on a lighter note...

JPbowhunter said:

On the contrary it's pretty much the opposite to that.

Metric measurements use decimals so you can always be very precise with temp. Temperature relating to water gives something tangeable that can be easily measured and universally understood. Imperial temperature was created by a guy in his 20s as the first consistent way of measuring the same temperature with two instruments. Using a saline solution (which has a lower freezing point than fresh water) he measured water as cold as he could get it at the time and zero farenheit was defined as that low point. So it was very much an arbitrary system from the start.

In terms of measurement, imperial measurements being arbitrary was exactly why a consistent and definable system was created given that things like the distance of a "foot" varied around the world. A metre was initially defined as a one ten millionth of the way between the north pole and the equator as it passed through a point in Paris.

Rather than inches to feet to yards to miles being a jumble of magnitudes of each other metric is simple. I.e. if you can add a zero you can convert length and distance pretty easily.

1mm
10mm = 1cm
100cm = 1m
1000m = 1km

USA conceded in the late 70s that it needed to change to meet the rest of the world so a committee came together to work towards how that would happen. When Reagan took over presidency he didn't want a bar of it so pulled the pin.

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Brent in Az said:

We had Jimmy Carter, who tried to convert the USA to the metric system. Failed miserably, thank God. Metric messes with my head.

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Lbarr265 said:

I have never seen a weatherman use decimals... if you want to use decimals in temperature it works as easily in Celsius as Fahrenheit or Rankine for that matter.

Imperials are all units easily approximated in nature. I’ve never seen someone measure the distance from the pole to the equator and divide by 10,000,000 to determine the length of anything but a yard is an average step and I’ve seen people step off a distance.

Merely changing the decimal point and getting different units shows the pointlessness of the system... why say 10 cm when you could say 1 dm. Cause when you only change the units by that it’s no different than using scientific notation with base units.

Just to be clear I’m an engineer who uses both daily but I like messing with y’all metric lovers

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One Day... said:

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Except that every person in the decimal world knows how to go from millimeter to centimeter to meter to kilometer; or gram to kilogram; or deciliter to liter; and dang nobody knows in the imperial system how to go from inch to yard (0.027777777) or inch to foot (0.0833333333), or foot to mile (0.000189393939), or even from mile to yard (1,760) or mile to feet (5,280); or to go from ounce to grain (437.5); not to mention from fluid ounce to gallon (0.0078125) or fluid ounce to quart (0.03125), never mind teaspoon, tablespoon, cup, pint, etc. etc.

The part that amuses me the most is for me (born and raised in France with the decimal system) to have to explain to born and raised American friends that a 8.5 lbs rifle is actually NOT 8 lbs 5 oz, but actually 8 lbs 8 oz, because there are 16 ounces in a pound and .5 lbs i.e 1/2 lb is not 5 oz but 8 oz. You would not believe the number of blank looks I get...

I will not even go into the wrenches and sockets sizes. It is pretty clear to most folks what is bigger between a 10 mm and a 11 mm, and about anyone who knows how to read can rank a set of 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc. mm sockets. Try to get an instant ranking from the typical American among 7/16, 1/4, 11/32, 3/16, 7/32, 3/8, 9/32, 5/16, 3/8 sockets

No wonder, the US military and the US medical system adopted the decimal system...

The imperial system is just plain antiquated and it is not to the credit of the US to have (so far) failed to convert to the decimal system. The beauty about the decimal system is NOT about "changing the decimal point and getting different units" it is about all units for all measures: distance, surface, volume, temperature, etc. to follow the same decimal progression .

Failing to understand THAT, is indeed why some folks (apparently including some engineers ) think that it is "pointless"
Wrooooong!!!!!

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Red Leg said:

The most amusing thing to me is the sheer intolerance of metric users. It drives them insane that others prefer a traditional system. I suppose it goes back to the French Revolution. Think my way or off with their heads!

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