Imperial or Metric system?

[phoneyLogic]

I´m in for that. It goes for electricity too. It`s better now, but before you had to carry a bag full of adaptors for your shaver, hairdryer, etc. just to cope with the multiple designs of plugs in Europe. :pinch:

Good catch. Maybe in Amrika everything is already standarised, so that they don't see the reasons why Europeans try to do so. It's much more convenient for everyone to have standards, especially if you come around a bit. And in Europe or Asia, with their different countries with comparatively small size, most people understand the advantages.

 

So for an American it might be easy to say "imperial all the way" since there just is one standard from the east-coast to the west. There wasn't really a need for a bag full of adapters to carry around.

Edited November 28, 2010 by tortured Tomato

[marharth]

I´m in for that. It goes for electricity too. It`s better now, but before you had to carry a bag full of adaptors for your shaver, hairdryer, etc. just to cope with the multiple designs of plugs in Europe. :pinch:

Good catch. Maybe in Amrika everything is already standarised, so that they don't see the reasons why Europeans try to do so. It's much more convenient for everyone to have standards, especially if you come around a bit. And in Europe or Asia, with their different countries with comparatively small size, most people understand the advantages.

 

So for an American it might be easy to say "imperial all the way" since there just is one standard from the east-coast to the west. There wasn't really a need for a bag full of adapters to carry around.

 

What? Americans still have to deal with other systems...

 

I honestly wish we had a world wide language, government, and measuring system, but that's for another topic.

[ginnyfizz]

Whatever happened to vive la difference?

[phoneyLogic]

What? Americans still have to deal with other systems...

 

I honestly wish we had a world wide language, government, and measuring system, but that's for another topic.

There is probably noone on earth who hasn't.

You know what I mean.

 

Don't tell me that every state in the US has it's own plugs and voltages or different measure systems, like it was in Europe for long time. This needed to be standarised over the time. I did not say that every American has never to deal with such things. But everything I lerned from that thread is, that this is not their primary concern.

 

So, why should they?

Edited November 28, 2010 by tortured Tomato

[Mortrix927]

Well, no- congress sets our weights and measures, so their never was any debate over that. That being said, I think Imperial makes more sense for dry weight, distances, and, liquid measurments; while metric makes more sense for tempurature.

[Balagor]

Well, no- congress sets our weights and measures, so their never was any debate over that. That being said, I think Imperial makes more sense for dry weight, distances, and, liquid measurments; while metric makes more sense for tempurature.

 

I think it´s more easy with metric for liquid. For example you have 1m3 (one cubic meter) = 1 ton (if water) = 1000 Liters. All the times a question of dividing or multipliing by 10. If you use gallons and cubic feed? (do you use that) you would need a calculator all the time. :tongue:

[Mr Ham]

Well, no- congress sets our weights and measures, so their never was any debate over that. That being said, I think Imperial makes more sense for dry weight, distances, and, liquid measurments; while metric makes more sense for tempurature.

I'd like to see you use engineering equations with non-SI units! Ideal gas law anyone? :tongue:

[Marxist ßastard]

I'd like to see you use engineering equations with non-SI units! Ideal gas law anyone?

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/7826/560520.png

 

Two things to keep in mind: First, SI is a subset of the metric system that avoids a lot of nasty (yet still-metric, and still-used) units like torr and centipoise. Second, English units (yes, we are pinning the blame here on the Brits) have their own such subset, called FPS units, which I've used here.

[TheSwedishPancake]

When one looks at the roots of the Imperial system, well... it's pretty funny, actually. Back in the day, the measurements always changed, and were also different from one kingdom to the next, as the "foot," for example, was measured by the actual length of the foot of a certain area's ruler. This caused massive inconsistencies, as you can imagine.

 

The Imperial system is still a bit strange today, if you think about it. It has very arbitrary units of measure, most notably the mile. 5,280 seems like a very random number of feet, doesn't it? Numbers like that (as well as the 12 inches in a foot and the 3 feet in a yard, for example) cause huge problems in unit conversion, due to their seemingly random nature.

 

In the Metric system, there are no such inconsistencies and strange units of measure; each successively larger unit is simply ten times larger than the previous. As we all know, it's easily possible to multiply 10 m x 100 m and get one kilometer without any tedious calculation. But, 9 in. x 9... how many feet is that? What fraction of a mile? How many yards? :wallbash:

 

The efficiency is definitely something to think about here.

Edited November 29, 2010 by TheSwedishPancake

[phoneyLogic]

I wouldn't come along with the imperial system very well. It's not that I can't handle measures which kind of suits me, but if I think of all these bogus conversions between foot, miles and inches and so on, I'd say: no, thanks :teehee: Edited December 13, 2010 by tortured Tomato