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

[Qhartb]

Software engineer here. I don't think either system makes sense. Why isn't there a nice round 1024 grams in a kilogram?

edit: Also, today I learned a metric tonne is a megagram, which explain why rarely hear anything measured in megagrams outside a scientific context. WHY NOT JUST CALL IT A MEGAGRAM? It sounds way cooler anyway.

 

[DSK-]

Also, is ton not a Metric measurement?

A Metric Tonne is!
The older Long and Short Tons are not.
Short Tons are what is generally meant when Imperial users say ton, Metric Tonnes are common elsewhere and equal to 1000kg. No-one uses Long Tons any more.

OT; I'm British, meaning that I use metric for everything except measures of alcohol (pint), distance (in miles, when driving) and the weight of people (stone).
Measures of other liquids are metric, as are distances when not driving, and the weight of anything else. And yes, I'm aware it's utterly ridiculous.

Hahah, I'm in almost exactly the same boat. Whenever US friends ask me how much I weigh they are utterly confused when I answer in stones, and they constantly take the piss by asking for weight measurements in sticks, stones and hay. The bar stewards

 

[direkiller]

Ok, then let's get this started. I read up a bit on the Imperial System and i just can't find any great benefits to it.

Quite simply it is good for practical things when building. Wood Frames are 16" center to center, even in places with metric, it's not a number that works out nicely, and quite simply it saves time. Tiles are done in sq feet aswell due to there size.




Also how often do you have to convert? that is all I hear people say when it comes to metric, and i almost never see it even in science, they still want it in base units. So with that the strength of metric is out the window and it just comes down to what numbers you remember more, and quite frankly the imperial numbers are just easier when wood and steel are involved.

 

[Do4600]

I don't use it unless I'm forced to. As a crafts person I find it infuriating to make scale calculations while shifting between decimal inches and fraction inches. For instance, if I know I need one object to be 132% larger I pull out my calculator and have to multiply the value and then find a chart online that gives me the closest fraction to my calculated decimal. When forced to use imperial, I bet I lose an hour for every 120 hours spent designing.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Advantages to Metric:
It's logical, consistent and sensible.
Disadvantages to Metric:
There are none.

Advantages to Imperial:
There are none.
Disadvantages to Imperial:
It's arbitrary and retarded.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lw8o0yvmHk1qcc8ul.jpg

Of course, it would cost so much to change it and somebody somewhere would ***** about it.

 

[Maze1125]

Also how often do you have to convert? that is all I hear people say when it comes to metric, and i almost never see it even in science, they still want it in base units.

What are you talking about?
Science uses conversions all the time. I've seen everything including Mm, km, m, mm, µm, nm and pm when it comes to length. And grams vs. kilograms are used practically constantly.

 

[ccggenius12]

Spoiler: The Metric System is the Tool of the Devil

 

[Amaror]

Ok, then let's get this started. I read up a bit on the Imperial System and i just can't find any great benefits to it.

Quite simply it is good for practical things when building. Wood Frames are 16" center to center, even in places with metric, it's not a number that works out nicely, and quite simply it saves time. Tiles are done in sq feet aswell due to there size.

Also how often do you have to convert? that is all I hear people say when it comes to metric, and i almost never see it even in science, they still want it in base units. So with that the strength of metric is out the window and it just comes down to what numbers you remember more, and quite frankly the imperial numbers are just easier when wood and steel are involved.

How often do i have to convert? I am not quite sure what you mean. Do you mean how often i have to convert the metric system into other system? Because the answer to that is never. I don't see why i ever should. I am living in germany. We completely have the metric system here. I don't even thing we ever had the imperial system, since it's the system of the old british empire, which germany most certainly wasn't a part of.
Or do you mean converting in the sense of "converting" meters into kilometers or something?
I wouldn't call that "converting". It's just choosing a different word before the unit of measure, dependant on how much it is. Have a thousand meter? 1 kilometer. 1000 gramm? 1 kilogramm. Pretty simple, really. With the science in base units, you probably mean, that stuff like speed is always measured in meter per second, or mass is always in kilogramm. But you only need to mess with this when your doing physics, otherwise you just use what you want.
Not sure about the building part here, but even though i am not a builder, i really don't think that we have wood planks or frames in imperial measures, that wouldn't make sense.
As i allready said, i can see how it's more practical if your either used to it, or if your whole country is using it, like is very much the situation in america. I was just curious if people in america actually liked the imperial system more for other reasons then that they know it and not metric.

 

[talideon]

So answer me this: Using the metric system, how many minutes are in an hour?

Your question doesn't make sense. Minutes and hours aren't SI units, only seconds are. Hours, minutes and days are non-SI units based on the second and the rotational period of the earth used purely for timekeeping.

 

[talideon]

Over my education, I've used both the metric and imperial systems.

I hate them both, I hate maths, I hate anything that involves my arithmatic or mathematical initiative, and I hate how 14 is a "stone". Why a stone? I'll tell you why: 150 lbs. What will you compare it to? Is it good? But 16 stone? No, it's just calling you fat now.

So basically, I hate the metric system for calling me fat. But I use it more, so I guess I preffer it.

