General > General Technical Chat
why is the US not Metric
KL27x:
--- Quote --- Since we realized that all units are interconnected somehow, there's no point in using two systems:
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There are often reasons to use other systems. Example of crude oil by the barrel. No matter if you want to convert it to L or to gallons, it's easier to use barrels when loading/unloading the boat.
bsfeechannel:
--- Quote ---
--- Quote from: KL27x on November 02, 2019, 06:44:33 pm ---
--- Quote --- Do cooks resort to scales or balances for these?
--- End quote ---
Yes, that is weird to imagine, weighing all your ingredients to the gram, lol.
--- End quote ---
--- End quote ---
Nope. People have a good idea of what 100g butter or 500g flour means. Some of those quantities are the exact value, multiples or submultiples of what you find in the groceries. But if you need to weigh your food, that's what kitchen scales are for.
KL27x:
--- Quote ---Most wouldn't have a clue what an average indoor room temp would be in Celsius. :P
--- End quote ---
Yup. I use C for soldering. But C doesn't mean anything to me in the ambient temp range. F seems better suited to express ambient temperatures, since anything over 100 is hot and really conveys the amount of discomfort, lol.
We mostly make sense of things by comparison. So units don't really matter so long as they conveniently sized for the application.
KL27x:
--- Quote ---"imperial to the core" guys.
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Born and raised in US, and I don't think this guy exists. Other than as a strawman.
Another example where imperial just happens to be good size for the application is in machining and PCB work. Thousandth of an inch just happens to be about spot on for what you need to fine tune physical stuff to fit. It's the smallest unit that you can easily measure without jumping through hoops. All common electric calipers measure to a thous. 0.025mm just isn't that great a number, IMO.
Cerebus:
--- Quote from: KL27x on November 02, 2019, 07:24:43 pm ---
--- Quote ---"imperial to the core" guys.
--- End quote ---
Born and raised in US, and I don't think this guy exists. Other than as a strawman.
--- End quote ---
They definitely existed here in Britain's pre-metric past and for quite some time after official metrication here.
My father couldn't tell a centimetre from a centipede. His final full time job was as an area sales manager for fastener sales for GKN. That's an arena where he ought to have had a good grip of metric units but seemed completely alien to him. He knew what an M10 bolt was on an order form, but if a tape measure came out for a job around the house it was read off in feet and inches; to him coal, sand and cement came in hundredweights, petrol in gallons, beer and milk in pints, and food in quarters and pounds well after all of them had moved to being sold in metric units. I honestly don't think I heard him even mutter a metric unit right up to his death.
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