Imperial or metric

[taskswap]

My standard unit of measure is a chain

I liked this one partly because our homestead (which I'm writing this from now, actually) was surveyed and platted on horseback, using chains. And the plat maps are so accurate that the few of my neighbors who bothered to have their lots surveyed "just to be safe" said it was a waste of money - within 10' or so.

 

[3325]

Tenths are undeniably easier but imperial base units seem more instinctive and “real world” to me.

Ever measure the width of your thumb? Mine is an inch. Hand width? Mine is four inches. And I’ve proved that I’ve got a really accurate 30 inch marching step on level ground and can pace off (double step) feet going 5, 10, 15, etc. and it’s way close when I check it. And my brisk but unstrained walking pace is about 3mph ( a “league”). I’ve checked this stuff time and again.

What’s this stuff about one ten-millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator all about? Or now, it seems to have changed to be light in a vacuum at 1/299, 792, 458 of a second.

Tenths? I’m with you. Metric base units? No. Just no.

 

[Dogone]

I am older -73- and live in Canada. Grew up with imperial and mostly live with metric. I am still living 5 miles from town and use 2x4s. My brain knows that 30 Celsius is warm and 115 kms an hr is the speed limit. I am still calibrated in imperial but my kids barely know what a pound or mile is. It takes a couple of generations to convert a country.

 

[Dogone]

I liked this one partly because our homestead (which I'm writing this from now, actually) was surveyed and platted on horseback, using chains. And the plat maps are so accurate that the few of my neighbors who bothered to have their lots surveyed "just to be safe" said it was a waste of money - within 10' or so.

Many old timers in my farm country referred to rods - 16.5 feet. Forty rods wide by 1/2 mile long was 40 acres : 80 rods 80 acres and so on. We have supposedly changed to metric in Canada but 120 old surveys are what the country was built on . A 40 acre field converted to hectares is gibberish.

 

[taskswap]

I learned something today on the Practical Engineering channel. If you want to make a hollow concrete cube that floats, a general rule of thumb is that its dimensions in (Imperial) feet need to be roughly its wall thickness in inches. e.g. a hollow concrete cube with 3" thick walls needs to be 3' in LxWxH. Only works in Imperial.

Which... something.

 

[flyfisher117]

I never thought I would see someone defend the imperial system saying it’s our culture….

Don’t touch our slugs! Two wurlt warz!

 

[Rotnguns]

I learned something today on the Practical Engineering channel. If you want to make a hollow concrete cube that floats, a general rule of thumb is that its dimensions in (Imperial) feet need to be roughly its wall thickness in inches. e.g. a hollow concrete cube with 3" thick walls needs to be 3' in LxWxH. Only works in Imperial.

Which... something.

Let V = total volume of cube, H = inner height of hollow cube, t = wall thickness, Wc = weight of cube,
Wd = weight of displaced water = bouyant force Bf,
Gamma w = unit weight of water, and SCG = specific gravity of concrete.

 

[3325]

I never thought I would see someone defend the imperial system saying it’s our culture….

Don’t touch our slugs! Two wurlt warz!

And some people, apparently considering themselves witty, love to bring things like that up, along with hogsheads and rods and some other seldom used (archaic?) units. That still doesn’t make metric base units any more sensible.

The length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299, 792, 458 of a second? That really seems so reasonable and logical? No, it doesn’t.

Any advantage of the “metric system” isn’t found in the International System of Units (SI). Any advantage, such as it is, is tenths. You can divide anything into tenths.

 

[flyfisher117]

And some people, apparently considering themselves witty, love to bring things like that up, along with hogsheads and rods and some other seldom used (archaic?) units. That still doesn’t make metric base units any more sensible.

The length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299, 792, 458 of a second? That really seems so reasonable and logical? No, it doesn’t.

Any advantage of the “metric system” isn’t found in the International System of Units (SI). Any advantage, such as it is, is tenths. You can divide anything into tenths.

Except that they aren’t archaic. They may be seldom used by common folks but there are people dealing with slugs daily.

 

[JustABritCrazy]

And some people, apparently considering themselves witty, love to bring things like that up, along with hogsheads and rods and some other seldom used (archaic?) units. That still doesn’t make metric base units any more sensible.

The length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299, 792, 458 of a second? That really seems so reasonable and logical? No, it doesn’t.

Any advantage of the “metric system” isn’t found in the International System of Units (SI). Any advantage, such as it is, is tenths. You can divide anything into tenths.

Not being witty. I work as forester in areas surveyed originally in the 1760s to about 1800. Everything boundary related is chains and rods/perchs. Plus I do western fire. So my brain is plumbed and my eyeball calibrated to a world of chains. Just a different unit of measure for a different profession.