“The Imperial System is human-based. The Metric System is mathematics-based.
The Imperial System works like the human mind works, dividing things into halves, quarters, eighths, etc. This is the natural way for humans to do things. This makes things good for the carpenter but bad for the accountant.
The Metric System works like a computer works, with decimal fractions, breaking things up into tenths. Actually, not even computers work this way, but they have a front-end built on to work in decimal units rather than binary. This makes things good for the accountant but bad for the carpenter.”
AND, if my memory serves me right,the whole edifice of metric measurement (the meter, or metre) is based on a mathematical mistake in calculating its size.
You are correct. The workers vs the nerds. Anyone who has worked to create any material thing with their hands will know how natural fractions are. All they need to do is to fold a piece of paper in 1/2!
In the spirit of 'can't we all get along', I propose a hybrid system that we will call fractional metrics. We will use standard metric terms but with fractional components eg 22 2/3 kilometers or 1/5 centimeter and so on. (flame away!)
Halves, quarters, eighths are powers of 2. Computers love powers of 2, do most of their calculations using base 2 math. Common metric and accounting numbers like 0.1 and 0.01 cannot be represented exactly in base 2 floating point, so must be approximated. That is why accountants often get rounding errors using Excel. Base 2 is the language of the universe. Base 10 is a ridiculous base and offers no advantages other than humans happen to be born with 10 fingers.