USA & The Metric System

[Hammurab]

There is nothing worse than doing physics with imperial units.

But... why would you even attempt to? All the constants and forces and those... thingies, you know (damn, it's much too late for me to be typing in English).... are defined in SI units. To use something like pounds per square second strikes me as completely idiotic, and I have no idea how one would even begin to express units like kg·m2·s−2·K−1·mol−1 (Joules per kelvin mole) or m−3·s·A (Coulomb per cubic metre).

Its quite simple to one properly versed in the literature.

Joules per kelvin mole would be Cookies per Rankine Beaver, where one cookie is 4.186 Joules, a degree Rankine is needlessly laborious, and a Beaver is the number of particles in .32 Slugs of water.

[Fassitude]

Because most of the pipes and other infrastructure in this country is already based on the imperial system, so all new designs have to fit in with them. It is easier to engineer immediately in imperial units than it is to engineer in SI units and constantly convert back and forth.

I was under the understanding you were speaking of physics, not plumbing. And even there calculations in imperial units seem completely daft - "gallons per square inch"? (I actually laughed at that.)

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

But... why would you even attempt to? All the constants and forces and those... thingies, you know (damn, it's much too late for me to be typing in English).... are defined in SI units. To use something like pounds per square second strikes me as completely idiotic, and I have no idea how one would even begin to express units like kg·m2·s−2·K−1·mol−1 (Joules per kelvin mole) or m−3·s·A (Coulomb per cubic metre).

There's pounds of mass and pounds of force which are related by:

pounds of force = pounds of mass x 32.2ft/sec^2

But then there's slugs, which are a unit of mass related to pounds of force by:

pounds of force = slugs of mass x acceleration in ft/sec^2

It's seriously fucked in the ass.

[Sibirsky]

Clearly superior? When an American is told by the weatherman it will be 70 degrees tomorrow he/she knows what to wear. When an American is told a town is 20 miles away he/she knows how far away it is. Same for others. Nothing superior about the metric system, just different. As long as the public understands what it means by a certain amount of given units, it's all good.

In terms of actual computation, SI units are inherently superior. That's why all US scientists use the SI system. I wonder how long it will take for engineers to completely catch on? Though part of the reason they don't convert is that they have to make their designs work with all the imperial crap we've already designed.

The average person is not a scientist. It would be easier for the average person to continue with his/her miles and gallons.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

The average person is not a scientist. It would be easier for the average person to continue with his/her miles and gallons.

Natural units are even better than SI units for theoreticians, but they make very little sense to anyone without physics training. However, we should use them, because that would be awesome, and confusing people is fun! Seriously, you didn't know that us physicists kinda enjoy confusing people?

[Fassitude]

You use Celsius?

Of course I do. You do know where Celsius was from, don't you? And Celsius is after all an SI-derived unit, and thus SI. Also:Resolution 3 of the 13th meeting of the CGPM

[Fassitude]

Its quite simple to one properly versed in the literature.

Joules per kelvin mole would be Cookies per Rankine Beaver, where one cookie is 4.186 Joules, a degree Rankine is needlessly laborious, and a Beaver is the number of particles in .32 Slugs of water.

I laughed. Then I thought "maybe he isn't joking." Then I truly laughed.

[Discount Liquor World]

The European aerospace company Airbus used the superior Imperial System for their designs. Not a single blasphemous metric-hex bolt on any of the planes they produced. I can't even think of another good European aircraft manufacturer. Aerospatiale? No... Hmm...

I don't know, you Europeans are free to use your system. Americans don't want to convert ankletilts to a hogheads or whatever you people use when they want to know how many miles to a gallon their SUV gets.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

Of course I do. You do know where Celsius was from, don't you? And Celsius is after all an SI-derived unit, and thus SI. Also:Resolution 3 of the 13th meeting of the CGPM

I'm saying you should use Kelvin, or natural temperature in which the Boltzmann constant is equal to one. That way temperature and average molecular kinetic energy are exactly equal. Combine that with c and h bar going to one, and temperature has units of inverse length.

