General > General Technical Chat

why is the US not Metric

<< < (220/291) > >>

KL27x:

--- Quote ---The convention for 6 and 9 is that the line goes below the numeral.
--- End quote ---
Just as long as you decide before you throw them. You never know, cuz of places like Australia. They drive on the left; they call them 4x2's; record heat in December summer; the toilet flushes the wrong way, even. 

Zero999:

--- Quote ---
--- Quote from: KL27x on January 09, 2020, 10:15:16 pm ---Degrees, arcminiutes and arcseconds are pretty close to an optimum system.
--- End quote ---
You kinda just slapped metric in the face. You're making an exception because of history/standard/popularity.
--- End quote ---
No, I did not. You just don't understand the difference between angles and linear measurements, hence the requirement for powers of ten being unimportant. An Angle of  360 degrees, a turn, 400 gradians etc. is the same as zero, so there is no need for standard SI prefixes such as M, k, G etc. There may be rare occasions for larger numbers, i.e a screw might need to be rotated more than 360 degrees, but what we'd normally say is x number of turns.


--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---We use imperial for the highest levels of precision manufacturing/machining
--- End quote ---
As did the UK and most of Europe until we realised metric was easier to use, so we migrated towards it.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, every country used the only things they have available at the time. But I don't think most of Europe was equally deeply invested in mass-manufacturing/machining tech before switching to metric. W/e qualified as that in mid 1800's was not the kind of investment/tech that exists in UK. Multiply that a lot to start to compare to US.

--- Quote ---It's far easier to just use the SI system which is designed from the ground up.
--- End quote ---
Sure it is, in general. Why did it take you guys over 100 years? You didn't know this from the start? Are you saying that UK's brightest minds just figured this out?
--- End quote ---
I'm sure the educated people in the UK already knew of the superiority of the SI system. It just took a long time for the government to make it standard.

KL27x:

--- Quote ---No, I did not. You just don't understand the difference between angles and linear measurements, hence the requirement for powers of ten being unimportant. An Angle of  360 degrees, a turn, 400 gradians etc. is the same as zero, so there is no need for standard SI prefixes such as M, k, G etc. There may be rare occasions for larger numbers, i.e a screw might need to be rotated more than 360 degrees, but what we'd normally say is x number of turns.
--- End quote ---

What difference? Why 360? This is a kings foot, is it not? The we divide these degrees into 60 minutes. Then these into another 60 seconds. These are barley corns, aren't they?

Grads you can divide into 100ths to get metric grad minutes. Each grad on earth's surface is 100 km. Each grad-minute 1 km. Each grad-second 10 meters. Isn't this easier than division of 60ths? Yes, it is, because of our number system. But we use the king's foot and the barley corns, anyhow. It's too far gone to change it, because of so much knowledge and technology that has adopted this arbitrary standard.

Here's the other rub, though. I bet you any Frenchman is very comfortable to use or convert degrees and grads. That's just another tool they use/add. It doesn't make them retarded. Americans though. They use multiple systems, and it's arrogance/stupidity/stubbornness? It's not practical?

So basically, I still don't understand, and you're further post is not helping me to understand.


--- Quote ---I'm sure the educated people in the UK already knew of the superiority of the SI system. It just took a long time for the government to make it standard.
--- End quote ---
The American people understand the advantages of metric. They already made it standard and have no plan/desire to deprecate/eradicate their other standard of measure. They like both.

Electro Detective:

--- Quote from: KL27x on January 11, 2020, 08:28:50 pm ---
--- Quote ---The convention for 6 and 9 is that the line goes below the numeral.
--- End quote ---

Just as long as you decide before you throw them. You never know, cuz of places like Australia.

They drive on the left; they call them 4x2's; record heat in December summer; the toilet flushes the wrong way, even.


--- End quote ---

 :o 

and the right way is...  :-//

I've never heard anyone in trade circles call it a '4x2', most copy the US thang '2x4'

record heat in December summer is the way the seasons and weather works here,

and fwiw:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!   8)

---------------

The full deal:


The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze ...

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.


Dorothea MacKellar wrote this poem in 1908 while she was visiting England and missing her home country.
The second stanza is possibly one of the most well known and recited pieces of poetry in Australian history.

Zero999:

--- Quote from: KL27x on January 11, 2020, 09:46:15 pm ---What difference? Why 360? This is a kings foot, is it not? The we divide these degrees into 60 minutes. Then these into another 60 seconds. These are barley corns, aren't they?
--- End quote ---
360 is better because having more factors than 400, so 1/3 of a turn or 120 degrees can be expressed without using a fraction.


--- Quote ---Grads you can divide into 100ths to get metric grad minutes. Each grad on earth's surface is 100 km. Each grad-minute 1 km. Each grad-second 10 meters. Isn't this easier than division of 60ths? Yes, it is, because of our number system.
--- End quote ---
Only at the equator, so it's not much of an advantage in most everyday applications.


--- Quote ---So basically, I still don't understand, and you're further post is not helping me to understand.
--- End quote ---
All right, I'll give it one last try. For linear measurements, the range is zero to infinity. For angles, it's zero to nearly one. Using powers of ten for linear measurements is more of a benefit because the range of numbers is greater than, when measuring an angle which can only range between zero and one.

When you're expressing what is really a fraction, it makes sense to use a number with lots of factors, rather than a power of ten, which isn't very helpful.

Think of it another way. How often do you need to add and multiply angles together vs linear measurements?  Not very often. It's unlikely you'll have a angle such as 42o 50' and have to add 1o 40' to it, like you might have 4 foot 5 inch and need to add 8 inches and I bet it's extremely rare anyone will need to convert a number like 345 arcminutes to degrees. A equilateral triangle has the same angles, irrespective of its size. Using a different base than 10 doesn't cause the same issues as it does for linear measurements.


--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---I'm sure the educated people in the UK already knew of the superiority of the SI system. It just took a long time for the government to make it standard.
--- End quote ---
The American people understand the advantages of metric. They already made it standard and have no plan/desire to deprecate/eradicate their other standard of measure. They like both.

--- End quote ---
The metric system essentially has few disadvantages over imperial, which has many. Using metric is only an issue if you've used imperial a lot in the past.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod