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Why the heck does America still use outdated measurement and date units?
- Thread starter garirry
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Actually quite often. Granted in watchmaking thousandths are common, but that's a specialized field.
Even so, when I open the(British-printed) service manual for my British car EVERY SINGLE sub-inch measurement is listed in terms of thousandths of an inch.
This practice is widespread enough that most automotive feeler gauges you buy are marked in both Imperial and Metric units, but the sizes are graduated in thousands-i.e. my set goes all the way from .006 to .025 in .001" increments, and the metric equivalents are just whatever they happen to be.
There are not as many things on a modern car that have to be routinely adjusted to clearances that tight as on an old car, but virtually every reference I find(regardless of country of origin) still list spark plug gaps in thousandths.
When talking about geology, maybe. It is also considered one continent, divided in 3 subcontinents.
Or do you prefer that we call South America, "America", where the name is written in the original 1507 map?
In any case, calling USA "America" is illogical, as it is at the least a subset of North America.
On the first point, we should look at a base pi numbering system, or base e. I don't think it'll go far, though.
On the second point, there aren't too many engineering projects on the scale of the Pyramids of Giza, that were done on papyrus. Citing the Airbus A380 and the Mars Lander issues, the root cause isn't English or Metric measurement systems, but the combination of two systems, be it CAD or measurement, to accomplish a goal without clear definition and reconciliation between the two systems. CAD systems don't make you do the calculations by hand, and then have you input them. They're really good at calculating the results of 5280*8.241 and 12*83.43, and things like that.
If you're talking about home projects, OK, but there's still the rub: when you grow up, and mom and dad measure everything in inches, feet, miles, gallons, acres, pounds, and seconds, junior isn't, at 2, going to say, "mom, why don't you use a base 10 system?" and keep it going. At 16, they're probably more interested in dating, and at 25, they're into their careers, and again, is this the thing they want to change?
A Mac/PC emulator got a lot easier when Apple started using Intel chips, because the discrepancies between the two disappeared.
Citing contributing factors for root causes is tricky business, because fixing that will leave the problem, and worse, the people using the system will think things are solved, when they really aren't, and subsequent issues will be met with "we already fixed that."
I'm beginning to think this is a deep seated anger, and not just a 1am rant.
Most of the world calls it USA or United States.
English: people also use America or "the US"
French: Amérique also used colloquially
German: Amerika also used colloquially
Japanese: Amerika (many modern words imported from English)
enemies: America
Spanish: no (second biggest native language after Chinese). Norteamérica used colloquially.
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So basically a lot of people use America colloquially, and even more so when it comes to referring to people from USA.
When it comes to language and word usage, especially over time, it becomes the accepted norm basically. Just look up the (actual official) definition of "literally", for an even more extreme example. (And, by the way, how are people from USA referred to?)
Do you realize that there are more Americans that call their continent America than US people who colloquially call their country "America"?
"US Person" actually includes green card holders, so this is the best I can do, besides US Citizen.
There have been some very silly things said in this thread. Others have rightly pointed out the intolerance of the pro-metric fanatics, unable to accept any society being different. Funny how those who often talk about "diversity" get so annoyed when anyone is different in this respect.
To clear up a couple of issues - those who keep bringing up the accident with the Mars orbiter are hardly helping their case - the problem would have been avoided had the entire thing just been handled in non-metric units.
Pointing to a map of the world and saying how many use the metric system doesn't mean anything. And worse still it was often brought in by blood-soaked tyrannies. Indeed the system was borne of a violent oppressive revolution that sought to destroy society's links to the past. There was even a metric calendar and clock.
The issue of Fahrenheit is neither here nor there but Centigrade isn't more "logical" by setting water's boiling point at 100 degrees. In many ways that is irrelevant to most people apart from scientists - the most commonly measured temperature is the weather outside for which Fahrenheit is more logical. Fahrenheit is more useful for many as when it's very very cold outside it tends towards zero and when very very hot outside it tends towards a hundred. And normal life is in the middle. When was the last time it was 100 degrees Centigrade outside?
