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It's shocking how little either of you really knows.
The metric system was created out of racism and extreme hatred. The megalomaniac Napoleon insisted it be created. He was an Anglophobe, a person with extreme hatred for "things British." He was so stupid he thought the current system of measure was created by the British and wanted an alternative that was French, and thus "superior."
He didn't want to use the Greenwich Meridian as the Prime Meridian, so he created a new Prime Meridian running through Paris.
Because the French, in their infinite wisdom "knew" the Earth was a "true sphere" the Prime Meridian was divided into 10,000 equal parts, and that became the basis for the metric system.
Then to the dismay of the French, the bastard Americans and their satellites orbiting Earth determined that Earth was actually spheroidal, and worse than that, the meridians or longitudinal lines were not equal distances.
So the French backed up, re-grouped and made a meter equal to so many millions of wave-lengths of the orange-red radiation in Krypton.
Then to the chagrin of the French, the dastardly British determined that the orange-red radiation in Krypton actually alters it wave-lengths based on the decay rate and a few other factors so that it was not consistent.
So now a meter is equal to the distance light travels in a vacuum in so many fractions of a second.
There's nothing even remotely scientific about the metric system, which as I pointed out was invented out of jealousy, fear and hatred for all things British.
Dividing the distance light travels in a second into 10,000 equal parts would be more scientific than the origin of the metric system.
The fact that it is easily divisible by 10 is not a logical reason to use it and converting to it because it is based on the decimal/Base 10 system and not the sexigesimal/Base 60 system is clever way of dumming people down (as if Americans aren't already stupid enough in math and sciences).
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TKramar
And you will note, that none of those figures reflect the horsepower.
Just like joules and newtons, you're talking about a completely different way of measuring.
If you need 1-1/2 cups of milk for a recipe, are you going to estimate the other 4 ml, since 12 ounces=1-1/2 cups=454 ml? Close enough for cooking, I suppose.
Canada converted to metric in the 70's and despite dire warnings to the contrary, no one died and the sun came up in the morning.
All my schooling was in the "imperial system" (mostly identical to the American system except for liquid measurement).
The metric system is so simple that converting as an adult was nearly effortless. The trick is to not to try convert in your head. Once you have a feeling for the length of a metre, the weight of a kilogram, the feel of 0,10,or 20 degrees Celsius, you pretty much have it. There is no need to remember 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1760 yards in a mile, etc.
There is just one thing my old brain will not grasp. Coming from a farming background, I always had a good feel for what an acre was. For the life of me, I'll never be able to picture a hectare in my mind.
The English system is easy to convert to as well. I never consciously think that a yard is 3 feet nor I consciously think that a mile is exactly 5280 feet in length. I subconsciously know how long a foot is, a yard is, a mile is, a 1/4 inch, 1/8 inch, etc. It works for me, and it works for millions of other Americans. Is it outdated? Hardly. Has any country that has adopted the metric system experience any significant advancement because of using metric? Not really. I find metric to be most useful in small measurements
The fact that it is easily divisible by 10 is not a logical reason to use it ....
There's some good arguments as to why we should not convert to metric but that is not one them. I can convert any metric length to another in a split second without even thinking about it. Even doing calculations with multiple lengths become so much easier because you only need to place the decimal correctly. You can't do that with feet and inches easily, it can be done just takes much longer. There is a lot of advantages to that like preventing mistakes.
Canada converted to metric in the 70's and despite dire warnings to the contrary, no one died and the sun came up in the morning.
Yeah but you've still got a lot of Imperial floating around, you're not full-on Metric. Due to the proximity to the US and the amount of trade you do with them. I noticed that when I moved from Canada to Australia. Had to go cold-turkey metric here.
Hubby had the worst time at the hardware store. No more 2 by 4's or 3/8ths inch anything. All "mills", as in mm. I was buying gallons of paint in Canada before I left, here there's no such thing, only 4 litres. Fruit, veg and meat were advertised in pounds in Canada, not here. The prices seemed steep here at first, til I realised they were for kilos.
Height and weight was still Imperial in Canada. Here, somebody has a baby and they talk about how many grams it weighed. I had no idea at first how big their baby was, or small, til I got used to it. We use A4 sized paper here (21cm x 29.7cm), not 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper. Houses and land are square metres. Loads of differences.
Based on my experience going full Metric from an often confusing mixture, it's best to go all out Metric if you're going to change. You get used to it quicker. Being neither here nor there when I lived in Canada only gave me a vague idea of equivalents.
There's some good arguments as to why we should not convert to metric but that is not one them. I can convert any metric length to another in a split second without even thinking about it. Even doing calculations with multiple lengths become so much easier because you only need to place the decimal correctly. You can't do that with feet and inches easily, it can be done just takes much longer. There is a lot of advantages to that like preventing mistakes.
Yes. I can understand how easier it is for scientists to use metric, but for the everyman, Imperial units work just fine. I believe that's how it works today anyway. isn't everything in the scientific field using metric anyways? I always read astronomy reports using metric (and it's annoying )
Yes. I can understand how easier it is for scientists to use metric, but for the everyman, Imperial units work just fine.
It works but it doesn't mean it's better. I just built a cabinet in my kitchen to match the existing cabinets but it had to fit into a oddly sized specific space, it was something like 73 21/32. I had to divide that into 4 equal sizes to get my door openings. I don't use paper for simpler calculations so it took a few seconds... It just would have so much simpler if it were metric.
LOL..take a look at all the food you buy today..we have gone metric.
Kids are learning metric along with imperial in middle school math classes.
Just because it's not being publicized you think it didn't happen ?
While I might recognize that a 2-liter contains 67.6 ounces, or that a 12 oz. soda contains 454 ml, I don't normally cross-convert one into the other.
I could figure out pretty easily how many kilograms are in a 5-lb bag of sugar, but I still think of it as 5 pounds, and not in metric. If a gallon of water is 3.79 L, and one liter equals one kilogram....eh, a gallon of water still weighs roughly 8 pounds, I'm not going to try to figure it out and be exact about it. Close enough for government work, as they say.
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