Petition to make USA Metric

[SunnyD]

not entirely, 1 kg of water equals 1 liter / 1000cc. that's hardly as arbitrary as "my foot is a better than yours and shall henceforth be used as our measuring system".

1 Gallon of water equals 8 pounds. What's your point?

 

[randomrogue]

You're off by about 300 years. But who needs accuracy?

Arg. Well it was partially suggested in the 1500's. Partially in the 1600's and put together in the 1700's as an official system.

lol my point still stands. Lets get with the times.

 

[Train]

Arg. Well it was partially suggested in the 1500's. Partially in the 1600's and put together in the 1700's as an official system.

lol my point still stands. Lets get with the times.

Yes, times. 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour. 60 seconds in a minute, which we will then measure in decimal.

 

[mikeymikec]

nvm

 

[Jaepheth]

What i would like to see is legislation mandating all federally regulated measurements (road signs, FDA labels, etc) have imperial units with metric printed alongside at 1/2 the font size.

Then 10 years after that switch to imperial being half the size of the metric print.

Then 15 years after that drop the imperial measurements entirely.


Think of the jobs that would create!

 

[randomrogue]

so 39 is more logical than 103 how?

And given that you had to look up the boiling point of water tells me its utterly irrelevant to your life and that it is pretty silly to use it as a "logical" basis for your temperature system.

I've never had to do measurements of boiling water with Farenheit. I used Celsius. Nobody used imperial units when I took science courses.

 

[Train]

The USA *is* in metric.

The military uses kilometers for navigtion,

Go to any science lab, metric. Go to any factory, metric. Pretty much every container in the super market has metric units on it, next to respective imperial, some times ONLY the mtric unit is used.

SI is mostly used in day to day, non scientific stuff. The weather, gas in your car, your height. If you really want to force people to change, you have some kind of issue.

 

[randomrogue]

Yes, times. 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour. 60 seconds in a minute, which we will then measure in decimal.

Well why didn't you say so? Now I completely agree with you! There's no way we can switch to metric since then we'd have to change the calendar and all the clocks!!!!!!

 

[CPA]

Why does everyone want to change America. We are the greatest country in the world, motherf*ckers!

 

[mikeymikec]

The USA *is* in metric.

The military uses kilometers for navigtion,

Go to any science lab, metric. Go to any factory, metric. Pretty much every container in the super market has metric units on it, next to respective imperial, some times ONLY the mtric unit is used.

SI is mostly used in day to day, non scientific stuff. The weather, gas in your car, your height. If you really want to force people to change, you have some kind of issue.

Didn't NASA make a metric - imperial calculation mistake in the last few years?

 

[randomrogue]

Didn't NASA make a metric - imperial calculation mistake in the last few years?

Yes I posted it above. A $650,000,000 mistake.

 

[Broheim]

1 Gallon of water equals 8 pounds. What's your point?

but how many cubic inches would that be?

 

[nehalem256]

I've never had to do measurements of boiling water with Farenheit. I used Celsius.

And was water the only thing you boiled?

Nobody used imperial units when I took science courses.

No one measures the boiling point of water outside of science class. And I doubt the boiling point of water is the only temperature value of importance to science. Overall I think you made my point. The boiling of water is just an arbitrary value to pick.

 

[pmv]

And the normal range of temperatures in F is between 0-100. And anything below 0 or above 100 is really freaking hot or cold and you should just stay inside .

Well, as I say, its really just what you are used to. I have a lifetime of memories of temperatures measured in Celcius, never used or been taught anything else, so it all makes instinctive sense to me. But obviously if you've always used F that would seem as natural to you.

Presumably the metric-haters would be furious if someone dared shoot at them with 9mm bullets? Ditto for the metric-heads and inch-demarcated calibres.

 

[nehalem256]

Well why didn't you say so? Now I completely agree with you! There's no way we can switch to metric since then we'd have to change the calendar and all the clocks!!!!!!

Are you suggesting that basing measurements off of the natural world instead of an arbitrary number makes more sense :sneaky:

 

[randomrogue]

And was water the only thing you boiled?



No one measures the boiling point of water outside of science class. And I doubt the boiling point of water is the only temperature value of importance to science. Overall I think you made my point. The boiling of water is just an arbitrary value to pick.

Are you retarded? Freezing and boiling water as 1-100 is pretty nice. 32-212 or divided into 180 parts is not. Do you not see that the numbers in the imperial system are not logical or based on anything? There's something to be said about it being somewhat logical that we could have a number system at any base but I think base 10 works quite well since my base 37 math is a bit rusty.

 

[Olikan]

metric system is random shit?

 

[nehalem256]

Are you retarded? Freezing and boiling water as 1-100 is pretty nice. 32-212 or divided into 180 parts is not. Do you not see that the numbers in the imperial system are not logical or based on anything? There's something to be said about it being somewhat logical that we could have a number system at any base but I think base 10 works quite well since my base 37 math is a bit rusty.

F is based on something http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#History

And is just as logical as Celsius. The freezing and boiling points of water are not the end all and be all of temperature.

 

[randomrogue]

I'm putting you on ignore. I refuse to interact with a halfwit.

 

[Mixolydian]

Honestly I don't care either way.

 

[Olikan]

F is based on something http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#History

And is just as logical as Celsius. The freezing and boiling points of water are not the end all and be all of temperature.

C ro kelvin is -273
F to kelvin is what?

 

[nehalem256]

C ro kelvin is -273
F to kelvin is what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_temperature_scale

Problem solved.

 

[SunnyD]

but how many cubic inches would that be?

The better question is why would I care? If I were in the position to need to use volumetric measures on a regular basis, I would have learned them and know them just as readily in standard measure as I would metric measures. But I don't bake my cookies with cubic inches of water nor do I fill my fish tank with that measure either. I use "gallons".

By the way, it's 231 cubic inches.

 

[Possessed Freak]

not entirely, 1 kg of water equals 1 liter / 1000cc. that's hardly as arbitrary as "my foot is a better than yours and shall henceforth be used as our measuring system".

You fool, that was back in the 1700's. Now scientists with nothing better to do decided to mess with all of that...

Original (1793): The grave was defined as being the weight [mass] of one cubic decimetre of pure water at its freezing point.FG
Current (1889): The mass of the International Prototype Kilogram

Oh, so a Kilogram is... now arbitrary.

The second:

Original (Medieval): 1/86400 of a day
Current (1967): The duration of 9192631770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom

Oh that's easy to remember.

The meter???

Original (1793): 1/10000000 of the meridian through Paris between the North Pole and the EquatorFG
Current (1983): The distance travelled by light in vacuum in 1299792458 second

Historically those units meant something. Now, they are just complete bullshit.

 

[randomrogue]

Refining our measurements to be more exact is not the issue at hand here. I doubt there are any here complaining about that at all. They are talking about the everyday use of these measurements. If I am measuring something it makes more sense in metric. When I lived in the USA I did business internationally and it was such a royal pain in the ass to have to deal with two different systems. You get used to it but it is really unnecessary. On one hand I could sell my widget overseas in metric but I had to buy it in imperial. I had to deal with it internally in both. Was annoying. If you ever deal with the ton in a business setting you have to be very careful what you're talking about since there are essentially a bunch of different ones. One is 2000 lbs and one is 2240 lbs. They can be both called a ton. Then there's the long ton and short ton that are hopefully used to clarify which one you're dealing with but almost nobody uses it. You just have to hope that when they say ton they're talking about the same one you are. People have gotten better and now say ton and metric ton which helps. Then add in currency conversions so that if you're buying something in $/lb but then selling it in Yen/kilo. It's glorious.