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

[talideon]

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.

ar·bi·trar·y
ˈärbiˌtrerē/
adjective
adjective: arbitrary

1.
based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

Why the length of a pendulum swing?
Answer: Some guy in the 1600s thought it would be a good length

It wasn't arbitrary. There was a reason behind it: the idea behind using the pendulum was reproducibility. Nobody chose a metre as a good length, it was simply a measurement that could be easily and repeatedly derived from physical phenomena using a simple apparatus.

Why 1/10,000,000th the distance from the North Pole to the Equator along the meridian line passing through Paris?

why not London or New York?
Why not the circumference of the earth at the 22nd parallel? Or at the equator?
Why not 1/100,000,000th or 1/50,000,000?
Answer: Some guy though it would be a good length
[/quote]

Several reasons, but the main one being that it was as close as they could get to the original metre. The idea was to preserve the measurement using a more accurate mechanism.

Why the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1 / 299,792,458 of a second?
Why not 1/300,000,000 of a second?
or even 1/299,792,450 of a second?

WHY!?!

Because then you'd be changing the physical length of a metre from existing standard measurement.

I'll tell you why
Some
guy
thought
it
would
be
a
good
length

Could you please be a little less obnoxious?

And a lot of other people agreed

And for a good reason: the idea was to find a universal measurement that wouldn't change over time. All these seemingly odd mechanism were chosen for that specific reason, and each one was a refinement on the previous one as far as universality went. The lack of a consistent, reproducible basis for measurement was a huge issue: the introduction and subsequent refinement of a universal unit of measurement was a huge boon. There's a good reason why the US customary measurement system is defined in terms of SI units.

Nobody chose the metre to be the length it is: it simply fell out of the mechanism originally used to derive a universal measurement.

some guy thought a foot would be a good length

Except nobody actually agreed on what a foot was. Equivalent customary units varied quite a bit across Europe and even within countries. A foot seems like a good basis for measurement, but how do you consistently derive the length of a foot? The thing is that nobody had a consistent way to derive the length of a foot. But the metre started with the derivation mechanism first, which was critical to solving the problem of finding a universal measurement.

Standardized Measurements are not universal truths no matter how you come up with them
they are practical language and culture
they exist to service understanding
and changing them all for no better reason than a bunch of guys in lab coats(who use the other system ANYWAY) find it EASIER is not a reason to confuse the language of a people for decades

I think what you're missing is that until the metre was derived, there was no universal and standardised measurement mechanism. The whole point of the SI units was to develop standardised measurements.

 

[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.

40 cm is not equal to 16in exactly so yes it is a problem when you are dealing with the length of a wall, or floors.
there is also 12" and 24"CC frames which are standard for one simple reason, they line up with drywall and plywood which are the same size wherever you go. It's far better to just use imperial units then to have the sheetrock/drywall not line up with the studs,because some dumb ass was .6cm off every time he placed a stud.

As for floor space it's less about the area and more about an estimate on the amount of tiles you need, rounding the room dimensions to the nearest foot gives you a quick and dirty estimate for the cost.


I realize i am saying imperial is easyer because all the building materials match up nicely with imperial units because ameica.
but yea Imperial just leaves you with easier numbers

TLDR: Imperial is easier because people have been using Imperial. The numbers I gave were approximations of what a metric standard size might look like, I know they are not exact conversions of what is being used now.

Let me ask you this, if the companies that supply sheetrock shifted over to a 60 centimeter width, and other dimensional standards in architectural plans adjusted to similar simple standards do you think a building company would really have that much trouble adjusting their frames to match?

 

[the doom cannon]

and so on. This makes calculations involving values with different common orders of magnitudes incredibly easy. Want to convert millimetres into metres? Just move the decimal 3 places to the left and change the prefix (eg 750mm becomes 0.750m). Want to multiply 30 kilometres by 15 millimetres? No need to go chasing up conversions between orders of magnitudes - 1 milli essentially 'cancels out' 1 kilo, so you have 450 metres (30 x 15 = 450). To that for miles and inches requires 3 calculations (2 calcs to convert the two values into a common unit, and then another to multiply them together).

i can tell you exactly how many times I've used miles in engineering: 0. Miles are usually used as an approximation. Rarely does anyone actually expect a mile to mean 5280 feet when someone says "I want to put in 2 miles of pipe." Always feet or inches, with appropriate multiplications by 10 to the whatever power. Always pounds or kips times 10 to the whatever power.