I perhaps have a wider perspective than most. I grew up in Greece and France but have spent my working life in Britain, the USA, India and China. From the age of 10-14 I was lucky enough to attend a British international school where the Headmaster was an ex-solder from the Second World War who was determined, against the wishes of some of the other teachers, to give us the chance to learn the standard English measurements. So I can use both systems without trouble and I see they both have advantages.
In any system you generally have to choose between the most useful units (the imperial system does this) or the most logical, ordered relationship between units (the metric approach). It is unsurprising that the metric system is favoured by most scientists. It's equally unsurprising that most people if given the choice will tend to resist the metric system in normal life. England is a good example - for a century they were allowed to use both systems. Human beings tend to be creative and flexible - so they took a handful of useful metric measurements and otherwise continued with their customary units. They only went metric, officially, when the EU forced it on them using a Statutory Instrument to overturn, in a case controversial to this day, a law made by heir democratic legislature. It involved an absurd undercover sting by police officers arresting a man for selling banana by the lb as his customers wanted - a shocking thing in a supposedly free society. Note it well, Americans - the pro-metric brigade are almost always authoritarian. They are the same ones who will attack the 1st and 2nd Amendments. Given free choice people tend to do what is most useful and not most ideological. America remains in some respects, not all but some, one of the most free nations on earth - it is entirely logical that they use customary measures. China is a repressive tyranny and therefore it isn't surprising that it uses the metric system. With the exception of Burma, so far as I can tell every dictatorship of the last century has used the metric system.
In day to day life the customary system is considerably more sophisticated than the metric system, having been honed over many centuries to give the most useful measurements. It tends to result in units of 3 or 6 or 12, simple fractions and easy combinations. In contrast the metric system often results in hundreds of this or so many milli- of that. Now if one is discussing astronomy, where one jumps between millions and billions, where one multiplies things by huge numbers, then the metric system has an obvious advantage. If one wishes to bake a cake or build a house though the metric system is far more crude and lacks the relationship to human lives. Have you ever thought to yourself, is this door supposed to be 3 feet wide or 3 billion feet wide? Should I use 3 eggs or 3 billion eggs? This sort of issue is easier to resolve in the metric system. It's also irrelevant to 99.9999% of people.
The easiest way to grasp this is to look at the way we measure time. There is an SI unit - that is the second. Yet if I said to you I will meet you in 552,543,345 seconds you would be dumbfounded. If I said I would meet you next Tuesday at half past three you would instantly understand. What could be less metric, less "logical" than a system of time measurement with 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, 7 days to a week, 52 weeks and 365 1/4 days to a year (the quarter not even being used except every four years) etc? On paper it's crazy. Just as, for those who have never learnt to use it, the imperial system looks a bit mad - 12 inches to a foot etc. Yet in practice both just work. Days, minutes, hours are all useful measurements in real life even if multiplying one of them by a million is harder than a metric calendar. And likewise inches, pounds, miles are all useful measurements in real life. As I said it's telling, the elite had to force it in England, good ideas don't have to be forced on people.
This thread is a timely reminder that many of those most fanatically in favour of forcing the metric system onto everyone in normal life are intolerant and authoritarian. Having spent some time in the USA it was nice to see the system I had learnt about in school being used in day to day life. I realised that it was a good marker, though not black and white, of freedom. As England has become less and less free over recent decades, as it has had authoritarian governments and had foreign legislation forced upon it she has also lost her customary measures.
George Orwell understood it well and in the future "1984" he was very careful to make sure that the tyrannical regime had abolished pints and replaced it with litres. Even the most extreme pro-metric fanatic accepts they will have to wait decades before they destroy the English fondness for a pint of beer. Yet they will try one day. My suggestion to Americans is stick to your guns, stand up for freedom and common sense, and don't let others push you around. Using customary measures is rather like putting faith in your constitution; it annoys those with utopian ideas about reforming human nature and yet, for all its apparent illogicalities, it has served well in practice while utopians have caused so much human misery.
To clear up a couple of issues - those who keep bringing up the accident with the Mars orbiter are hardly helping their case - the problem would have been avoided had the entire thing just been handled in non-metric units.
