Americans, what's so great about the Imperial System?

[ReverendJ]

Here we go... again. Every damn time we encounter someone from the rest of the world...

You wanna know why? Here goes:

We don't wanna.

They tried making us, we're not having it. Yes, metric is easier to learn, is based on something remotely logical as opposed to the as-you-like faffing about of the Imperial system, and is used internationally for both science and commerce. But still... we don't wanna. Gonna be a bunch of contrarians about it, some of whom will whine about cost, but when it comes down to brass tacks that's what it is. We don't want to, and frankly some of us wonder what all y'all in the rest of the world are gonna do about it.

 

[shootthebandit]

Why do you Europeans get so bent out of shape that we Americans don't use your arbitrary definitions of measurement?

Yanks having a thing for automatic transmission

This is something which must be outlawed. An automatic tranmission is not a real transmission

 

[Zombie Sodomy]

I like feet. If I want to measure my height in metric units my basic choices are meters and centimeters. Maybe it's just me, but those are just way too far apart. Instead of being 6'1" I'm now 185.5cm, or 1m 85.5cm. Maybe it's just because I didn't grow up with it, but I really hate that. Even a decimeter is too small, being .3ish feet.

 

[Lieju]

There are many advantages to a dozenal system:

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

(but metric works better than imperial for the time being)

That's a different thing, though. It's a numeral system, as opposed to a system of measurement.
Even if you used that, you'd still need to use another system for measuring stuff.

 

[shootthebandit]

#1 reason imperial is better than metric:

Wtf is a newton, and wtf is a pascal?
Pound and psi is way easier

Ps. I know what a newton and pascal represent, but they are hard to interpret physically

What the fuck is a PSI or a pound?

A newton is described as the force required to accelerate an object of 1kg to 1 metre per second per second. What so difficult to interpret about that?

A pascal is the pressure of 1N applied over 1 square metre

Im guessing you already know that but i dont know how if you have any background in science and/or engineering. Im sure if you do youll realise that metric values are so easy to do calculations with

 

[talideon]

"The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1 / 299,792,458 of a second."

... Wait that's not divisible by 10

And since meters were developed by the french after the french revolution you can't say that the meter is BASED on the speed of light
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

and light travels 1 foot in 1 nanosecond

That's only a rough approximation to use as a rule of thumb though.

so what?
You carve up the distance light travels into a certain number of chunks
We cave it up into a different number of chunks
that is the definition of arbitrary

Eh... it's less arbitrary than that. In fact, the definition of the metre has always been an attempt to find a non-arbitrary measurement based off of natural constants.

The real original proposal for the metre came from John Wilkins in the mid-1600s, and was defined as the length of a pendulum with a half-period of one second. The only truly arbitrary thing (at the time) there is the length of a second. However, it was found that due to gravity varying slightly over the surface of the Earth, that wasn't ultimately workable, so after the French Revolution, it was defined as 1/10,000,000th the distance from the North Pole to the Equator along the meridian line passing through Paris. This was pretty damned close to Wilkins' original proposal and had the benefit of being more absolute. However, we later found that measurement to be less stable and more mathematically complex than would be convenient, so other standards were used, until we settled on using the speed of light, which is, best as we can tell, a fundamental constant.

And thus it turns out that the only thing that makes a metre arbitrary is the length of a second, and I'm OK with that.

 

[SnakeSpawn]

I like the Imperial system when it deals with length.

Why?
- Because it revolves around 2 and 3 (or 12). There are 12 inches in a foot (12 = 2*2*3). There are 5280 feet in a mile (one 3 and several 2s).

Why does this matter?
- Because of fractions! I prefer to do math in my my head, and it's easier with the number 12. The number 12 lets us use 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 with whole numbers. The metric system deals with 10 as it's most important number. that means that 1/2 and 1/5 are easy but other, common fractions are not.

Metric lets us move the decimal point to convert. That makes math easier!
- Yes, but I don't like dealing with decimals. We're talking fractions. I suppose this is a personal choice, but decimals introduce rounding errors that can add up by the end. Also, I've worked in construction where it's easier to speak to people using fractions than decimals.

