inches VS centimeters

[stomp]

No one has quoted grampa simpsons yet, so here goes:

"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likess iiiiit..."

Of course, 40 rods to the hogshead is about .08 miles per gallon

 

[Electric Amish]

Mday-

nautical mile (nmi): A unit of distance used in navigation and based on the length of one minute of arc taken along a great circle. Note 1: Because the Earth is not a perfect sphere, various values have been assigned to the nautical mile. The value 1852 meters (6076.1 ft.) has been adopted internationally. Note 2: The nautical mile is frequently confused with the geographical mile, which is equal to 1 min of arc on the Earth's equator (6087.15 ft.).

Everybody just bookmark this page:
http://www.the-sage.com/services/measures.html

AND QUIT YER BITCHIN'!!!



amish

 

[XaiaX]

They did try that, originally.

It went over ... poorly.

 

[Capn]

Isn't gonna happen. Besides for everyday use it doesn't really matter that much, how many times do you really need to know how many feet are in a mile? For pure scientific calculations it seems from my experience that metric is the easiest. But from the engineering experience I've had so far you have to switch around, sometimes the strange English system is easier than metric. On the other hand you get some crazy units sometimes like pound mass per feet squared BTU or whatever.

 

[DABANSHEE]

So for all of you who think Imperial measures are easier. Look at all the Sh!t one has to remember

An inch is the outer part of a man's thumb, 25.4 millimeter to be exact. 12 inches to a foot, two feet to a cubit or three feet to a yard.
A rod/pole is 5.5 yards (16.5 feet): The size of a big stick carried around by builders (hence the name).
Four rods make a chain (22 yards) - the distance between two (cricket) wickets. Ten chains make a furlong. A furlong square is ten acres. Eight furlongs make a mile.
A perch was originaly a big stick, but later became a volume. A perch was a pile of stone one rod long by one foot wide by one cubit high).

Actually Americans do not use the Imperial system, they used a bastardised form of it - Just find an American who knows how many pounds there are in a stone. Also the American pint is about 500ml, whereas the Imperial pint is about 600mls. Or more accurately a Imperial pint in 2/5 of a cup bigger than a American pint.

Australia changed over from Imperial to metric arround 1974 so I learnt both at school, as I was about 9 then. So I understand both & the metric system is heaps easier, except I still find it easier to express peoples hieght in feet & inches rather than centimetres for some reason.

BTW Orney I've gone through that whole ballyhoo of owning 2 sets of tools, but tools seem to always go walkabout over time. So in the end I just now have metric tools as a 13mm spanner/socket also fits 1/2 inch nuts, 11mm is the same for 7/16, 14mm is the same for 9/16 nuts. It works the whole way along - metric spanners & sockets all work on their imperial equilivents, but for some reason it doesnt always work the other way arround.

 

[Capn]

There's a difference between antiquated imperial measures (furlongs, poles whatever) and the units we actually use. Besides we bastardize even more, instead of tons there are kilo pounds.

 

[BigKev]

I think they should..and NOT just because I'm Canadian. It simply makes more sense. Everything is based on 10..no weird numbers to memorize.

 

[reitz]

Why bother? Everyone is already familiar with the current system, why force a change on them?

 

[rahvin]

40ish states are designing all roadway/freeway projects in metric these days. Even american built cars (new) are almost fully metric. We're getting closer, about 50 years or so and we will be fully metric. Imperial units are not the world standard. Three nations in this world are not metric, 2 of them are in africa and both use systems that are similar to the cubit of ancient bible times.

America is being harmed by the lack of metic, we are often non-competitive in large world wide industrial contracts because our industries aren't tooled for metric. For example, almost no US steel is sold abroad (finished steel, not raw pig iron) because they refuse to metric tool. This has meant the almost complete demise of the american steel industry. Consider the consequences of not being metric in a metric world....

 

[desy]

Whys should you change systems?
1 Everybody else in the world is metric, fact
Although some individuals still think in the old system another gen or two they won't.
2 You already spend Billions when trading with foreign countries to do the conversions, If you think being Imperial is cheaper you are dead wrong.
3 You are already noticing probs especially in automotives where you have the need for two sets of wrenches already. All those Jap/ German cars aren't Imperial not to mention half of the Northa American cars are using Japanese engines anyway. In fact your gallons are different than British gallons as well, yours are smaller.

The only reason you haven't is politics, not because of the "merits of an Imperial system"

 

[Handle]

I'd have to say metric... it might even save taxpayers money. Example: NASA decides to send something to Mars. But they accidentally mix up, say, imperial and metric units. And as a result, it doesn't get to Mars and all that money and manpower and self-esteem are lost. Who knows? It sounds farfetched but it might actually happen.

