Temperature: -40 degrees Celsius is the same as -40 degrees Fahrenheit 😊
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Why the heck does America still use outdated measurement and date units?
- Thread starter garirry
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We often see criticism of the need to use decimal for things like temperatures. That is, the degree Fahrenheit has some special property meaning we only need whole numbers. But Celsius is criticised because we often need 0.5! That might have some truth in terms of room temperatures. But none at all when it comes to cooking!
Probably the greatest number of non-metric spanners/bolt heads are actually not whole numbers. Worse, you have to go up and down the scale from eights, through quarters to halves. (Worse still if you are going down to sixteenths, thirty-seconds, etc.)
⅛, ¼, ⅜, ½, ⅝, ¾, ⅞
Then, if we go down to even smaller measurements, we miraculously jump to thousandths! How many thousandths in a sixty-fourth? Horrible.
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I get what you’re saying, but you really had me when Celsius got cliticized. Things got fuzzy for me after that.
On my truck, Ford SuperDuty to do some maintenance they have to lift the body off. Ford dealers have special lifts that will lift the body, cab, bed etc up and off the chassis.
Only way to do some services.
Some mechanical work requires the use of a 5.5mm socket, but if I don't have the socket at hand, I grab a 7/32" socket and use this one. In this case I am not paying attention to what calculator would show in relation to 5.5mm and 7/32" being approximately the same, or 0.21654". I do use the fractions 1/16", 1/32", and 1/64" when using measuring tapes
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Why is this even a thing? Are 5 or 6mm to far apart?
That said, I have them in both STD and DEEP.
Why is this even a thing? Are 5 or 6mm to far apart?
That said, I have them in both STD and DEEP.
They can be. At the small end of things, it is a 20% change to go from 5mm to 6mm, while 20mm to 22mm is only a 10% change.
I have a set of sockets that go 3.0 mm, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 5, 5,5, 6, 7, 8,....
Some bolt heads used in electronic equipment are even smaller, but they often use hex keys. My set starts at 1mm.
You are correct. It gets more complicated in the smaller metric sizes and the large SAE sizes as well. I have some large size SAE wrenches that I seldom use. But the most common are small sizes that are interchangeable with metric sizes down to perhaps 3 or so mm. The smallest one I have used is the 5.5mm or 7/32 SAE.
I have both metric and standard (SAE) down to 5mm, although I have never needed a smaller than 5.5mm (7/32") socket or wrench.Why is this even a thing? Are 5 or 6mm to far apart?
That said, I have them in both STD and DEEP.
Speaking of scales and eighths. Why isn't music written in metric? Notes and rests are whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth.
Why not decimalized music, as suggested by an AI with the IQ of 6000?
HOLLY: I've devised a system to totally revolutionize music.
LISTER: Get out of town!
HOLLY: Yeah, I've decimalized it. Instead of the octave, it's the decatave. And I've invented two new notes: H and J.
LISTER: Hang on a minute, you can't just invent new notes.
HOLLY: Well I have. Now it goes: (Singing) Do Re Mi Fa So La Wo Bo Ti Do. Do Ti Bo Wo La So Fa Mi Re Do.
RIMMER: What are you drivelling about?
HOLLY: Holrock. It'll be a whole new sound. All the instruments will be extra big to incorporate my two new notes. Triangles will have four sides. Piano keyboards the length of zebra crossings. Course, women will have to be banned from playing the cello.
My only concern with US measurements is the insistance on doing things by volume (ie X amount of cups of this) but then giving a limit on the number of eggs. If I am making something like shortbread this is fine as I can just increase the vessel size to make more samples but if its a sponge cake and it says "Use 6 cups of flour and 3 eggs" my recipe will end up very different if I change my shot glass to a mug to a pint glass.
Reminds me of a story. Someone I know wanted to save cost on a big paint job. Decided to buy white paint and add a small pot of green paint to end up being a lighter green.
Well it was going to need 4-5 large trade white paint tubs. Needless to say the colour did not match!
That can also happen with SI units as eggs aren't exactly equal and eggs are also usually written by the unit.
We do remove a layer of potential problem because any recipe comes with flour by weight (usually grams). Using one of those measuring cups doesn't solve this issue most of the time?
Perhaps there is some reason why recipes aren't written with pounds or ounces or whatever?
A "cup" is a very specific measurement. Not just whatever you grabbed off the shelf.
I guess it has to be but it causes real confusion in this household when we look up US recipes... (I'm wondering if there's a titanium definitive cup kept securely under glass somewhere...?)
Hey, only 52 posts away from the valued 2,000 post thread.
5 1/2 years old thread … keep it alive people.
Rinse n repeat the comments are all good ..
5 1/2 years old thread … keep it alive people.
Rinse n repeat the comments are all good ..
If the issue is still current or of interest, then it’s irrelevant when it started.
Where as no kitchen outside of the US does. Our look like this.
Every American kitchen has one or more of these.
A cup looks like 8 fl oz - that’s useful to try and remember - thanks
Every American kitchen has one or more of these.