--

except i could just count 1 inch and 3 1/8 inch marks. heck, a lot of precision measuring tapes will give me 32nds.
the mass unit for imperial is a slug, just fyi. And nobody ever uses it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(mass)
acceleration is feet per second per second, no different from meters per second per second.

 

[BleedingPride]

As an american, i'd like to state for the record that the imperial system is useful for sweet FA. seriously, the rest of the world is on a scientific measuring system based on systems of 10. and here i am stuck with inches and feet and having to do a bajillion conversions for science classes. the imperial system sucks for me.

 

[Proto Taco]

The imperial system sucks buckets, but our government is too busy proving they're holier than everyone else to bother switching it.

Do I sound bitter? No, of course not. After all it's not like my government just got finished shutting down due to asinine juvenile bickering, never.

 

[Shadow flame master]

I don't know and neither do I care. It's relatively easy to convert our imperial system to metric through a little math anyways. It's like, one of the first things you learn to do in a science class.

 

[shootthebandit]

--

except i could just count 1 inch and 3 1/8 inch marks. heck, a lot of precision measuring tapes will give me 32nds.
the mass unit for imperial is a slug, just fyi. And nobody ever uses it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(mass)
acceleration is feet per second per second, no different from meters per second per second.

Thats what im saying. You just count an 8th or 32nd but its still easier (ever so slightly) just to count the number you want. doing anything with these numbers is going to be a lot trickier than working with decimals (also considering calculators dont like fractions). Also 1/32 is 0.9mm and 1/64 is 0.45mm but what about all the measurements in between. The fractions youve given me are only the easy ones. As soon as you go to a scale of 0.1mm or even 0.01 your getting some awkward fractions whereas anything between 0.45 and 0.9 can easily be understood and calculated easily

Thats also precisely my point how can feet per second per second be calculated using pounds and slugs. It cant and thats why the newton is a sensible unit of force (hence why the pascal is based on it to). Its ties all the units together so everything can be calculated from one another without adding needless steps

 

[SuperScrub]

I don't agree with everything the USA does and sometimes I feel embarrassed to be a member of the USA but the Imperial system has served us pretty well for all it's faults and in fields such as Physics we use the metric system when it counts. Besides I get the feeling this is less a "Why doesn't America change to metric" and more a "These dumb Yankees are so fat and dumb because they use Imperial System." But it's just a feeling I get from the OP and some of the people who respond to this thread that's all

 

[the doom cannon]

Thats what im saying. You just count an 8th or 32nd but its still easier (ever so slightly) just to count the number you want. doing anything with these numbers is going to be a lot trickier than working with decimals (also considering calculators dont like fractions). Also 1/32 is 0.9mm and 1/64 is 0.45mm but what about all the measurements in between. The fractions youve given me are only the easy ones. As soon as you go to a scale of 0.1mm or even 0.01 your getting some awkward fractions whereas anything between 0.45 and 0.9 can easily be understood and calculated easily

Thats also precisely my point how can feet per second per second be calculated using pounds and slugs. It cant and thats why the newton is a sensible unit of force (hence why the pascal is based on it to). Its ties all the units together so everything can be calculated from one another without adding needless steps

but when will I ever practically use anything smaller than a 32nd of an inch? If I am going to use smaller measurements, I just use a x 10^b inches. At that point, any physical interpretation is arbitrary. I don't need to have a real world equivalent of a 64th of an inch, or 128th of an inch, etc, in order to be able to utilize it

 

[Dr. Thrax]

I honestly wish people would stop asking about this or having debates on Imperial v. Metric.
Nobody goddamned knows, it's the same damned arguments over and over again, and quite frankly a lot of us just don't give a crap.
We use what works for us, yes, we get it, you think it's stupid/inefficient/dumb/etc., but guess what?
It's not changing anytime soon, so deal with it/get over it.

 

[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.

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.

40 cm is not equal to 16in exactly so yes it is a problem when you are dealing with the length of a wall, or floors.
there is also 12" and 24"CC frames which are standard for one simple reason, they line up with drywall and plywood which are the same size wherever you go. It's far better to just use imperial units then to have the sheetrock/drywall not line up with the studs,because some dumb ass was .6cm off every time he placed a stud.

As for floor space it's less about the area and more about an estimate on the amount of tiles you need, rounding the room dimensions to the nearest foot gives you a quick and dirty estimate for the cost.