[Fassitude]

There's pounds of mass and pounds of force which are related by:
pounds of force = pounds of mass x 32.2ft/sec^2
But then there's slugs, which are a unit of mass related to pounds of force by:
pounds of force = slugs of mass x acceleration in ft/sec^2
It's seriously fucked in the ass.

[Jeruselem]

If the US currency system is effectively metric, why can't everything else be?
Start using pounds, and pennies for the USA?

[The_pantless_hero]

The fact that you haven't changed is why I have a slight bias against America.

Oh no, they use a different style of measurement! Let's slight them!

[Fassitude]

I'm saying you should use Kelvin,

I do, interchangably with Celsius. My oven, however, doesn't.

or natural temperature in which the Boltzmann constant is equal to one. That way temperature and average molecular kinetic energy are exactly equal. Combine that with c and h bar going to one, and temperature has units of inverse length.

No practical advantage.

[Fassitude]

If the US currency system is effectively metric,

Again, there is no such thing as "metric system". The word you seem to be looking for is "decimal".

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

Don't forget how ounces can be both a unit of mass and a unit of volume depending on the context. It's like someone tried to purposely design the worst system of units possible for doing calculations.

[Greed and Death]

Don't forget how ounces can be both a unit of mass and a unit of volume depending on the context. It's like someone tried to purposely design the worst system of units possible for doing calculations.

I don't think anyone does physics with imperial.

[Fassitude]

Don't forget how ounces can be both a unit of mass and a unit of volume depending on the context. It's like someone tried to purposely design the worst system of units possible for doing calculations.

Or the people that designed them simply didn't do calculations because they lived in the dark ages.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

No practical advantage.

Well, if you want to know the average molecular kinetic energy in the water you're boiling, or you want to quickly calculate space-time intervals, or solve wavefunctions without a bunch of excess constants running around, then maybe it does have a practical use! *pouts*

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

I don't think anyone does physics with imperial.

American engineering, especially hydraulic, aerospace, and mechanical. Engineering = applied physics. (usually)

[Hammurab]

Its quite simple to one properly versed in the literature.

Joules per kelvin mole would be Cookies per Rankine Beaver, where one cookie is 4.186 Joules, a degree Rankine is needlessly laborious, and a Beaver is the number of particles in .32 Slugs of water.

I laughed. Then I thought "maybe he isn't joking." Then I truly laughed.

You can laugh, but remember to use the old Imperial Unit of Humor, the Bennyhill, which is equal to the laughter invoked by 12 people observing one person strike another person in the crotch with a 5.5 bar of allotropic carbon.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

Or the people that designed them simply didn't do calculations because they lived in the dark ages.

Don't inject logic into my rant about how something lacks logic!

[Fassitude]

Well, if you want to know the average molecular kinetic energy in the water you're boiling, or you want to quickly calculate space-time intervals, or solve wavefunctions without a bunch of excess constants running around, then maybe it does have a practical use! *pouts*

I have a simple rule of approximation: if I need to get out my TI-89 to do something, I should check if I really did pull out "The Joys of Croatian Cooking" from the shelf in lieu of my copy of "Multivariate Analysis".

[Fassitude]

Don't inject logic into my rant about how something lacks logic!

Even if it is the least logical thing to do.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

I have a simple rule of approximation: if I need to get out my TI-89 to do something, I should check if I really did pull out "The Joys of Croatian Cooking" from the shelf in lieu of my copy of "Multivariate Analysis".

Oh, you're one of those people that actually bothered to learn how to cook?

[New Mitanni]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States

I find myself wondering, why the hell is the U.S. not on the Metric system? The system itself is clearly superior to the U.S. Customary units system. So why the hell can't we just switch over to it like the rest of the world already has?

The only other countries not on the Metric system are Liberia and Burma - Third World Countries.


Why are we not on it yet, and would anybody else here be in favor of making the complete conversion?

There's no good reason to waste the money it would take to convert. And we're a big enough market to make our system stick. People who want to deal with us can adjust to our system. Liberia and Burma? Not so much.