Pointing to a map of the world and saying how many use the metric system doesn't mean anything. And worse still it was often brought in by blood-soaked tyrannies. Indeed the system was borne of a violent oppressive revolution that sought to destroy society's links to the past. There was even a metric calendar and clock.
The issue of Fahrenheit is neither here nor there but Centigrade isn't more "logical" by setting water's boiling point at 100 degrees. In many ways that is irrelevant to most people apart from scientists - the most commonly measured temperature is the weather outside for which Fahrenheit is more logical. Fahrenheit is more useful for many as when it's very very cold outside it tends towards zero and when very very hot outside it tends towards a hundred. And normal life is in the middle. When was the last time it was 100 degrees Centigrade outside?
I perhaps have a wider perspective than most. I grew up in Greece and France but have spent my working life in Britain, the USA, India and China. From the age of 10-14 I was lucky enough to attend a British international school where the Headmaster was an ex-solder from the Second World War who was determined, against the wishes of some of the other teachers, to give us the chance to learn the standard English measurements. So I can use both systems without trouble and I see they both have advantages.
In any system you generally have to choose between the most useful units (the imperial system does this) or the most logical, ordered relationship between units (the metric approach). It is unsurprising that the metric system is favoured by most scientists. It's equally unsurprising that most people if given the choice will tend to resist the metric system in normal life. England is a good example - for a century they were allowed to use both systems. Human beings tend to be creative and flexible - so they took a handful of useful metric measurements and otherwise continued with their customary units. They only went metric, officially, when the EU forced it on them using a Statutory Instrument to overturn, in a case controversial to this day, a law made by heir democratic legislature. It involved an absurd undercover sting by police officers arresting a man for selling banana by the lb as his customers wanted - a shocking thing in a supposedly free society. Note it well, Americans - the pro-metric brigade are almost always authoritarian. They are the same ones who will attack the 1st and 2nd Amendments. Given free choice people tend to do what is most useful and not most ideological. America remains in some respects, not all but some, one of the most free nations on earth - it is entirely logical that they use customary measures. China is a repressive tyranny and therefore it isn't surprising that it uses the metric system. With the exception of Burma, so far as I can tell every dictatorship of the last century has used the metric system.
In day to day life the customary system is considerably more sophisticated than the metric system, having been honed over many centuries to give the most useful measurements. It tends to result in units of 3 or 6 or 12, simple fractions and easy combinations. In contrast the metric system often results in hundreds of this or so many milli- of that. Now if one is discussing astronomy, where one jumps between millions and billions, where one multiplies things by huge numbers, then the metric system has an obvious advantage. If one wishes to bake a cake or build a house though the metric system is far more crude and lacks the relationship to human lives. Have you ever thought to yourself, is this door supposed to be 3 feet wide or 3 billion feet wide? Should I use 3 eggs or 3 billion eggs? This sort of issue is easier to resolve in the metric system. It's also irrelevant to 99.9999% of people.
The easiest way to grasp this is to look at the way we measure time. There is an SI unit - that is the second. Yet if I said to you I will meet you in 552,543,345 seconds you would be dumbfounded. If I said I would meet you next Tuesday at half past three you would instantly understand. What could be less metric, less "logical" than a system of time measurement with 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, 7 days to a week, 52 weeks and 365 1/4 days to a year (the quarter not even being used except every four years) etc? On paper it's crazy. Just as, for those who have never learnt to use it, the imperial system looks a bit mad - 12 inches to a foot etc. Yet in practice both just work. Days, minutes, hours are all useful measurements in real life even if multiplying one of them by a million is harder than a metric calendar. And likewise inches, pounds, miles are all useful measurements in real life. As I said it's telling, the elite had to force it in England, good ideas don't have to be forced on people.
This thread is a timely reminder that many of those most fanatically in favour of forcing the metric system onto everyone in normal life are intolerant and authoritarian. Having spent some time in the USA it was nice to see the system I had learnt about in school being used in day to day life. I realised that it was a good marker, though not black and white, of freedom. As England has become less and less free over recent decades, as it has had authoritarian governments and had foreign legislation forced upon it she has also lost her customary measures.
