What system is better? Metric or Imperial

[Kanadorika]

I personally prefer Metric. But as a technical worker used to Imperial, it's understandable why people resist change. Also, the U.S. does primarily use metric units In certain applications (Have you ever seen a mass given in slugs?)

Personally I use a mix, work is entirely imperial based, I use metric and Imperial units in my shooting sports, and cars are often a mix as well.

I use imperial measurements for naval artillery, metric for most other non naval guns. (120mm gun)

If you refer to a 16"/50 Cal gun as a "406mm" gun I will assume you are lost.

[Ifreann]

Metric needs reform. c =299 Million meters per second. This is no way to run a Universe.

Send a team of burglars to the Institute in Paris; saw a tiny sliver off the standard meter bar, so that c = 300Mm/s xact and rescale the other units accordingly.

They don't use a prototype metre bar any more. It's some fiddly fraction of how far light travels in a vacuum.

[Vassenor]

Metric needs reform. c =299 Million meters per second. This is no way to run a Universe.

Send a team of burglars to the Institute in Paris; saw a tiny sliver off the standard meter bar, so that c = 300Mm/s xact and rescale the other units accordingly.

They don't use a prototype metre bar any more. It's some fiddly fraction of how far light travels in a vacuum.

And even when they did there were multiple copies of each SI reference to prevent this sort of thing.

[Chuching]

As an American, I agree that the Metric system is better. However, I do not imagine it'll be adopted anytime soon by the general public in America, for two reasons: patriotic and cultural. Examples of the two:
1. As others have stated, the Imperial system was used to land men on the Moon_{They actually used the Metric system quite a bit, but that's besides the point}.
2. I do not imagine the NFL is going to instate 91.44-meter long football fields.

I think I made my point. Those countries that value science and logic over tradition and fanaticism have less death overall. Because Europe and Canada and all the other democracies in the world are science oriented they can say "We just had a massive shooting incident lets figure out how to stop it from happening again and lower the number of those shot to keep our citizens more safe. We must restrict access for most people to getting even the simplist guns because less guns less murder" Since we are tradition and fanaticism based we say "Guns are a way of life! america was built on guns! we must protect gun rights at all costs"

We use Imperial, have our presidents on money, and worship symbols (the tails on every coin ever) and so we have so much more death and crime. Europe uses metric, has scientists and great thinkers on their money and worship successful people, and so they have less death and crime.

I thought this was your "Imperial vs. Metric" thread, not your "AMERICA IS A 3RD WORLD COUNTRY!" thread. And stop saying "we" as if you're American, because you explicitly stated that you moved to Canada.

Can you really blame America for putting its founding fathers and greatest presidents on our currency? Besides, Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton were never US presidents, but are still on the $100 and $10 bill respectively. There are also plans to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.

[Ifreann]

They don't use a prototype metre bar any more. It's some fiddly fraction of how far light travels in a vacuum.

And even when they did there were multiple copies of each SI reference to prevent this sort of thing.

The French have learned some lessons about how perfidious people can be.

---

As an American, I agree that the Metric system is better. However, I do not imagine it'll be adopted anytime soon by the general public in America, for two reasons: patriotic and cultural. Examples of the two:
1. As others have stated, the Imperial system was used to land men on the Moon_{They actually used the Metric system quite a bit, but that's besides the point}.
2. I do not imagine the NFL is going to instate 91.44-meter long football fields.

Course not. The obvious thing to do would be to have 92 metre fields.

[Chuching]

As an American, I agree that the Metric system is better. However, I do not imagine it'll be adopted anytime soon by the general public in America, for two reasons: patriotic and cultural. Examples of the two:
1. As others have stated, the Imperial system was used to land men on the Moon_{They actually used the Metric system quite a bit, but that's besides the point}.
2. I do not imagine the NFL is going to instate 91.44-meter long football fields.

Course not. The obvious thing to do would be to have 92 metre fields.[/quote]
Would they still divide the field by increments of 1/10th? If so, that'd just sound stupid. I imagine football announcements like this:
"The Patriots are on the 82.3 meter line! If Brady can make it another 9.15 meters, he'll get a TOUCHDOWN!"

