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Measures that are fairly close in unit size are sometimes more annoying to remember such as mechanical horsepower to horsepower and nautical miles to miles - sort of like 'close but no cigar'
Technology is the only place that uses international standards than these geographic based systems. I think we should adopt the metric because the internet standards is global. A gigabyte is a gigabyte everywhere on the globe.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mshultz
Interesting. I was just reading that Canadian construction supplies are the same sizes as US supplies. Going to the European metric sizes would be a major change. Older homes & home plans would all become obsolete.
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While building in Australia, the sheet goods were 4'x8' ~1220x2440 (mm)
2x4 studs (38x90) and 2x3 (38x65)
IIRC
Wood is not so popular as structural building components in most foriegn locations +/-
While building in Australia, the sheet goods were 4'x8' ~1220x2440 (mm)
2x4 studs (38x90) and 2x3 (38x65)
IIRC
Wood is not so popular as structural building components in most foriegn locations +/-
Due to a consumer lawsuit, Lowe's has begun asterisk-ing 2x4's as "1.5x3.5 actual size" and so on. Most people know the 2x4 measure is the "wet" measurement, and the wood shrinks when it's dried. At least back in the day when people knew how the world works, most people knew that.
But with composite materials catching on more and more, there is no longer a reason to refer to a pre-dried measurement. With composites WYSIWYG.
Technology is the only place that uses international standards than these geographic based systems. I think we should adopt the metric because the internet standards is global. A gigabyte is a gigabyte everywhere on the globe.
Actually, that is a horrible example as the word has multiple meanings. It is either 10^9 or 2^30, depending on what you are talking about.
Pipe fittings are NPT nominal inches all over the world - note that a 1" nominal pipe has no dimension that's 1.000"...
Socket wrenches are 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 drive all over the world.
Wire gauges are used all over the world.
There are many other examples. The idea that all the rest of the world inhabits some kind of SI pureness and it's only the benighted Americans that use this weird system of rods and furlongs, simply isn't true.
The UK system is almost as much of a mix between Imperial and Metric as the US, they just don't talk about it as much. For instance, road signs are still in miles and speeds are measured in miles per hour.
There's no reason that the two can't coexist. Just because I measure my weight in pounds and gas in gallons, doesn't mean I can't also measure soft drinks in liters and medicine in cubic centimeters.
I grew up converting when I was in elementary school.
As a result I think of temperatures below freezing in C, and temperatures above freezing in F.
So I have a better sense of what -20C feels like than in F
And a better sense of what 60F feels like than in C
The Celsius scale is great for science, when one often needs to measure substances at all temperatures between 0 and 100 and beyond.
It was not developed with everyday life in mind. We mostly measure air temperature, and rarely does it get much hotter than 40C. All those numbers from there up to 100 are basically unused, because water is not something that we need to measure that much. Does anyone need a thermometer to tell them when a pot of water has reached 100C?
On the other hand, the Fahrenheit scale goes nicely with real-life air temperatures: 0F "really cold" to 100F "really hot," and we actually use and have a feeling for all the temperatures in between.
The Celsius scale is great for science, when one often needs to measure substances at all temperatures between 0 and 100 and beyond.
It was not developed with everyday life in mind. We mostly measure air temperature, and rarely does it get much hotter than 40C. All those numbers from there up to 100 are basically unused, because water is not something that we need to measure that much. Does anyone need a thermometer to tell them when a pot of water has reached 100C?
On the other hand, the Fahrenheit scale goes nicely with real-life air temperatures: 0F "really cold" to 100F "really hot," and we actually use and have a feeling for all the temperatures in between.
" Real-life " for someone growing up in Celsius, is as real, as someone growing up in Fahrenheit.
Heck, even someone like me who started life using Fahrenheit and now Celsius have gotten used to feeling all temperatures in between. Humans are very adaptable.
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