But everyone else uses metric!
- Well everyone else may use metric, but EVERYONE tells time using the same system. We have 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day. These numbers both use 12 as a factor.

In the end though, it doesn't matter, eventually we'll all probably switch to metric and my dreams of a base 12 world will die. Just because a system is better, doesn't mean it will win. See Dvorak keyboards.

 

[the doom cannon]

#1 reason imperial is better than metric:

Wtf is a newton, and wtf is a pascal?
Pound and psi is way easier

Ps. I know what a newton and pascal represent, but they are hard to interpret physically

What the fuck is a PSI or a pound?

A newton is described as the force required to accelerate an object of 1kg to 1 metre per second per second. What so difficult to interpret about that?

A pascal is the pressure of 1N applied over 1 square metre

Im guessing you already know that but i dont know how if you have any background in science and/or engineering. Im sure if you do youll realise that metric values are so easy to do calculations with

And yet theyre called a newton and a pascal.... A pound is a force, a psi is a Pound per Square Inch. A ksi is a kip per square inch. Oh and a kip is a KIlo Pound, so 1000 pounds. When you get into engineering, it doesnt matter which system you use because you just use equations. Its a lot easier for me to visualize a pound of force on a square inch as opposed to a kilogram per square second per meter. Just saying

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

When 300+ million people are all committed to one system and their entire society is built around it, they can't change just because the other system makes a little more sense.

Why not? The rest of the world managed it, something like 48 states use Metric as the officially accepted units of measurement, so does NASA and the US military, it's taught in American schools and even your criminal justice system defines contraband amounts by Metric units.

You're much further along that change than you think.

I certainly hope you're right. After taking remedial Physics this semester I already despise the Imperial system.

 

[mascotbeaver]

Actually, america's been on the metric system since the 80's, we're just too lazy to change. I don't think anyone really likes the imperial system, nor does it really hold any advantages in day to day life. However, fahrenheit is so much much easier to use in day to day life. The range of conditions anyone is actually going to be living in is between 0 and 100 F, with only a few outliers, as opposed to -5 and 40 C. Also, why use Celsius over Kelvin anyway?

 

[Amaror]

I like the Imperial system when it deals with length.

Why?
- Because it revolves around 2 and 3 (or 12). There are 12 inches in a foot (12 = 2*2*3). There are 5280 feet in a mile (one 3 and several 2s).

Why does this matter?
- Because of fractions! I prefer to do math in my my head, and it's easier with the number 12. The number 12 lets us use 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 with whole numbers. The metric system deals with 10 as it's most important number. that means that 1/2 and 1/5 are easy but other, common fractions are not.

Metric lets us move the decimal point to convert. That makes math easier!
- Yes, but I don't like dealing with decimals. We're talking fractions. I suppose this is a personal choice, but decimals introduce rounding errors that can add up by the end. Also, I've worked in construction where it's easier to speak to people using fractions than decimals.

But everyone else uses metric!
- Well everyone else may use metric, but EVERYONE tells time using the same system. We have 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day. These numbers both use 12 as a factor.

In the end though, it doesn't matter, eventually we'll all probably switch to metric and my dreams of a base 12 world will die. Just because a system is better, doesn't mean it will win. See Dvorak keyboards.

I am a computer scientist. You don't have to tell me of the beaty of a system based on the number 2. However the decimal system is way better to calculate more complex stuff in advanced mathmatics and physics, etc.
But come on you have to agree that those numbers are pretty ugly to deal with. 12 inches in a foot, 5280(!!!) foot in a mile. Come on, who wants to memorize that stuff. Just take a meter and calculate with thousands in the metric system and your good to go.

 

[Bravo Company]

From what I've been told, America didn't change over to the metric system because when the metric system was being widely adopted America was the leader in manufacturing goods. For America to switch to the metric system would've cost some serious money, therefor engineers and business owners at the time never switched. Now to switch would just be incomprehensible because of derps

There really isn't any advantages of the imperial system unless you really want to be an elitest and try getting people to adapt a base 12 duodecimal system, but that would require adding 2 numbers that don't exist in the imperial or metric system.

 

[Worgen]

The only reason we still use imperial is because anyone who tries to change to metric gets voted out of office.

