this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024

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Why still using the imperial system? (abananaforscale.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago

Americans are still using monarchy units while the rest of the world is on freedom units.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I have to agree 100%. The slavish devotion of small brained regressive idiots to base 12 time keeping has bugged me for fucking ever. Swatch solved this decades ago, but people are too stuck in their "But this is what we've always used" bullshit mindset.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Fuck your decimal system. Dozenal is the most intuitive number system. Arithmetic is so much easier to learn in dozenal and you can even count higher on your hands if you use phalanges instead of fingers. Base 10 is a crap number system. It's barely composite, it only has two prime factors.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Metroids itt btfo, malding, fractionally mogged upon.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (4 children)

For anything construction-scale, all supplies sold in the US are based on 4x8' sheet goods and 16-24" on-center framing. I also concede that king George the 74th's foot length is more human-scale when dealing with large measurements: 20 feet vs 6096 mm. I still use metric when possible, however - I find it easier and more accurate.

For EVERYTHING else I've switched to using metric.

Context: I grew up in the US using imperial units and only pivoted to the metric system in 2020. If I grew up thinking in metric and building supplies/standards used it, it'd be superior in every way.

TL;DR I like my imperial/metric combo tape measure.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I’m terrified of driving the day they move the US from miles to kilometers. People go well over the speed limit as it is. I can only imagine how many people would read the kilometer per hour speed limit as miles.

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[+] [email protected] -7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I've read that it is more easily divisible than metric.

Divide a meter by 3 or 4 and get ugly numbers but a foot or yard divide by 3 or 4 quite cleanly. And so on.

Depending on your application this can be very helpful.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Divide a metre by 4 and you get 0.25 meters or 25cm

Dived a foot by 4 you get 3 inches.

Dived a yard by 4 you get 9inches

Metric here wins in my opinion.

Now let's go by 3

1m by 3 is yes 33.3r not great but 1m is 100cm and that's how it is.

1ft by 3 is 4 inches. Sure looks great now.

Except size resolution is far greater in metric in simple forms

Every inch is 2.54 cm obviously they dont round up nicely.

Once we have to go smaller than an inch we need 15/16s of a inch, smaller then a cm we drop down to mm.

10mm makes a cm.

In super practical terms i need a spanner, 16mm is to big, i get the 15 next.

5/8 is to big what do i get next?

(I know the answer)

Also another argument is well whats if you need half a mm etc we just use 0.5m or 0.7mm etc

Very small sizes for most everyone day to day.

Sure it's not great breaking it too 0.whatever, but metric does it so much smaller as imperial made that jump to incorporate a size smaller then an inch.

1/4 inch is just 0.25 inches

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Base 12 has factors: 1,2,3,4,6. Dividing by 5 is tricky.

Base 10 has factors: 1,2,5. Dividing by 3 is tricky.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I was going to mention the base number issue but couldn't be bothered, i had just only woken up

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I think this is it. The 5 factors instead of 3.

I also think there was something to do with fractions of an inch too. Like that divisibility was also an advantage of imperial.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Even these people who are screeching "decimal for everything!" in the thread still use dozenal for time, months, and cartons of eggs.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Division no is the problem in one unit, inch, feet, etc, because use fraccions instead of decimls, but the problem is the conversion from inch, feet to others (yards, miles), which is the source of a lot of errors, like those from the Mars probes or some catastrophigs breaks of bridges in the past, apart of some problems in physics, because using for weught and mass the same unit. No, imperial are not human measures, never has been since humans count with 10 fingers.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Nothing against metric, but base-10 is a complete train wreck of a numbering system. Mathematics in general, and geometry in particular, are gorgeous and elegant in base 12.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Are you even a mathematician if you don't calculate using the sexagesimal system?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Maybe, but imperial not even this, using absolute random units.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Do you people legit believe people used feet&inches, pounds&ounces for over 2000 years for no reason?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

And also ells, rods, cubits, paces, furlongs, oxgangs, lots, batmans... all with subtly different regional definitions (with regions sometimes as small as one village).

People used loosely defined measurements based on things like their own body parts or how much land they guessed their ox could plow on an average day. Things like mathematical convenience or precision were not all that important; being able to measure (or estimate) without tools was.

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