Posted on 11/05/2012 2:14:59 PM PST by null and void
Back in grade school, we were told that the Imperial System was a thing of the past, that eventually we’d be living the Metric System life, with all it’s base-10 logic built right in. We’d be just like the rest of the world. But those predictions have proven about as accurate as the flying cars and moon colonies that we all imagined we’d be enjoying in the year 2012.
Occasionally, the issue bubbles up and people argue back and forth about why we haven’t gone Metric, but I think it’s all about inertia. There would be a huge intellectual cost in moving to a new system—training ourselves to think of temperatures in Celsius when we’re leaving home and trying to decide on whether to grab a jacket. Straining to remember what kilometers per liter really comes down to, when we’re used to a lifetime of miles per gallon. Attempting to determine whether you’re losing enough weight, as you stare at the scale showing a strange number of kilograms.
While there are economic costs—heck, just think of the signage issues on our roads—they should be lower today than they would have been a generation ago. Many consumer products in this digital age already allow us to toggle between Imperial and Metric units. And the prevalence of smartphones means that no one has an excuse not to have a conversion app (or at least a calculator) on them at virtually all times.
What this issue comes down to is, as I said, inertia. It’s laziness. No one wants to be the generation that has to juggle two systems in their heads all the time. If we switched today, my kids would grow up pretty much thinking in Metric and would have no problem. But I feel like I’d forever be doing that calculation in my head. Even if I knew 28° C was a nice warm summer day, I think I’d always be converting it back to 82° F just to make sure I knew exactly how warm it was, based on my past experiences. We don’t want to be the ones straddling the two worlds, dealing with parts in both sizes or wondering how to deal with machinery that still had Imperial components that were no longer allowed to be manufactured.
Besides, who has the guts to push an idea like this forward in the country today? If Republicans championed the cause, Democrats would rail against it. And vice versa. And unfortunately, engineers, scientists and the like don’t have the kind of lobby that would be needed to get politicians interested. Even a public relations disaster like losing the Mars Climate Orbiter (due to a conversion mishap) didn’t move the needle on fully switching to Metric. So I guess I’ll just wait with you for that long-off day when we get the first flying car—and wonder what kind of miles per gallon that thing will get.
Then why do I have 31"X 10.50" X 15" tires on my vehicle?
(snicker)
______________
95% of the world?
No, that one’s too easy.
Ask them for exactly three-eighths or seven-eighths of a meter of fuel line and watch their little heads explode. :P
Me too, a 2000 model year SUV. But newer vehicles don't use those sizes anymore, AFAIK.
The tesla is 1 kg / (ampere * s2) and is therefore a metric unit. I don't know what unit is named after Edison, but I think of metric having its derivative units named after people (and the ampere and kelvin as two of the base units).
Temperature...in Centigrade, water freezes at zero...boils at 100 degrees...is that complicated?
They cant even decide what to call that one. I believe it’s back to being called celsius. That one flip flopped a couple of times since I was in school. Centigrade makes more sense as a name. As far as what the temp outside goes, the rest of the world can have it for themselves
Yay. We have a moon. It's very important to us. And it almost nearly, but doesn't quite, fit the solar year.
Lots of measurement problems come from that source.
Everything we measure is based on arbitrary standards, including metric. Sure they made sense at the time. Tech inertia keeps them in place.
We still drive automobiles with pieces of metal thumping back and forth after exploding fuel and atmosphere are ignited. Very inefficient.
It is what it is.
A bright spot is that with enough random chaos, a reasonable system may have a chance at eventually emerging. We certainly have the random chaos.
I'm not holding my breath.
/johnny
Within another 10-20 years, I think it will be viable to begin a formal change nation wide. Distance and speed traffic signs will be a challenge, but speedometers and GPS units are nearly all able to give you Km/h as easily as MPH now.
I vote for metric, personally. It is truly more easy to use, once you learn how it works. I rarely need my imperial wrenches anymore, and I went to school with metric taught from the beginning. (I'm 45)
I don't think so, unless it was the Model-T plug, they're huge.
Another place where established metric measurement is far superior is in threaded fittings.
There is no "bolt thread" "Pipe thread" "tubing thread" "gas fitting"...everything in metric is the same, depending only on the diameter and thread pitch.
If you had the proper 14mm wheel lug stud, you could screw it into a spark plug hole. (not that you'd ever want to) or you can screw a regular metric nut onto a brake line fitting.
You can get a brand new 2013 Totota FJ with 32" tires.
Oh boy my favorite soapbox to get silly science geeks riled up!