[The Archregimancy]

Many an American institution has quietly moved to metric on the side without actually admitting as much to the general public.

Though it does help to remember which system you've decided to use for a specific purpose; or you could find yourself with an embarrassing and very expensive mistake.


Personally, I use metric for most purposes in everyday life, but often use non-metric system for historical reasons when talking about something built or made in the past (for what it's worth, the Sumerian cubit is slightly shorter than the Egyptian cubit), though I typically provide the metric equivalent alongside the original.

[Ifreann]

Would they still divide the field by increments of 1/10th? If so, that'd just sound stupid. I imagine football announcements like this:
"The Patriots are on the 82.3 meter line! If Brady can make it another 9.15 meters, he'll get a TOUCHDOWN!"

If he only made it 9.15m from the 82.3m line he'd be 55cm short of a touchdown on a 92m field.

[The Two Jerseys]

Would they still divide the field by increments of 1/10th? If so, that'd just sound stupid. I imagine football announcements like this:
"The Patriots are on the 82.3 meter line! If Brady can make it another 9.15 meters, he'll get a TOUCHDOWN!"

If he only made it 9.15m from the 82.3m line he'd be 55cm short of a touchdown on a 92m field.

I'll do you one better: there isn't even an 82m line.

[Ifreann]

If he only made it 9.15m from the 82.3m line he'd be 55cm short of a touchdown on a 92m field.

I'll do you one better: there isn't even an 82m line.

Well played. You'll go far in this sport.

[The Two Jerseys]

I'll do you one better: there isn't even an 82m line.

Well played. You'll go far in this sport.

Maybe I COULD...GO...ALL...THE...WAY!

[The Archregimancy]

Would they still divide the field by increments of 1/10th? If so, that'd just sound stupid. I imagine football announcements like this:
"The Patriots are on the 82.3 meter line! If Brady can make it another 9.15 meters, he'll get a TOUCHDOWN!"

If he only made it 9.15m from the 82.3m line he'd be 55cm short of a touchdown on a 92m field.

If only there was an existing sport we could use as a model.

One that perhaps involves carrying an oval ball, and uses a 100 metre-long field with 10 metre marks at recurring intervals; or perhaps a variant of the latter that involves carrying an oval ball, and uses a 100-metre-long field with 22, 10, and 50 metre marks.

I wonder if we'll ever be able to find such a sport?

[Gavia Penguis]

As an American, I will say that objectively the metric system is better.

Also as an America, I'm too damned used to the imperial system.
Although when I ran track and field in high school, the metric system was used for all the events and that really helped me to be able to be able to visualize the metric distances.

[Dazchan]

Système international (d'unités) is better

Do you use tablespoons and cups? How about lbs?

I use metric cups, teaspoons and tablespoons (250mL, 5mL, 15mL respectively).

Except that one of the major issues of the Imperial system is that there are too many damned units already.

Teaches you to think on your feet, don't you know.

In addition to thinking on your inches, yards, furlongs, miles and wizzlewads.

No, 38C is pretty damn hot and usually the point where I want to go stick my head in the freezer.

38 C is when you go down the supermarket and nest among the frozen peas.

Where I am, 38C is a pretty normal January day. I don't start defiling groceries until the mid-40s.

[Vassenor]

I mean 38C is literally the hottest it's ever been recorded as in this country.

[Neanderthaland]

Metric.

Only the United States of America and Myanmar use the Imperial system of measurment.

This is not actually true. Liberia uses Imperial, not Myanmar.

Furthermore, lots of countries use varying degrees of Imperial for specific purposes. Cooking measurements, for instance, are common. The British have a tendency to use whichever temperature scale best exaggerates the actual temperature.

One that I run into a lot in my daily life that that countries such as Mexico will use 8 and 1/2 by 11 inch paper on their official patent forms to make life easier for their main trading partner: the United States. Which is weird, because the US uses A4 paper to make life easier on everyone else.

