When does the world go metric...

[bluesbro1982]

Interesting post. When I was in grade school (~10 years ago) We wre still doing the metric system, even going so far as to write president Clinton a "letter" asking him to make the metric system standard. In some ways he did, as the metric capacity of Monica's mouth seems to be 1 U.S. Liter (ba-dum-crash!)

However, I have to say that it seems like in terms of length and cardinal measurements (miles, feet, etc) people are kind of hard-wired if they learn more one way than the other. I know about how far a meter or a kilometer is, but the reptile part of my brain thinks in feet and miles.

Interestingly enough, for pressure / temperature / volume, I like metric a lot better. deg. C makes plenty more logical sense to me, and when you look at a pressure gauge in bar, its so much easier to me: 100 Bar=1/2 tank 50 bar=1/4 tank, rather than having to do the psi math in uneven numbers. I have my SPG in Bar, my depth in feet.

Is this just me? does anyone else think length / dimensions in standard units and other measurements liike volume and temp in metric? Maybe this is from the same part of my brain that prefers to read stuff in the key of C# rather than in Db.

 

[Blackwood]

deg. C makes plenty more logical sense to me

Really? To me, the only temperature scales that make logical sense are absolute (kelvin, Rankine, etc.).

It seems that basing the scale on properties of water is as arbitrary as basing it on the body (which I believe is how Fahrenheit devised his).

 

[clgsamson]

nice to have these babies (his and hers)
Blue numbers are metric

 

[boulderjohn]

'The world' has already gone metric. It's the pesky USA that refuses to fall in line. :shakehead

Brian

Hey, we're the only ones in step in this parade!

Actually, I think we are joined by some other industrialized nations, like Liberia or something. I could be wrong.

 

[Crawl79]

I love the metric system, except for volume, i just never had any experience working with it. As for work it so much easier using metric and when i do a job in the US I always ask the engineers why they cant be like the rest of the world.
I have ingrained in my brain 1m = 3.28083333ft because of this.

 

[lamont]

'The world' has already gone metric. It's the pesky USA that refuses to fall in line. :shakehead

Brian

If Europe were interested in Regime Change in the USA to overthrow the tyranny of Imperial Units you would probably find that many Americans would greet you as Liberators instead of Occupiers...

 

[boulderjohn]

If Europe were interested in Regime Change in the USA to overthrow the tyranny of Imperial Units you would probably find that many Americans would greet you as Liberators instead of Occupiers...

Correct, but you would no doubt have to deal with a persistent insurgency.

 

[plot]

I love the metric system, except for volume, i just never had any experience working with it. As for work it so much easier using metric and when i do a job in the US I always ask the engineers why they cant be like the rest of the world.
I have ingrained in my brain 1m = 3.28083333ft because of this.

Depends on the type of engineering, alot of it is done in metric. The major exception would be anything dealing with architects... that's all still done in imperial.

Everything else that's still done in imperial in the US (Shoe sizes, miles, gallons of milk, gallons of gas, etc) is nothing that really effects anyone anywhere, it's just tradition.

 

[bluesbro1982]

Really? To me, the only temperature scales that make logical sense are absolute (kelvin, Rankine, etc.).

It seems that basing the scale on properties of water is as arbitrary as basing it on the body (which I believe is how Fahrenheit devised his).

1 kelvin is defined as 1/273.16 of the triple point of water. one could define it as 1/whatever the triple point of any other element is and get the same thing to measure absolute 0, but the temperature scale (how much energy is in one "degree") would be different.

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/kelvin.html

Any measurement we make is "relative" to something. Hell, even the kilogram is still defined as "the weight of the standard," which is the platinum-iridium cylinder at the standards office.

Also consider the fact that we define the speed of light "per second," which is defined as:

The duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom.

Relative to the cesium atom is an arbitrary choice based on its stability / availability / whatever. What is an absolute scale?

 

[Blackwood]

As for work it so much easier using metric and when i do a job in the US I always ask the engineers why they cant be like the rest of the world.

Have they answered you?

I try to work in inches because our machine shops have mostly English tools, and I don't want to introduce additional tolerance errors.