 

[shootthebandit]

#1 reason imperial is better than metric:

Wtf is a newton, and wtf is a pascal?
Pound and psi is way easier

Ps. I know what a newton and pascal represent, but they are hard to interpret physically

What the fuck is a PSI or a pound?

A newton is described as the force required to accelerate an object of 1kg to 1 metre per second per second. What so difficult to interpret about that?

A pascal is the pressure of 1N applied over 1 square metre

Im guessing you already know that but i dont know how if you have any background in science and/or engineering. Im sure if you do youll realise that metric values are so easy to do calculations with

And yet theyre called a newton and a pascal.... A pound is a force, a psi is a Pound per Square Inch. A ksi is a kip per square inch. Oh and a kip is a KIlo Pound, so 1000 pounds. When you get into engineering, it doesnt matter which system you use because you just use equations. Its a lot easier for me to visualize a pound of force on a square inch as opposed to a kilogram per square second per meter. Just saying

A newton is called a newton because Sir isaac newton discovered that forces (N) = mass (Kg) × acceleration (ms^-2) which explains the description i said above. You mentioned equations by using the newton it makes so much sense where these equations come from and how to follow them.

You also mentioned the PSI. pressure = force/area so in this instance the pound is a unit of force. The pound is also used as a unit of mass (2.2 pounds = 1 kg) going back to my previous equation force = mass x acceleration. How do you equate this when using the pound as a measurement?

 

[Victim of Progress]

I'm also in the camp, who says metric is better. I like my weight and height to be exact, and not a weird mess of feet and inches. Also, another gripe I have with the US is your urge to use Fahrenheit instead of Celsius. May I ask, why?

In Celsius, water freezes below zero and boils at exactly 100 degrees. In Fahrenheit water freezes at 32 and boils at 212. So much more convenient, isn't it? *Sigh*

 

[Spiridion]

As an American, I honestly wouldn't mind switching over to the metric system as it seems more logical. Currently it's harder for me to comprehend a metric measurement over an imperial measurement, but that's primarily just because we don't really get any consistent exposure to the metric system outside of science classes.

On a related note, I also have no idea why we use Fahrenheit over Celsius. Freezing=0ºC and boiling=100ºC (for water). That is so easy. Why would you choose to say freezing=32ºF and boiling=212ºF instead? Again, the problem is primarily that I know what 80ºF feels like because that's the measurement system everyone around me uses, but I have to go look it up to know that that's the equivalent of ~27ºC.

 

[Adamantium93]

Nothing.

There is no upside. However, most of us grew up with feet, miles, pounds, gallons, Fahrenheit, etc. so don't expect it to change anytime soon.

I think we should just start teaching metric in school and include the metric measurements next to the imperial ones wherever they appear. Just slowly phase it out.

 

[Saltyk]

The answer? It's not. Objectively speaking it sucks.

So why don't I use the metric system? I have no idea what a meter is. Or a kilogram. Or anything like that. I work with lengths and such and had an order for Millimeters. I just stared at it blankly, glad that it was a Buyout and not something that I would somehow have to try to measure when I had no idea what it even was (still gave it to my supervisor so he could finish it after I found it). Is it longer than an inch? Shorter? I haven't a clue.

So what's better about it? Americans actually know what miles, inches, and pounds are.

Why don't we switch? I think we tried at one point. It didn't take at all. And no one is willing to try again. You would seriously have to teach children and just wait to let the adults all die out to switch at this point, I think.

I know older cars use to have miles and kilometers per hour, but I don't even think newer cars do that anymore.

 

[Maze1125]

#1 reason imperial is better than metric:

Wtf is a newton, and wtf is a pascal?
Pound and psi is way easier

Ps. I know what a newton and pascal represent, but they are hard to interpret physically

A pound as a unit of force is just as hard to interpret as a newton. You only imagine it's easier because it's got the same name as the unit of mass and you're used to it. Same with PSI vs. pascals.

 

[locoartero]

Because I would rather say I was 6'4" or 76 inches instead of saying I'm 193.04 centimeters tall.

That just makes me sound tall as fuck.....

You would not say that. Since 100cm are equivalent to 1m, you would say "I'm 1.93 meters tall"