?

The good thing about Farenheit is that a dive in water in the "upper 70's" sounds so much more appealing than the same dive "in the mid 20's" on the Celsius scale.