I realize i am saying imperial is easyer because all the building materials match up nicely with imperial units because ameica.
but yea Imperial just leaves you with easier numbers

TLDR: Imperial is easier because people have been using Imperial. The numbers I gave were approximations of what a metric standard size might look like, I know they are not exact conversions of what is being used now.

Let me ask you this, if the companies that supply sheetrock shifted over to a 60 centimeter width, and other dimensional standards in architectural plans adjusted to similar simple standards do you think a building company would really have that much trouble adjusting their frames to match?

Just frames and sheetrock no, for everything that makes up a modern house yes. You are talking changing hundreds of different items and making sure they all still match up and work,costing millions if not billions, simply because you like the units better.

Yea, it's not going to happen.

 

[shootthebandit]

Thats what im saying. You just count an 8th or 32nd but its still easier (ever so slightly) just to count the number you want. doing anything with these numbers is going to be a lot trickier than working with decimals (also considering calculators dont like fractions). Also 1/32 is 0.9mm and 1/64 is 0.45mm but what about all the measurements in between. The fractions youve given me are only the easy ones. As soon as you go to a scale of 0.1mm or even 0.01 your getting some awkward fractions whereas anything between 0.45 and 0.9 can easily be understood and calculated easily

Thats also precisely my point how can feet per second per second be calculated using pounds and slugs. It cant and thats why the newton is a sensible unit of force (hence why the pascal is based on it to). Its ties all the units together so everything can be calculated from one another without adding needless steps

but when will I ever practically use anything smaller than a 32nd of an inch? If I am going to use smaller measurements, I just use a x 10^b inches. At that point, any physical interpretation is arbitrary. I don't need to have a real world equivalent of a 64th of an inch, or 128th of an inch, etc, in order to be able to utilize it

Youve just proved my point for me (x10^) is used excusively in metric because it makes sense for any scale of numbers. You have basically just said if its below a 32nd you will just convert it to metric. x10^ doesnt work well with inches because it isnt a base 10 measurement and thats why we use mm because it works on every possible scale and is designed to be used in situations where x10^ is required.

 

[Heronblade]

TLDR: Imperial is easier because people have been using Imperial. The numbers I gave were approximations of what a metric standard size might look like, I know they are not exact conversions of what is being used now.

Let me ask you this, if the companies that supply sheetrock shifted over to a 60 centimeter width, and other dimensional standards in architectural plans adjusted to similar simple standards do you think a building company would really have that much trouble adjusting their frames to match?

Just frames and sheetrock no, for everything that makes up a modern house yes. You are talking changing hundreds of different items and making sure they all still match up and work,costing millions if not billions, simply because you like the units better.

Yea, it's not going to happen.

You are overestimating the difficulty and underestimating the benefits.

I could go point by point, but the easiest way to counteract this argument is simply by pointing out that all of those changes we need to make have already been made, tested, and proven by plenty of other countries around the world. Some things will need to be redesigned of course, but there is very very little in the way of products and design standards that are exclusively produced in the Imperial system, and building components are definitely not among them.

 

[spartan231490]

*Asks question.*
*Pre-rejects most appropriate answer*

The math and the science thing are largely irrelevant, since anyone who does large amounts of math and science knows the metric system. Also, in todays day and age, the math isn't any easier in practice. Sure, it's easier to do in your head, but anyone doing calculations today is using a calculator, and typing in /1000 is no harder than /5280

Personally, I prefer imperial because the units are more workable. I toyed with the idea of forcing my mindset to switch to metric a few years ago, but I find that the units are all either unreasonably small or unreasonably large. Also, I refuse to change my mindset for the convenience of others.

On a large scale, it's still used because they're is no benefit to switching. People who feel the need to use metric are trained to do so, but on an everyday scale, metric and imperial both work just fine. The cost of switching would be enormous: tools, manufacturing equipment, education, road signs, gas tanks, and so much more would need to be converted.

