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Millimetres and the Mind: Measuring a Royal Pain

gei said:
Is this whole imperial vs metric discussion supposed to be a joke?

Do you think we should also weigh ourselves in "stones"?

I'm not even going to begin comparing the two... but I think it's pretty clear we have no scientists on this forum... they would be tearing their hair out.
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I think it would come down to a divide between people who use measurement abstractly in equations and formulas (i.e. scientists, engineers), and people who work in more "hands on" fields where they need to be able to visualize length rather than just calculate it (i.e. tradesmen, designers).
 
This is a pretty interesting indication of the age spread on these forums -- some of us were raised on the metric system from childhood and others missed the boat.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
It's just that things like height are much easier to describe in imperial. It's easier to say I'm 6 feet rather than 183 cm. Similarly it's easier to say I'm 180 lbs rather than whatever that is in kg.

Conversely, I don't really know miles. I just find km awkward to say; it's just not poetic. At all. Additionally, I don't know Fahrenheit at all.

Scientifically speaking, of course you're going to go with metric, even in the US.
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"Easier" or not is only a matter of what you're used to. For someone growing up using metric, saying things in m and kg and km is just as easy as for people growing up with imperial to say things in ft and lb and mi.

Talking about the US, it really boggles my mind how American scientists can split their minds between imperial and metric, in particular F and C. In lab they can work with C no problem, but when I tell them the day's temperature in C, they will have absolutely no conception of what it is.
 
Silence&Motion said:
I think it would come down to a divide between people who use measurement abstractly in equations and formulas (i.e. scientists, engineers), and people who work in more "hands on" fields where they need to be able to visualize length rather than just calculate it (i.e. tradesmen, designers).
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So I "abstractly" measure the volume of my reagent or the dimensions of a piece of material when I do experiments?

Someone who grew up with the metre can "visualize" it just as easily as an imperial-accustomed person visualizes a foot. For example, if I have to visaulize a foot, I have to first visualize a metre, then think of a foot as slightly less than a third of a metre.

*Edit* Anyway, this discussion is getting totally OT.
 
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It's not just a matter of preference. When looking at some floor plans recently, I was annoyed by the room dimensions being specified in feet only, since there's no easy way to get to the exact surface area of the room. If a room is 2.7m by 3.1m, you just multiply 2.7 x 3.1 and get the area. With 9'3" by 10'1", it isn't that simple.

The fact is, we use a decimal number system. Not using a decimal measurement system to go along with it is completely silly and impractical.
 
golodhendil said:
Talking about the US, it really boggles my mind how American scientists can split their minds between imperial and metric, in particular F and C. In lab they can work with C no problem, but when I tell them the day's temperature in C, they will have absolutely no conception of what it is.
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It's the same in Canada though. We really haven't abandoned imperial in our accepting of metric. Both seem to exist side by side. This is funny in the supermarket where I've seen some items packaged in one and some in the other. Cooking can be fun too, you're constantly going back and forth between one and the other. Maybe it's good for our brains.
 
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Tewder said:
It's the same in Canada though. We really haven't abandoned imperial in our accepting of metric. Both seem to exist side by side. This is funny in the supermarket where I've seen some items packaged in one and some in the other. Cooking can be fun too, you're constantly going back and forth between one and the other. Maybe it's good for our brains.
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Any packaged item is labelled in metric by law. Variable weight can be priced in pounds if it is also priced in kilos. I am not especially challenged by weight or distance conversions. Area and volume (cubic feet to cubic meters) gets to be more difficult to convert.
 
all measurements (including time) should be based on the hydrogen atom so that the system is universal.
 
As I grew up in Europe, and moved here like 5 years ago, I was extremely annpyed that although metric was the official system, so many people use imperial. Honestly, 12 inches of a foot. How many in a yard. Kilometres may not sound poetic, but miles are just irregular. I seriously wish everyone would use the metric system =P. It would make life so much easier.
And detailing down to millimetres in everyday life is definitely not necessary, centimetres can be used for anything.
To this day I cannot fathom a 1000-foot building, or 100 degrees C.
And to add to that, there is really this huge gap between feet and miles, because yards are rarely used.
I mean, you're seriously going to tell me how tall a 100-floor building is in 30-cm segments
 
BobBob said:
With 9'3" by 10'1", it isn't that simple.

The fact is, we use a decimal number system. Not using a decimal measurement system to go along with it is completely silly and impractical.
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All you do is multiply 9.25' x 10.08'. When you work with imperial long enough you start getting comfortable with things like decimal feet and decimal inches.
 
I don't think anyone who grew up with metric is uncomfortable with it. I'm just saying that even those of us who grew up with metric in Canada, still use imperial in everyday conversation. I was born in 1982, so of course metric is easy for me. But no one I know, whether it be younger people at work, or online, or wherever, actually measures their height in inches or their weight in kg. Maybe it's the American influence on Southern Ontario, I don't know. I remember when I worked at No Frills and the most common question was "how much is this per pound?"

Now it may sound odd that Canadians (or at least the ones I know) measure temperature in Celsius and height in feet and weight in pounds and distances in kilometres, but it's what I've experienced.
 
No, a mole is a word that describes a particular number of things, in particular it refers to an Avagadro's number of things (6.02 x 10^23). A mole of carbon atoms (that is, 6.02 x 10^23 of them) is equal to 12g.
 
I think England is pretty interesting in that most 'official' things are done in metric but day-to-day stuff is done in imperial (driving distances, personal weight, etc). Maybe that's the way to go....

Or we could aim to try and be fully metric some day. In asia for example people weight themselves in kg not lbs.
 
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