The result is that a lot of digitized records of very important official patent forms are cut off in important places, when someone forgot to switch their settings while digitizing them. A very large amount of money has been wasted fixing these over the years, which highlights the real problems of having two systems.

[Ifreann]

If he only made it 9.15m from the 82.3m line he'd be 55cm short of a touchdown on a 92m field.

If only there was an existing sport we could use as a model.

One that perhaps involves carrying an oval ball, and uses a 100 metre-long field with 10 metre marks at recurring intervals; or perhaps a variant of the latter that involves carrying an oval ball, and uses a 100-metre-long field with 22, 10, and 50 metre marks.

I wonder if we'll ever be able to find such a sport?

Not South Africa, certainly.

[United Islamic Commonwealth]

I mean 38C is literally the hottest it's ever been recorded as in this country.

43C for the state of Florida.

[Kanadorika]

I mean 38C is literally the hottest it's ever been recorded as in this country.

43C for the state of Florida.

Ha that's nothing. 57C here.

[Neanderthaland]

43C for the state of Florida.

Ha that's nothing. 57C here.

Ha, that's nothing. -40 here (doesn't matter which scale.)

[Kanadorika]

Ha that's nothing. 57C here.

Ha, that's nothing. -40 here (doesn't matter which scale.)

You lucky bastard. The extreme cold is great when you're not forced into it without proper supplies and clothing.

Otherwise it sucks.

[United Islamic Commonwealth]

43C for the state of Florida.

Ha that's nothing. 57C here.

You live in Death Valley?

[Kanadorika]

Ha that's nothing. 57C here.

You live in Death Valley?

Southern California. Death Valley is only a short road trip away.

[Salandriagado]

As an American, I agree that the Metric system is better. However, I do not imagine it'll be adopted anytime soon by the general public in America, for two reasons: patriotic and cultural. Examples of the two:
1. As others have stated, the Imperial system was used to land men on the Moon_{They actually used the Metric system quite a bit, but that's besides the point}.
2. I do not imagine the NFL is going to instate 91.44-meter long football fields.

Course not. The obvious thing to do would be to have 92 metre fields.

Would they still divide the field by increments of 1/10th? If so, that'd just sound stupid. I imagine football announcements like this:
"The Patriots are on the 82.3 meter line! If Brady can make it another 9.15 meters, he'll get a TOUCHDOWN!"[/quote]

Or, you know, do it to 90m, or 100m.

(Image)

Or more accurately: 0 Celsius is basically "don't be stupid, keep the temperature where you are above this", and 100 is the highest temperature that most people are likely to encounter on a regular basis, with all of the convenient points of common things being somewhere sensible in the middle. Tell me, how hot do you like your bath/shower in Fahrenheit? Is it some annoying 3-digit number?

Metric.

Only the United States of America and Myanmar use the Imperial system of measurment.

This is not actually true. Liberia uses Imperial, not Myanmar.

Furthermore, lots of countries use varying degrees of Imperial for specific purposes. Cooking measurements, for instance, are common. The British have a tendency to use whichever temperature scale best exaggerates the actual temperature.

One that I run into a lot in my daily life that that countries such as Mexico will use 8 and 1/2 by 11 inch paper on their official patent forms to make life easier for their main trading partner: the United States. Which is weird, because the US uses A4 paper to make life easier on everyone else.

The result is that a lot of digitized records of very important official patent forms are cut off in important places, when someone forgot to switch their settings while digitizing them. A very large amount of money has been wasted fixing these over the years, which highlights the real problems of having two systems.

Can we just talk about paper sizes for a moment? And about how the A/B/C system is the best thing in the world, and American paper sizes give me a headache just thinking about them?

[Neanderthaland]

Ha, that's nothing. -40 here (doesn't matter which scale.)

You lucky bastard. The extreme cold is great when you're not forced into it without proper supplies and clothing.

Otherwise it sucks.

No darling. At bellow -30, your tears start to freeze.