George Orwell understood it well and in the future "1984" he was very careful to make sure that the tyrannical regime had abolished pints and replaced it with litres. Even the most extreme pro-metric fanatic accepts they will have to wait decades before they destroy the English fondness for a pint of beer. Yet they will try one day. My suggestion to Americans is stick to your guns, stand up for freedom and common sense, and don't let others push you around. Using customary measures is rather like putting faith in your constitution; it annoys those with utopian ideas about reforming human nature and yet, for all its apparent illogicalities, it has served well in practice while utopians have caused so much human misery.
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Swatch Internet Time is more logical than what we use now, yet none of the "metric fanatics" are advocating for it.
[doublepost=1464137237][/doublepost]People from Europe -> Europeans
People from Asia -> Asians
People from Africa -> Africans
People from Oceania -> Oceanians (really!)
People from the American Continent -> ???
[doublepost=1464137237][/doublepost]People from Europe -> Europeans
People from Asia -> Asians
People from Africa -> Africans
People from Oceania -> Oceanians (really!)
People from the American Continent -> ???
two things at once..
base10 vs base12, which could be a conversation on it's own.. decent read here:
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5977095/why-we-should-switch-to-a-base-12-counting-system
.. and using metric as an example of base10 since it's strictly base10 then using imperial foot as an example of base12, since that's what it is.
no further calculation with 5 while being left with a non-decimal number.. it's a prime number.
with base12, you can continue doing more calculations on the quotients and still be left with non-prime numbers.
why on earth can't you use decimals in imperial? if that's the beauty of metric then it's also the beauty of imperial because it's the same exact thing.
in imperial, you have standard options to go decimal or fractional.. they are both used..
one is exactly the same as metric math and you can use that when applicable.. the other standard is fractional measurements which you can also use when applicable..
there isn't a standard fractional use in metric so in that regard, metric is more limited here / less options.
honestly? every single day of my life.
i'm a designer/craftsman.. i use fractional inches, i use feet&inches, i use decimal inches, i use metric units.. all day every day. (fwiw) (that said, rarely do i use decimal feet.. but i'm not working at huge scales where this would be more desirable)
maybe you see it listed as 2-3/8 but that's because you're just seeing what you want.. there are plenty of everyday examples of decimals in imperial.. for example:
garbage bag thicknesses are listed in mils (a mil being 1/1000th of an inch).. these ones are .00085" thick:
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bought gas lately? decimal gallons
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ever buy anything at the grocery store? decimal pounds
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paper? often listed in decimal inches
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decimal miles?
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idk, using decimals in imperial is a lot more common than you've stated.. agree?
if not, i can show you many more 'duh' type examples until it clicks.
(and for you people who seem to think metric isn't used in the u.s .. 3 / 5 of those everyday examples clearly show both imperial and metric units)
and? so what? are fractions or multi-digit decimals too hard for you or smthng? (and these aren't difficult or random fractions.. it's just dividing by 2 in order to double tolerances.. 1" is too big of a gap? divide by 2 and work in 1/2s.. if you want tighter then divide by 2 and work in quarters? do it again to work in eights.. or 16ths.. or 32nds.. or 64ths..
working with an inch makes it easier to change tolerances on the fly. and further, our scales allow this to happen.. if you work with inches as opposed to cm or mm, you have more standard options to use within any given range.
in practical human use, imperial offers better divisions or, more usable/common numbers than metric..
tape measures are generally showing 1/16" divisions (~1.6mm).. this is a very comfortable to see and usually precise enough scale to work with on most projects.. with mm, there are too many crammed in there to read as quickly/comfortably as you can with inches..
that said, when a carpenter needs more precision, we drop down to 32nds (~.8mm).. this is probably around the smallest increments we can comfortably work with without magnification.. 32nds are more precise than millimeters but, in practical use, you can't divide a mm up any smaller and do any work with it.. like- have you ever seen a tape measure that shows .5mm increments? probably not but that's what it would take in order to make metric rulers more precise than imperial..
ever buy drill bits? in imperial, you're getting them in 1/64" increments (~.4mm).. in metric, you're getting them in .5mm increments.. again, the imperial units are giving more size options throughout a given range.
the part of my post that you're responding to here isn't about size.. your rebuttal, in context of what i was saying, is one that base30 is better than base12. (which it's not but.. )
ha. yeah, it is.. and i in no way said that so sorry for the confusion if that's what you took my point to be.
