General > General Technical Chat
why is the US not Metric
CatalinaWOW:
Just to stir the fire, agricultural types and those like me who are only a generation away use bushels and to a lesser extent pecks. Check the grain markets to see what prices are quoted in. Bushels are a convenient size, though I suppose you could get along with hectoliters. And the horse racing world still uses furlongs.
vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: Altair8800 on November 07, 2019, 06:09:37 am ---To our non-American friends... :)
This is an example of what a typical American would and not know about our American Customary/Imperial measurement system.
Most Americans would know the following:
* there are 12 inches [in] in 1 foot [ft]
* there are 3 feet [ft] in 1 yard [yd
* there are 36 inches [in] 1 yard [yd
* there are 2 half gallons in 1 gallon [gal
* there are 4 quarts [qt] in 1 gallon [gal
* there are 16 ounces [oz] in 1 pound [lbs]
Some Americans might or might not know:
* there are 3 teaspoons [tsp] in 1 tablespoon [tbsp]
* there are 8 pints [pt] in 1 gallon [gal]
* there is a Fluid Ounce [fl oz] and a Pound Force Ounce [oz]
* there is 8 fluid ounces [fl oz] in 1 cup [cup]
Most Americans would not know (without looking up):
* there are 16 cups [cup] in 1 gallon [gal]
* there are 128 fluid ounce [fl oz] in 1 gallon [gal]
* there are 8.345 pounds [lb] in 1 gallon [gal] of water {or ~milk]
* there are 1.04 ounce [oz] in 1 fluid ounce [fl oz] of water
* there are 256 tablespoons [tbs] in 1 gallon [gal]
* there are 16 tablespoons [tbs] in 1 cup
* there are 231 cubic inches [in^3] in 1 gallon [gal]
* there are 7.481 gallons in 1 cubic foot [ft^3]
* there are 5280 square feet [ft^2] in 1 square mile [mi^2]
* there are 43560 square feet [ft^2] in 1 acre
* there are 1760 yards [yd] in 1 mile [mi]
* there are two types of pounds, a pound mass (lbm) and a pound force(lbf)
* there are 32.1740 pounds [lb] in 1 slug {used to define Pound Force}
* there are 14 pounds [lb] in 1 stone [st] {used a lot in UK but almost all Americans do not know}
* there are 42 gallons [gal] in 1 barrel {think oil or whiskey ;) }
* 1 horsepower is amount of work to lift 550 pounds 1 foot up in 1 second {commonly used to describe power}
* that a USA cup can be either 8 fluid ounces OR 8.115 fluid ounces {think USA Legal cup is 240ml = 8.115 fl oz}
Edits: Mostly just corrected incorrect units that I found myself and one that vk6zgo found. Also corrected typos and spelling mistakes. Also note, the above are in US Customary Units which are Imperial-ish units that have been slightly changed to closer match metric equivalent units over the years. In the USA, we significantly (and lazily) call our units Imperial when they really are not.
--- End quote ---
I hate being pedantic...
Hell! Who am I kidding?
I love it!! >:D
You might want to revisit that last edit (hint:- What does 3x 1760 equal?)
The small "slip ups" reveal the problems with "Imperial", although when I went to school in Oz in the 1950s,
nobody would have been caught out by that one.
richard.cs:
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on November 08, 2019, 01:08:53 am ---Just to stir the fire, agricultural types and those like me who are only a generation away use bushels and to a lesser extent pecks. Check the grain markets to see what prices are quoted in. Bushels are a convenient size, though I suppose you could get along with hectoliters. And the horse racing world still uses furlongs.
--- End quote ---
Here, and I assume the rest of the EU, grain prices are per tonne (metric ton, 1000 kg). As a side note the US and UK bushel refer to different volumes, but although the bushel is a volume unit it seems that US grains are actually sold by weight with a series of standard conversions different for each grain.
Altair8800:
--- Quote from: vk6zgo on November 08, 2019, 01:49:06 am ---
I hate being pedantic...
Hell! Who am I kidding?
I love it!! >:D
You might want to revisit that last edit (hint:- What does 3x 1760 equal?)
The small "slip ups" reveal the problems with "Imperial", although when I went to school in Oz in the 1950s,
nobody would have been caught out by that one.
--- End quote ---
OK, thanks vk6zgo... I assume you mean my mistake of 1 mi^2 = 27880000 ft^2
I will Edit my list again...
Case in point, doing serious calculating Science/Engineering problems in US Customary Units is unnecessary hard (due to all the conversions you have to do and often you have to look up the conversion factors to be double certain) and as a result you have more greater chance of making errors (than working in Metric/MKS/SI). I recall getting one question wrong because I had to convert from PSI to lbf/ft^2. I think after that I started to convert all US Customary Units immediately to Metric MKS (Metre, Kilogram, Second). Do the maths, then I know I was guaranteed a MSK final result (like Pa/Pascal, N/Newton, J/Joule, W/Watt, etc.) then use the conversion tables to convert what ever the question asked.
Sometimes at the end when I convert my metric result back to US Customary Units I might get some result like 4.99948, which I would just round to 5.000. A small few of my professors were not pleased me doing calculations this way, but couldn't complain to much because I got the correct result in the end...
I view doing serious calculations in US Customary Units vs in Metric like doing calculations by hand vs using a calculator. Yes it can be done, but it is more time and more chance of error. And it sucks when you know there is a better way...
Thanks again... :)
soldar:
--- Quote from: Altair8800 on November 08, 2019, 10:56:42 am ---I view doing serious calculations in US Customary Units vs in Metric like doing calculations by hand vs using a calculator. Yes it can be done, but it is more time and more chance of error. And it sucks when you know there is a better way...
--- End quote ---
Just the fact that a calculation needs to be done introduces a chance of error that would not exist if a calculation did not need to be done.
I have an old Casio calculator which has served me well for many decades now but it occasionally has this glitch where a key press will register twice. If I am only paying attention to the keypad and not to the screen I might input pi as 33.11411592665 and get a bigger circumference than I expected. I need to remember to double check every key press.
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