Metric system or U.S. Standard?

[aircooled]

Do you prefer the Metric System or the U.S. Standard measurements (I'm sure there is probably a formal name for the U.S. system but damn if I know).

Personally, for me it depends. I like metric for nuts & bolts and machine work, but I like inches/feet etc for wood and yard work.

I'm curious as to the view of the U.S. system in countries that only use metric.

 

[minendo]

Either one is fine with me.

 

[Zim Hosein]

Originally posted by: minendo
Either one is fine with me.

 

[Turkish]

Metric for me since we use Metric on the other side of the Atlantic...

 

[FrustratedUser]

I prefer metric. The US system is just fvcked up.

 

[LongCoolMother]

US is bound to change to metric eventually. just need to wait until the citizens actually get a clue.

oh and its called the english system.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: LongCoolMother
US is bound to change to metric eventually. just need to wait until the citizens actually get a clue.

oh and its called the english system.

But it's different.
And the "english" system is called Imperial in the UK. And our gallons are different to yours IIRC. So you just screwed up an already slightly weird system.

In the UK we have a mix of both, because we never fully moved to metric. Things come in Kg, liters, pounds and pints.
It's a legal requirement to have the metric measurement on a product (vegetables/drinks etc), but milk is sold in pints (568ml) and coke is sold in liters (330ml cans 500ml, 1l, 2l bottles). And we work on mph for speed, not kph, and height and weight are done in both feet and inches/stones and pounds and kilograms and meters.

It's a mess.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

I prefer metric but the god damn school systems make us use the US standard more than metric.... *sigh*

 

[Turkish]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: LongCoolMother
US is bound to change to metric eventually. just need to wait until the citizens actually get a clue.

oh and its called the english system.

But it's different.
And the "english" system is called Imperial in the UK. And our gallons are different to yours IIRC. So you just screwed up an already slightly weird system.

In the UK we have a mix of both, because we never fully moved to metric. Things come in Kg, liters, pounds and pints.
It's a legal requirement to have the metric measurement on a product (vegetables/drinks etc), but milk is sold in pints (568ml) and coke is sold in liters (330ml cans 500ml, 1l, 2l bottles). And we work on mph for speed, not kph, and height and weight are done in both feet and inches/stones and pounds and kilograms and meters.

It's a mess.

Boooohooo that's a real mess there :Q

 

[Zenmervolt]

I prefer the English system of measurement. Especially for temperature measurement, more precise. (Note that precision is not a reflection of accuracy, precision is a result of having more available reference points.) Since Fahrenheit has 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling point of water while Centigrade has only 100, Fahrenheit is by definition more precise.

I'll grant that the Metric system is easier, but it is easier in the same way that an automatic transmission is easier than a standard. The automatic is much easier, but the standard is not some incredible paragon of difficulty. In the same way, Metric is easier than English, but English is far from a paragon of difficulty.

ZV

 

[aircooled]

In the 70's and 80's the U.S. school systems tried to teach us the metric system and said it would completely take over in 10 years (that was 20+ years ago and it never happened)

 

[Hector13]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
I prefer the English system of measurement. Especially for temperature measurement, more precise. (Note that precision is not a reflection of accuracy, precision is a result of having more available reference points.) Since Fahrenheit has 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling point of water while Centigrade has only 100, Fahrenheit is by definition more precise.

huh? since when are you limited to zero decimal places for measuring temperature?

 

[Instan00dles]

I use the us system but only in decimal, fractions are just dumb.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: Hector13

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
I prefer the English system of measurement. Especially for temperature measurement, more precise. (Note that precision is not a reflection of accuracy, precision is a result of having more available reference points.) Since Fahrenheit has 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling point of water while Centigrade has only 100, Fahrenheit is by definition more precise.

huh? since when are you limited to zero decimal places for measuring temperature?

I was going to say the same thing. Farenheit is a weird unit. That guy was smoking some crack when he made that scale.
Reference 1: Body temperature (defined as 100F, later adjusted to 98.6F)
Reference 2: Freezing point of a 50/50 mix of water and salt.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Hector13

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
I prefer the English system of measurement. Especially for temperature measurement, more precise. (Note that precision is not a reflection of accuracy, precision is a result of having more available reference points.) Since Fahrenheit has 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling point of water while Centigrade has only 100, Fahrenheit is by definition more precise.

huh? since when are you limited to zero decimal places for measuring temperature?

if you only have 1 degree marks on your thermometer you're limited to 1 decimal place. or if you have a digital thermo and it goes out 2 or 3 places regardless of system. but i'm pretty sure ZV has it wrong, and it's more accurate since it gets closer to the actual measurement. precision is a function of your equipment.

 

[Derango]

Metric is better for unit conversions. Just move the decimal point...done

 

[rgwalt]

When doing engineering calculations, the metric system is vastly easier to use. However, when thinking about things in real world terms, I prefer to think in inches, feet, yards, miles, cups, pints, quarts, gallons, etc. Besides, all my recipies are in english units.