Eh... stone is a UK imperial measurement with nothing to do with SI units. I think your anger might be misplaced.

 

[Senare]

Metric:
+ Mixes well with mathematics since it is base 10 (the symbols used for numerical digits in modern mathematics are ten).
+ More established in science; many widely different units mix well with each other.

Imperial:
+ Base 12, which is divisible by prime numbers 2,3. This makes simple division more convenient (because there are often more numbers divisible by 2 and 3 in a range of numbers).
+ Already established culturally (in the USA).
- As a later poster pointed out it is not always base 12, but sometimes base 14 or base 16. Changing bases inside a system is generally bad because it may mean extra conversion work in some problems.

 

[talideon]

Also saying "I ran a mile." rolls off the tongue a lot easier than "I ran a kilometer.".

We wouldn't say that. 'Kilometre' in English tends to be abbreviated to 'k' ('kay'), which rolls off the tongue quite nicely, just as 'kilo' does as an abbreviation of 'kilogramme'.

 

[Heronblade]

Ok, then let's get this started. I read up a bit on the Imperial System and i just can't find any great benefits to it.

Quite simply it is good for practical things when building. Wood Frames are 16" center to center, even in places with metric, it's not a number that works out nicely, and quite simply it saves time. Tiles are done in sq feet aswell due to there size.

Also how often do you have to convert? that is all I hear people say when it comes to metric, and i almost never see it even in science, they still want it in base units. So with that the strength of metric is out the window and it just comes down to what numbers you remember more, and quite frankly the imperial numbers are just easier when wood and steel are involved.

40 centimeters is a less convenient dimensional standard for a frame than 16 inches? I'm not sure I see it. Switching from square foot tiles over to 9 square decimeters doesn't seem like too much of a hassle either.

As to how often I have to convert, go look up a couple of intermediate dynamics problems and try to stick with imperial units throughout, I dare you.

 

[Maze1125]

Metric:
+ Mixes well with mathematics since it is base 10 (the symbols used for numerical digits in modern mathematics are ten).
+ More established in science; many widely different units mix well with each other.

Imperial:
+ Base 12, which is divisible by prime numbers 1,2,3,4. This makes simple division more convenient.
+ Already established culturally (in the USA).

1 and 4 are not prime numbers.
The only prime numbers 12 is divisible by are 2 and 3.
The only prime numbers 10 is divisible by are 2 and 5.

Which means that base 10 and base 12 are both equally easily divisible by prime numbers and, in my opinion, 5 is a more useful number than 3 to be able to divide by easily.

Further, imperial isn't even always base 12, sometimes it's base 14, or 16, making it even more complicated for no reason.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Also how often do you have to convert? that is all I hear people say when it comes to metric, and i almost never see it even in science, they still want it in base units. So with that the strength of metric is out the window and it just comes down to what numbers you remember more, and quite frankly the imperial numbers are just easier when wood and steel are involved.

I see it all the time in my science, in and out of the classroom, especially in journals and presentations of findings.

Oooooo! Are you on local TV. You must be, like, a celebrity or something!

Uh, no. Though I do know some of my classmates have gone to intern at several of the local TV stations.
One of them I think is going to try giving the weather and another is looking for a reporting job.

Keep in mind, most operational meteorologists do analysis well off camera.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

First of all. I know this i probably going to be a pretty difficult discussion. Everyone here has grown up with one or the other measurement system, so nobody can be really objective about this.

Ok, then let's get this started. I read up a bit on the Imperial System and i just can't find any great benefits to it.
Let's start with the obvious advantage of the metric system, as that it is not only the international standard, but also the System of SCIENCE (Which kinda is an instant win right there).
It's easy to calculate with and is just perfect for Mathmatics, Physics and so on.
I heard from some people that the imperial system is easier to use in day to day life, but i can't see why.
It's obviously better in day to day life, if you have grown up with it and used it your entire life.
But if we look at both systems and how we would use them in day to day life, i still think the metric system to be far superiour.
First of all, you just have to learn 3 units of measurement. Meter, gramm and litre. Any larger or smaller units you might need, you just use the appropriate word before it. kilo for a thousand, mega for a million and so on.
In the imperial system you got yards, feet, miles, pinch, pounds, tons and so on, and so on.
It's just way more to memorize, for practically no benefit in day to day life.

As an American who grew up on the "Imperial System", I forking hate it. There was a big push back in the 70s to finally bring us up to speed with the rest of the world and for some reason old people pushed back because they couldn't handle it. So they went on teaching us kids to use it so we could get by.

And to reiterate, I HATE it. I wish like crazy that we could get on the metric system. Even though I'm in my 40s now I would happily realign. Sure, it would be difficult at first. All moves are. But it's so much more elegant than the standard outdated system we use here. And it's not like it's even universal anymore. We buy 2 litre soda, we have metric tools sitting alongside the "standard" (if you can believe we still call it that) tool.

I'm a bit of an anglophile anyway, so maybe I'm a snob toward my own country sometimes. There's a lot of things about living in the USA that I really love though, but the measurement system is not one of them. I passionately hate it in fact. I feel like we're the backwater hillbillies of the world when it comes to measurement standards.

 

[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