Hmmm... I think everyone should standardize. The metric system is a better system (you hear about whether the US should go metric, but no other country of significance is considering going from metric to imperial. That alone should be evidence.)

 

[CyberSax]

Many people don't know that the U.S. has had a very important role in the development and usage of the metric system. It's actually rather surprising that it isn't used that much in the U.S. today. Thomas Jefferson suggested to Napoleon that he develop a decimal based measurement system (which he later did, and it became the metric system). The U.S. mint was the first to make a decimal based currency in the late 1700's.

Everyone that needed to switch over to the metric system has already done so. I don't buy this cr@p people are posting here about "owning two sets of tools" for their car. If I'm not mistaken, American automobile industry switched over to metric 25 years ago.

As for this NASA fiasco, I have a hard time believing it was just a casual mixup. The high-tech sector has never relied on imperial units. I know people that have worked at NASA who say that they never used imperial units while they were there. Their say that someone must have gone out of their way to fsck things up like that. To draw an analogy, it would be like Ford trying to tell you how many "rods to the hogshead" your car gets.

Many of you went to school like 20 or 30 years ago, and much of the stuff posted here about the use metric system in the U.S. is way off. The metric system is used all the time in the classroom, more so than imperial system. I think most Americans have a fairly decent grasp on the metric system.

The only thing that's idiotic is the "all or nothing" strategy that has been employed in trying to force the metric system on the American people for the last 30 years. A handfull expressways in the U.S. use metric only signs, which is a rather stupid idea and has been ill received. The government should encourage the various state DOTs to post both metric and imperial signs. Newspapers should take the initiative to sacrifice a few square inches of advertising space to post both metric and imperial temperature measurements, etc. Most people know how much a 2 litre bottle of Coca-Cola is, because the Coca-Cola corporation has always used both metric and imperial units to faciliate the transfer. This strategy would work elsewhere too.

 

[SuperTool]

We might be forced to change. The way the american education system is going, to ask kids to do anything more then divide and multiply by 10 is going to be too much for an average high school grad.

 

[Capn]

I graduated High school two years ago. We didn't sit around and measure things, but whenever it did come up in example problems or whatever it was probably english units. So to say the Metric System is used more in the classroom isn't necessarily correct. BUT, Americans do understand the metric system (it's pretty darn easy) and have had experience in school with it. I'm in favor of switch over in some ways, but there's no need to go all the way seriously. What difference does it make that they have to kmh and mph on the speedo of your car? Like a $1 more per car in cost or something? For the everyday joe changing to metric wouldn't do much. They'd just buy ham in kilos instead of pounds at the deli, and how does that improve the system? I can understand going to metric in places where it is definately holding us back the steel industry problem mentioned for example. But I'll always call myself 6' tall, not 1.8288 Meters. I guess the point of my rambling is that yes we should change over where necessary, but it's not really necessary everywhere. If you've lived your whole life knowing about how far a mile is, how much a pound weighs, about how long is a foot, about how long is an inch, about how much water is in a cup and so forth and so on, it's not going to be easy to change those types of measurements.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I will not conform, you can pull my sae 1/4-20 socket head cap screw from my cold dead fingers.

 

[jaydee]

inches man.

 

[Prodigy^]

"why doesnt the rest of the world change to suit us Americans? Makes more sense to me."

and your reasons are......?

nickdakick: LMAO! it CERTAINLY is called a "Quarter Pounder" in Denmark which is strictly metric.

and yes, they should change......that system is ridiculous :|

 

[flood]

Doesnt matter how you measure it, mine is still bigger than yours!

 

[Thanatopsis]

I can see it now...
One state decides to change all its signs to metric on a certain stretch of highway, to "integrate" people to the metric system. Before long, the people who actually look at the speed limit signs see 120 km/h, and think "Hell yeah, I can go 120 mph on this interstate." Needless to say, a forced conversion to metric would be counterproductive

All the items that need to metric already are in the US. The pharmacy system has switched entirely to metric. All the sciences use metric.

Isn't it funny though that we sell 12 oz cans of pop, 32 oz drinks in our fast food restaurants, 20 oz bottles in the store, as well as 1 liter, 2 liter, and 3 liter bottles of pop. I think we did a pretty good job of bastardizing the metric system already

Oh, and Dabanshee, I bet you learnt yourself good in them metric schools.

<< Australia changed over from Imperial to metric arround 1974 so I learnt both at school, as I was about 9 then >>

 

[xtreme2k]

...

well is the reason for not switching cuz it is 'hard'?

arent we lazy...

really should make the switch

u try to do engineering and physics with the old system
totally 'fuk' u up