How about this reason to keep the Imperial system:
Metric measurements are no less arbitrary than the Imperial ones because they are not based upon real things and being able to divide it by 10 doesn’t make it scientific and even if it is scientific that does not not mean it is automatically better for many things.
The measurements in the Imperial system were created by trial and error, and experimentation over a long period of time to serve the everyday needs of people as such they are tied to everyday use in a way that the metric system never can be.
Here are some examples:
A teaspoon = small bite
Tablespoon = mouth full
Inch = tip of thumb to first joint
Foot = an average man’s boot
Yard = An average mans maximum stride
Fluid Ounce = 1 big swallow
Cup = 8 swallows
Pint = 4 cups or 32 swallows or about what one person will drink at one sitting
Pound = about the amount of food that a normal person can eat at a sitting
Some of these units are really useful and have no working equivalent in the metric system where a meter is often to long and a centimeter is often to small and there is not really a commonly used metric unit equivalent.
The Imperial units are often actually very useful ways to think about measurements in the real world that could be at least roughly recreated be normal people without advanced equipment where extremely precise measurements are not needed.
The odd units used to disparage the Imperial system by metricist such as peck and bushel are seldom used by the average person. While there are exemptions in distance 3 feet = yard generally the Imperial system is actually base 4 in dry and liquid measurements this is really useful because it prevents math errors because the numbers will end in 4,8,2,6,0. Once you understand that then you can see the reason that there are 128 ounces in a galleon (The British ruined this when they changed a gallon to 20 ounces rather than 16)
Question,what is a meter? Answer; Since 1983, it has been defined as the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.
If your meter stick was wrong could you tell by using that definition? Talk about an arbitrary, meaningless unit! Here’s the thing though, even the previous methods of obtaining a meter were very difficult to calculate. Originally it was 1/10,000 of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole at sea level. Well if you needed to make a meter stick from that definition how’d you do it? Does anyone have a string that long that could be subdivided 10,000 times? More importantly as sea levels rise and fall of time the length of a meter would change
The metric system’s (I use both BTW and switch back and forth all the time) only real advantage is that it is divisible by 10’s which in terms of how big the bedroom is in the house I want to buy is superfluous and that it has several very small units that are useful for precession work which is where it’s strength is.
Lastly the best argument for the Imperial system is that it wasn’t foisted upon the population by a government at the behest of a French busybody who wanted a more “rational” system like the one used in France.
However if you wish to use a metric system go ahead, you are free to do so just don’t try and tell me it is more scientific or easier to understand because at the practical level it simply isn’t. Both, for the most part do what they need to do in allowing people to conduct commerce and organize their lives.
It is Celsius temperatures I have real problem with.
The Fahrenheit scale is almost twice as fine as the Celsius one. In fact one degree Fahrenheit is almost exactly the amount of heat or cold difference that a human can distinguish using their fingers. (This glass of water is slightly warmer than that glass of water) This is finer scale is very useful in cooking and everyday environmental controls and many other everyday things because you don’t have to deal with decimals. The only real complaint metricist have with Fahrenheit is the 32/212 freezing boiling temperatures. Fine revise the scale down 2 degrees so that it is 30/210 and go bake some bread.
Flame away I have my asbestos suit on
I have a small collection of craftsman wrenches and sockets in metric that I bought years ago back in the 80s. If I used a couple of the sockets and wrenches more than a few times, I doubt it.
My standard stuff from then is going fine.
If gas station owners were smart, they would start pricing their fuels in liters. It looks cheaper.........
They did back in the 70’s when the old gas pumps didn’t have enough reels to show the price
Too many people out there can’t multiply or divide by ten either
I’ve always been amused by people defending the Celsius scale on the basis of it being more precise.
They did.
That is why there are 60 minutes in a hour and 2 sets of 12 hours in a day. :)
The only less practical base numbers they could have picked besides 10 is 11 or 13.
“95% of the world?”
The international standard drive sizes are fractional inches. There is no metric equivalent.
The problem with the metric system is that a decimal system does not equate to daily human life in most respects.
The metric system was deliberately designed to not be based on people’s needs, but nature. So a basic unit of length, the foot, the length of a man’s foot was replaced by the meter, a fraction of the distance from the north pole to the equator. The yard, which is quite close to the meter is so much more in tune with human being. To measure cloth go from nose to outstretched arm, distance, a long stride.
All that manufacturing we lost left us as the #1 manufacturing country in the world.
The question was specifically about cars, not trucks, vans or SUVs. :-)
Also I've only looked at car tires so I had no idea that truck tires were specified differently.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.