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To: Paisan
I loathe the metric system. At work, I am forced to use it. I constantly remind my associates that:

When we Americans walked on the moon nearly 40 years ago, we didn’t get there through use of the metric system...

Don’t get me started.

Agreed on all counts.  Although the metric system has advantages in some areas, those who try to force it down the throats of vast numbers of people who have been accustomed to the Imperial system (or others) for generations or more overlook numerous advantages of leaving well enough alone....among them being that it's really no big deal to mathematically convert from one system to another, and to force such a change and all associated retooling on a multi-trillion-dollar economy would tend to wreck things, but hey, Good Socialists don't need to care about such mundane things as destroying an entire nation's economy.......

10 posted on 09/11/2007 1:35:13 AM PDT by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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To: Stoat; Paisan
Speaking as a sometime carpenter, I can tell you the metric system does not work for measuring out lumber, calculating rafter angles, etc.

The English system based on 12 and fractions is divisible in more ways, more quickly, and can be calculated in your head. Once you get to decimals in the metric system, you are lost.

15 posted on 09/11/2007 4:06:51 AM PDT by AnAmericanMother ((Ministrix of Ye Chase, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment)))
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To: Stoat
The problem with the Metric system is that the units are not "right" sized for humans. The supposed wonder of the meter was that it is some number of measures around the "planet." Which was later cast as some number of wavelengths of a specific color of light, as if you couldn't do that with a foot measure.

But, having a yard as a basic measure of length doesn't seem all that stupid until you pair that with the Newton, the basic measure of force to get a derived unit for the physical property called pressure. The meter is "too big" and the Newton is "too small" and this creates absurd consequences. In the English system, one atmosphere pressure, a basic necessary quantity is approximately 15 pounds force per square inch. But, because the unit of pressure in the metric system is the Pascal (1 Newton per square meter) you get a bizarre number for just one atmosphere, 101,000,000 Pascals. (101 Mega-pascals).

The implications for engineering of this "little" problem are stupefying. The great downfall of the metric system turned out that real world situations impose "constants" that have to be multiplied into almost every calculation. Gravity, Atmospheric pressure, the Speed of Light are all such constants and they take away the easy multiply by 10 or divide by ten aspect of metric work. Worse, often one synthetic unit forces another synthetic unit to be difficult. The English system grew out of "practical" units growing in popularity for their ease of use.

The ever popular "Furlongs per fortnight" criticism of English units repudiates two units that made sense for horse drawn times but not in modern times, where as miles per hour is quite handy and no one looked back except for the metric mind police. But, the Mega-pascal is a curse to all of engineering as well as its still too small sized companion the Newton per square centimeter. You must use a calculator for all work in these units because you aren't doing it in your head. And thats the base problem. Right sized units help you around the impacts of the physical constants rather than you up against them like shoals. The slug, much maligned as a unit of mass allows the pound mass and pound force to co-exist and saves the mental gymnastics of dealing with this problem in every calculation. The rightsizedness of the pound leads to the rightsizedness of the BTU (British Thermal Unit) which is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of water 1 degree F.

Yes, you have to mulitply by 12 frequently in the English system, but the deep reality of the English system is not 12 but instead 2. At the core of the English system is binary, pints, pounds, ounces, gallons and feet often fit together in relationships of powers of 2. A square foot of water is 8 gallons. A gallon of water is 8 pounds. A pound of water is 16 ounces. And folks used to dealing with binary, find these conversions just as swift as the base 10 relationships that metric was supposed to provide.

25 posted on 09/11/2007 4:59:43 AM PDT by dalight
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