[captain_dave]

The metric system. The French gift to mankind.

[Paladin2]

The metric system is apparently too nuanced for this author.

[Gordongekko909]

Base ten numeral systems at least make sense historically. Count your fingers to see why we count in base ten.

[NZerFromHK]

Here in New Zealand the under 40 knows hardly anything about the "old" imperial measurement units. Ask him how many feet is and he will draw a blank stare. In Australia it is illegal not to use metric units LOL.

But considering as a separate issue, I don't think using fractions for a metric unit is such as big deal. People will always use "half a litre", or "one and a half metres".

[sionnsar]

you wouldn't be ABLE to generate a precise system on base ten, because you'd have to estimate where to put the markings on the ruler!

Gee. We figured out the answer to that one in junior high. ("Middle school" to you youngsters.)

Simple geometry, if you have decent teachers.

(Not that we've had many decent teachers for a long time -- a good many are nothing but union workers.)

[El Conservador]

If this idiot is incapable of navigating between measuring systems, then the problem isn't SI or Imperial measurements, it's her dumb ass!!!

I was born in SI land, came to Imperial land, and I can easily switch between systems. It takes practice, but I was able to do it. When I see temperatures, lengths, weights I always make the exercise of converting to the other system. If I see a temperature in Fahrenheit, I always make the mental conversion to Celsius.

The world is split, but not for me.

[Whispering Smith]

When I went to school I was taught that 16 oz was a pint and two pints equaled a quart. I was also taught that a liter was a little larger (1.8 oz) than a quart. Thus I conclude that a half liter is 500 ml rather than 250 ml as described in this article.

[Bommer]

The Metric System: Proof that what comes from Europe, is stupid!

[Semi Civil Servant]

A rectangular plot of land is 6 2/3 furlongs wide and 512 rods long. How many such areas would it take to equal the area of 15 square nautical miles?

Ah, the English system!

[miliantnutcase]

The metric system was a communist plot to overthrow the west. It partially succeeded.

[sionnsar]

The metric system. The French gift to mankind.

Even a stopped clock is right once (or twice, depending upon the clock) a day.

I grew up with inches, pounds, quarts and all the rest... though I didn't grow up with farthings, ha-pennies, thruppence, groats, sixpence ("bang goes saxpence!" -an old Scots saying), shillings, florins, half a crown, corwn, nobel (sp?), half-sovereign, sovereign, and giunea (sp?)...

Gimme a decimal-based system. And all else as well. If we have to create Latin-based shortcuts such as "quarter" (one-fourth), we'll do it.

But measurements like "furlong per fortnight" or "firkins per florin".. when you're trying to scale to a common base such as "miles(kilometers) per hour" for comparison, are just a headache. A question such as "How many ounces in a gallon?" is a piece of cake in a decimal system. But tell me this: "How many groats in a sovereign"? (If you're a Brit I'm sure you can me in a flash, but I will follow up: "How many crowns are 1.3 bob?")

[rawcatslyentist]

>"The metric system. The French gift to mankind.">

And they still got it wrong! Isn't the whole meter measurement based upon WRONG numbers? So what if it's divisible by ten? It's crap to begin with!

If they want to impose standard units of mesurements upon mankind the least they should do is do it correctly! Confederacy of Dunces!!!

[Mark was here]

When the Space Shuttle was used to rescue and repair the Hubble Telescope, the mission was saved by using Standard Measurements.

The astronaut was strapped to the top of the shuttle and was instructed by mission control on how to grab the telescope so it could be brought into the service bay.

They did not play metric games by saying a decimeter to the left or 5 centimeters to the right.

They saved the Hubble Telescope by giving clear instructions in inches.

Inches saved the Hubble Telescope.

[Fiji Hill]

If the metric system catches on in this country, football will become 30.5 centimeter ball.

[RSteyn]

I think in both systems. It is not hard.

I even think in furlongs.

[Old Professer]

Every now and then I read something that makes me wish I had written it; boy, is this ever one of those times.

We live in a circular world and pretend to think in a linear fashion.

[Verginius Rufus]

Celsius has nothing to do with the French Revolution--the Swede Anders Celsius invented his system in 1742 and died in 1744, before Robespierre or Marie Antoinette were even born.

I believe the original idea was that one kilometer was 1/10,000 of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. Why a measurement taken on earth (and very hard to do accurately) should be the norm for the universe escapes me.

[Petronski]

Fahrenheit measurements are highly intuitive for weather because they cover the vast bulk of experience in temperate climates. Here in Pennsylvania, we rarely get below zero (setting aside "wind chill") nor rarely above a hundred. Everyone immediately knows what the thirties or the eighties or the fifties feel like.

All of that experiential knowledge is lost when the range tops out at about 40, but veers into the negative in winter. Feh.

[Professional Engineer]

The metric system. The French gift to mankind.

That's probably the biggest reason it's still not universal

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

What is the one physical unit which is still defined by an artifact? Answer later.

There was actually a metric system of time. The day was divided into decidays (like hours), the decidays into centi- and millidays. One milliday equals 86.4 seconds. And it rolls off the tongue so much more easily than that awkward construction, "minute". Instead of a second, one could just say "ten microdays".

Their calendar was a hoot. Months were all thirty days long, with five or six intercalary ("leap") days, the exact number determined by some funny rules. The intercalary days were holidays, when bureaucrats and intellectuals wouldn't have to show up for work, only servants and bakers needed to work these days.

For some odd reason, metric time never caught on, big time.

Measurements of angles are a different thing. Artillerist already use the circular mill, a metric division which makes sense where one needs to make rapid incremental adjustments in the field without bothering with conversions across degrees, minutes and seconds. The radian is a natural unit but most people are not comfortable with irrational (or worse: transcendental) numbers, there being two pi radians in a circle. The Babylonians used 360 degrees because they noticed that the sun moves about one degree across the ecliptic in a day, and being reasonable people realized that 360 was a lot easier to deal with than 365.2421.... It's interesting that a lot of modern astronomical tables use units of arcseconds, or fractions thereof. For instance, the apparent diameter of the moon or sun might be specified as 1773.54 arcseconds, rather than a fraction of a degree or minutes and seconds of arc.

When I visited the Royal Greenwich Observatory Museum, they had a famous eighteenth century transit circle still mounted on its original brick wall. The "circle" was actually about 120 degrees of arc, total. It consisted of a large brass circular arc about 25 feet (8.3333 yards for metric fans) across about 3/8" (~one centimeter) thick and maybe six inches ( a centiday?) wide. The inner circumference had been scribed in binary units, repeated division of the original arc into halves. The outer circumference was divided into degrees and seconds by interpolating between the binary measurements. Major divisions, the degrees and tens of arcminutes had slightly longer tick marks and numbers stamped on them.

Aeronautical navigation worldwide is still done in nautical miles and feet of altitude. Conversion to metric would not only cost millions and millions of dollars but also claim hundreds of lives. (Google Gimli Glider for a foretaste.)

The kilogram is defined by the standard kilogram, kept in a vault at BIPM headquarters in Paris.

[null and void]

The metric system. The French gift to mankind.

*shrug* I like the metric system.

Even the french can't be wrong all the time...