 

[the doom cannon]

Youve just proved my point for me (x10^) is used excusively in metric because it makes sense for any scale of numbers. You have basically just said if its below a 32nd you will just convert it to metric. x10^ doesnt work well with inches because it isnt a base 10 measurement and thats why we use mm because it works on every possible scale and is designed to be used in situations where x10^ is required.

what? since when was x10^ whatever exclusively metric? you can break anything you want into powers of 10. When conceptualization isnt an issue, 0.000438 inches is a perfectly acceptable number to come up with. In fact, that's a pretty good number for the deflection of a steel beam per inch of length. please tell me what 0.000483 mm looks like. You can't, and I can't tell you what 0.000483 inches looks like either. When it comes to doing calculations, units don't matter as long as you keep them consistent. When dealing with physical applications, inches and feet are a lot easier to conceptualize than mm, cm, and m because they were designed that way.

 

[Sean951]

The US has been breaking the foot in to decimals for decades, if not longer. Surveyors don't even use inches, preferring to use Stations (100 feet), feet, tenths (~10/8 of an inch), and hundredths (~1/8 of an inch) because it makes the math easier, especially when finding percent fall of a road. You would also have to come up with a new standard size that fits existing buildings, car, toilets, machinery... Either way, it really would be a nightmare at this point in time, especially when most people either know how to do what they want with Imperial (most tapes are marked down to the 1/16," for the earlier person) and those who can't just use metric.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

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.

I am an American, and ever since I learned the metric system in a special-placement math class when I was ten years old, I have always felt that it was superior and the fact that America doesn't use it is nonsensical.

The only argument I've heard that has any reasonable substance (and not much substance, just a little) for keeping the Imperial system is "that's what we've always used and it would be too much trouble and too costly to make the change." So, the only benefit of the system, as far as I can tell, is that it allows America to maintain the status quo and not go through the not-completely-insignificant-but-completely-manageable-and-worth-it difficulty of restructuring educational materials, redoing all the speed limit signs to KPH, etc.

Seriously, that's it. American complacency and respect for tradition, though in this case it is a completely meaningless tradition; there is nothing sacred about our measurement system. On that note though, you may be interested to know that here they're not referred to as "imperial" and "metric." They're called "standard" and "metric." Harmless enough labels on the surface, but the semantic implication is that imperial is normal and metric is deviant, even though from a broader perspective the opposite is more accurate.

I appreciate your consideration of differing cultural and social norms, but, as an American, I say that the imperial/metric issue is an instance where it is perfectly fitting to say that America is being silly and backwards.

 

[Sean951]

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.

I am an American, and ever since I learned the metric system in a special-placement math class when I was ten years old, I have always felt that it was superior and the fact that America doesn't use it is nonsensical.

The only argument I've heard that has any reasonable substance (and not much substance, just a little) for keeping the Imperial system is "that's what we've always used and it would be too much trouble and too costly to make the change." So, the only benefit of the system, as far as I can tell, is that it allows America to maintain the status quo and not go through the not-completely-insignificant-but-completely-manageable-and-worth-it difficulty of restructuring educational materials, redoing all the speed limit signs to KPH, etc.

Seriously, that's it. American complacency and respect for tradition, though in this case it is a completely meaningless tradition; there is nothing sacred about our measurement system. On that note though, you may be interested to know that here they're not referred to as "imperial" and "metric." They're called "standard" and "metric." Harmless enough labels on the surface, but the semantic implication is that imperial is normal and metric is deviant, even though from a broader perspective the opposite is more accurate.

I appreciate your consideration of differing cultural and social norms, but, as an American, I say that the imperial/metric issue is an instance where it is perfectly fitting to say that America is being silly and backwards.

It's not just signs that would have to be changed though. Literally every material good manufactured and used in the US would have to find a new standard that also matched the existing buildings/machines/every thing out there.

 

[searron]

Why does America use the Imperial system? Same reason they change the spelling of a bunch of words, because America likes being the special child who eats all the glue but everyone goes "Oh don't worry, that's just little Timothy working his creative brain again"

The British has arbitrarily changed words as well. For example, "Aluminium." The word, with out spelling reforms should be "alumium."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform
There is a large amount of spelling reforms that were suggested and attempted by the English.

The US system is due to Noah Webster's reforms.
So until you start spelling things like nyce(nice), fisc(fish), and cyning(king)[the orginal spellings of these words), you don't get to complain about spelling changes.

 

[Amir Kondori]

People are used to it and an object in motion tends to stay in motion, an object at rest tends to stay at rest. Momentum, that is it. Ask any American, no one speaks with glowing nostalgia about growing up with Imperial system.
"Oh I remember measuring out quarts into my mixing bowl, made several pounds of cake that day! Imperial system is just the greatest" said no one ever.