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really? you think i'm in need of a paragraph to explain that 5 ÷ 2 = 2.5?
you're missing the point..
lol.. yeah, 10 is the magic number when dividing by itself.. how often do you need to divide by 10 though? very rarely considering all the other numbers out there.. and 10 goes to ship pretty quick when needing to use other, more common divisors on it.
it's as if you're so hyped that you can call something 1m instead of 100cm.. like this seems to be your entire pitch for metric.
but so what, it's not much of an advantage at all.
read a blueprint.. one unit will be chosen and that's what will be used on the entire document.
most of the (metric) prints i use are in mm.. sometimes cm.
sizes will be shown, for example, as 6, 75, and 2300.. never 6, 7.5cm, and 2.3m (which, btw, would be pretty horrible and confusing practice.).. pick a unit and stick to it.. that's how it's done in the real world and the fact that you can move a decimal point in order to change a prefix is a very weak selling point.. and it's an elementary point at best (or, at least, that's what elementary school students are taught here)
not winning what? i don't even know what you're talking about up there.. not really something i'm interested in winning.
this is where your whole argument lays in waste.. neither one of these systems is better.. there's nothing you can create using the metric system that you can't do, just as precisely and easily, with imperial.. nothing.. and vice versa
the thread title talking about 'americans using outdated systems'... dude, get a grip.
metric came about in the 1700s..
this is before the industrial revolution, this is before computers, before space travel, before atomic science... way before most-if-not-all modern sciences and technologies.. the metric system is outdated too..
to try to wipe the imperial system off the face of the earth for some sort of patriotic or anti-american reasoning is just plain stupid.. in reality, you should be glad the system is still alive and kicking.
it gives more of a chance of the metric system (and imperial) being replaced by a modern system.. both of these systems are outdated. not just one. do you understand this?
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who do you think calls americans 'americans' more often?
americans?
people from other countries?
i'm willing to bet that well over 1000x the amount of americans who refer to themselves as americans (say 300million people) ---> are non-americans calling americans 'americans' (300 billion people.. at least.easily)
also, the u.s is a young country.. one of the youngest.
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point being, we didn't name ourselves 'americans'... you all did.. europeans did.
and now you're complaining about it?
cool but, so what.. your fault not ours
heh, our language is English (like that country 'England').. our heritage is from everywhere but a large majority can be traced directly back to europe.. maybe 6 or 7 generations removed.. relatively speaking, we moved here from your country just yesterday..
(and hey, i'm assuming you're european which is why i'm using europe in my talk.. i can switch it up to another area and similar thoughts will show through)
why you think you're so different than us or we're so different than you is sort of confusing.
we're the same.. not sure if it's worth getting so worked up over the .000001% area where we have some cultural or language etc differences.
here's the thing, in case you haven't noticed.
if you're not in a country being bombed by the u.s military, you are now part of the american empire.. (for example- how many u.s military bases are in your country? and how many of yours in the states?)
you and i are in debt to the same entity.
you and i are on the same team and the sooner you quit battling about stupid little crap like 'dumb americans' and start recognizing the same entities that are collapsing america as we've known it in the past have got the same exact stranglehold around your neck and your country -- then the better off we'll both be.
'countries' is, for the most part, something us commonfolk like to argue about on the internetz and divide into little packs based on false pride.
it's only a problem because you're making it out to be a problem.
ie- it's your problem.
much (much!) more important problems to focus on instead of steaming about americans having the audacity to refer to themselves as americans (imo)
It is not a non-issue. It is an identity issue. Nobody is telling people from the US they cannot call themselves Americans. They should just be aware that they are not the only ones.