Ryan

 

[FrustratedUser]

Try doing science in imperial. Report back when you're done.

 

[ElFenix]

and yeah, the proper name for the system is imperial.

 

[RossGr]

I am fluent in both.

My favorite argument FOR the English units of measurement. It is based on the fact that .1 is an infinitely repeating binary fraction, .000110011001100.... Since this number cannot be precisely stored in a computer, it must be truncated at some point, thus the basic unit of the metric system must be approximated.

ON the other hand consider the basic subdivisions of the English system

.5,.25,.125 etc notice that these number can be represented as 2^-n that is they are all PERFECT binary numbers, thus ideal for use on digital computers.

Why should we in this emerging age of computers move from the perfect digital system to one which must be approximated?

Other more valid objections to decimal are the simple lack of prime dividers. 10 is divided by 5 and 2. The English foot of 12 inches has 2,3 as prime dividers and their multiples of 4 and 6. Thus is much friendlier to subdivision then the meter.

Edit: (forgot my conclusion)
These facts, when optimised, lead to the conclusion that world wide we should drop the base 10 number system and atpt the hexidecimal system for all purposes, including money and measurements.

 

[rgwalt]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Hector13

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
I prefer the English system of measurement. Especially for temperature measurement, more precise. (Note that precision is not a reflection of accuracy, precision is a result of having more available reference points.) Since Fahrenheit has 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling point of water while Centigrade has only 100, Fahrenheit is by definition more precise.

huh? since when are you limited to zero decimal places for measuring temperature?

if you only have 1 degree marks on your thermometer you're limited to 1 decimal place. or if you have a digital thermo and it goes out 2 or 3 places regardless of system. but i'm pretty sure ZV has it wrong, and it's more accurate since it gets closer to the actual measurement. precision is a function of your equipment.

Precision has to do with how repeatable a measurement or how well something can be measured. Accuracy deals with how close a measurement is to the real value. You can be accurate but not precise and precise but not accurate. That being said, ZV used the term precision correctly.

ZV- I do have you call you out on your statement that the Fahrenheit scale is more accurate... It really depends on the instrument being used. However, all things being equal, if two instruments are being compared side by side, one measuring F and one measuring C, and they both give the same number of decimal places, the instrument measuring Fahrenheit is more precise.

Ryan

 

[rgwalt]

Originally posted by: RossGr
I am fluent in both.

My favorite argument FOR the English units of measurement. It is based on the fact that .1 is an infinitely repeating binary fraction, .000110011001100.... Since this number cannot be precisely stored in a computer, it must be truncated at some point, thus the basic unit of the metric system must be approximated.

ON the other hand consider the basic subdivisions of the English system

.5,.25,.125 etc notice that these number can be represented as 2^-n that is they are all PERFECT binary numbers, thus ideal for use on digital computers.

Why should we in this emerging age of computers move from the perfect digital system to one which must be approximated?

Other more valid objections to decimal are the simple lack of prime dividers. 10 is divided by 5 and 2. The English foot of 12 inches has 2,3 as prime dividers and their multiples of 4 and 6. Thus is much friendlier to subdivision then the meter.

Edit: (forgot my conclusion)
These facts, when optimised, lead to the conclusion that world wide we should drop the base 10 number system and atpt the hexidecimal system for all purposes, including money and measurements.

I do hope your were joking about converting to Hex... If the people of the US can't grasp the metric system, most people wouldn't have a prayer with hex. There is a reason why we count in base 10... 10 fingers.

You bring up a good arguement about the basic fraction of the metric system. In the first Gulf War, the Patriot missles didn't have nearly the success reported. The Scuds fell apart because they were crappy missles, and the Patriots had a real problem hitting their targets. As it turns out, the guidence system performed repeated multiplications using numbers that aren't machine representable. The compunding error caused the Patriots to miss their targets.

You should check out interval aritmetic. In treating numbers as intervals rather than points on the number line, and by rounding the endpoints of these intervals out to machine numbers, one can completely enclose the result of any mathematical operation. No machine rounding error...

R

 

[Ornery]

Speaking of precision, I noticed that metric threads are a lot sloppier than SAE. Why is that? The lug nuts, among other things on my car, are still SAE. Also, notice that our metric sockets are still driven by 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" socket wrenches.

We had the big push to metric back when I was in Jr high, about 1970. They said we would soon be switched over...

 

[ClueLis]

I have a preference for metric when doing calculations, but I still use Imperial Units in conversation, because people look at me funny if I say I am 187 cm tall.

On a side note, Imperial is actually fundamentally better for length in that 12 is divisible by 2, 3, and 4, but is weaker for us because we are handicapped by a base-10 number system.

 

[RossGr]

rgwalt.
Yes, I am joking about Hex.... but really it would be sweet! Humm... if we went away from a base 10 counting system would we have to abandon the term "digit" ?