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Totally agree with the guy in the OP, if we were meant to be using base ten numbers we'd have something on our body which had ten subdivisions!
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
Sure, but they aren't many times everyday where you'd need to convert the two — the units are used in two different contexts.
You do that sort of thing all the time. Say I want to make a bookshelf that's 50 cm wide and a metre tall, if it has four shelves, how many metres of wood do I need? I'm making three loaves of bread this week, and each one has 500g of flour, how many kilos of flour do I need to buy? These cushion covers use 38cm of fabric, plus 2cm seam allowance and I want to make six, how many metres do I ask them to cut?
Countries with metric do spend less time in school on fractions, and we're generally less skilled with them, but Americans are always complaining about needing more time in maths classes anyway.
Totally agree with the guy in the OP, if we were meant to be using base ten numbers we'd have something on our body which had ten subdivisions!
You do that sort of thing all the time. Say I want to make a bookshelf that's 50 cm wide and a metre tall, if it has four shelves, how many metres of wood do I need? I'm making three loaves of bread this week, and each one has 500g of flour, how many kilos of flour do I need to buy? These cushion covers use 38cm of fabric, plus 2cm seam allowance and I want to make six, how many metres do I ask them to cut?
Countries with metric do spend less time in school on fractions, and we're generally less skilled with them, but Americans are always complaining about needing more time in maths classes anyway.
Fair point BUT we tried the conversion in the late 1970's but it didn't work (we can debate it was sabotaged or not.) The problem is our way of life is imperical measured. As I said for instance American football would need drastic overhaul on downs to be in meteoric as well as the field specifications as they use yards for both. Roads are set to miles (though done bordering Canada do have both on exit signs.) On the otherhand; boxing, MMA, wrestling and other sports using height/weight stats are fairly easy once you get use to it as Celsius would be if only used in practice.
I use both, but lean towards metric, which makes far more sense. This is what I use:
Measuring height of a person: imperial
Measuring height in general: metric
Measuring weight of person: imperial
Measuring weight in general: metric
Measuring distance: imperial (only in miles, otherwise I use metric)
Measuring volume: metric
Basically, I only use imperial for measuring height and weight of a person, and road distances.
I don't know about London, but when you buy a beer in Glasgow they serve it by the pint.
I also heard miles used in conversation, but don't know if that was just condescension to my American accent.
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