Metrication advocates are at it again

If god had wanted us to be metric he would have given us ten fin... uh... well...

We're supposed to be beyond counting on our fingers, right?

What's the metric value of Pi? Or of Avagadro's number? And how come even the most fanatic of metric freaks still use degrees and radians, instead of grads, if "just move the decimal place" is supposed to be so cool? If the angle is 30 degrees, then is 33.3333333 grads REALLY any easier to deal with? What about when you push the Tan or Cos button on your calculator?

And if we want a REALLY "natural" way of measuring things, and one that's truly appropriate for intergration with the technology of the future, then we should all be using binary dimensions on our prints, or hexadecimal micrometers, and we should all be multiplying and dividing by TWO, instead of ten. Now THAT would make things easier.

And typical units of mass should be expressed in "picoterras" - based on the most natural "basic" mass of all (from a human perspective, at least): the mass of the Earth itself. Yes, we could also use tera-AMU's, indexed on the mass of a (non-heavy) Hydrogen atom. That way, the hydrogen folks and the Earth-first folks would still have something to argue about, and some conversions to get wrong once in a while.

And I want metric time units, too! Who in hell decided that the moon should go around the Earth every 28 days, ferchrissakes? What kind of number is 28? And we need to change the length of a year to something that's divisible by more than just two primes. Criminy! That one makes no sense at all! And if we try to make minutes and seconds work as 60ths of 60ths of 24ths of those goofy astronomical numbers, we'll NEVER know how long anything takes.

The next time somebody asks you what time it is, just tell them it's

83.3 milli-hours till 2^3 o'clock. I'm sure they'll appreciate it, especially if you're calling across three or four time zones.

Bottom line: If it ain't English, it's crap!

Now, where in heck did I put my .472 box wrench?

KG

Reply to
Kirk Gordon
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"Kirk Gordon" wrote

There is no metic Pi! Pi is a ratio, not a measurement. And I beleive Avagadro's number is a count, has nothing to do with metric vs imperial. Your other rationalizations don't hold water either.

BTW, I don't see it as anything to do with "a natural way" of measuring things. It is simply the way most of the world works. If it was the other way around, then we would be pressured to move to the Imperial system and get away from the metric system.

Lane

Reply to
lane

3.14

Millimeters, of course!

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Reply to
jim rozen

This is actually one of the biggest strengths of the metric system. Pi is exactly 3 when expressed in meters. No more irrational, to say nothing of transcendental, numbers at all in fact. If only Pythagoras had used the metric system instead of inches and feet, he wouldn't have despaired over sqrt(2) being inexpressible as the ratio of two numbers.

Avagadro's number would be 5.

Reply to
PhysicsGenius

Phooey. In '66 we adopted decimal currency ($/¢ as opposed to £/s/d) *not* the metric system per se.

Metrication (of other units and measures) didn't happen on a particular "date" - it progressed (initially from 1901!) from the establishment of the Metric Conversion Board in 1970 until its (the Board's) dissolution in 1988.

This is a function of "dressed all 'round" (DAR) versus sawn, and has 'nowt to do with metrication.

We call that "inflation". It was a function of the '70's - not of metric conversion.

Not true. Visit a large chain hardware store, with a decent stock turnover. At the Nuthouse (real name!) I frequent, metric nuts and bolts are the standard. Imperial are available, but are *not* cheaper - nor are they available in the same range. Country of origin has nothing to do with metrication.

Ummm... yes? The problem here is.... ?

There's 30 million of us. What, 260 million Americans? Guess who has the superior product range? (So we buy John Deeres. What of it?)

No-one in your household maybe. Granted, its taken 20 years, but slowly we (old timers) are getting used to it.

I was educated prior to the changeover, and still think in terms of feet and inches. ("This table is three feet wide.") However, when machining, its nothing to work automatically in millimetres. And guess what!? When I do drag out my 1" micrometer, (for nostalgic reasons only) it reads in decimal! Ain't no 1/16ths or 1/32nds or 1/64ths on that instrument!

My little nephew went to school post-metric. The changeover hadn't hit me until I heard him breathlessly exclaim: "I nearly caught him! He was only 2 metres away!" He thinks in metric. So do the majority now.

I've always thought it would have been easier if they'd just waited until all us old farts had just died off, *then* made the made the change to metric.

Jeff

Reply to
A.Gent

"PhysicsGenius" wrote i

Someone is trying to be funny, but it isn't working.

Lane

Reply to
lane

Is that an Imperial gallon? I remembered that there were some failures with hinge pins of booms. After some redesign I gave the info to a draftsman. He asked me what tolerances to use for the bores and for the pins. I showed him that I had indicated a G7/h6 fit. He did not what that was. (This was 40 years ago). Even today that is still the case in many shops in the US or Canada. However even in Europe not everybody uses the metric system properly. There is the 'thousand' rule, e.g. for lengths use meters, kilometers. Or going the other way millimeters or micrometers. And not centimeters or decimeters. However the carpenters in Europe like to use centimeters. About 50 years ago a shipyard figured that pre installing piping in prefabricated sections would speed up the final asy. Needed were plugs to close the open pipes to keep dirt out. It was decided to try that out and from the local carpentry shop a few hundred wooden plugs were ordered of each common pipe size. It took weeks and still no plugs were coming. The carpenters said that the wood was ordered and that as soon as possible they would ship it to us. Finally a phone call: The plugs were ready and were being loaded on the trailers. ???. Yes, they had read the millimeter dimensions as centimeters and each resulting plug weighed 1000 times as much.

Reply to
John

You're fighting a losing battle. :-)

It's already here, at least in ISO 9000 compliant shops. The mom and pop shops will all disappear anyway, to China, where they are more than happy to comply with metrics.

Reply to
Abrasha

Yes, of course, that's it! It's socialistic elitist lunacy. Now why didn't I think of that? Abrasha

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Reply to
Abrasha

Maybe Mr. Lundberg's IQ tops out at 64.

Abrasha

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Reply to
Abrasha

They'll be happy enough to make stuff in Imperial too, if it please you, and provided your order has enough zeros at the end. Might cost a bit more than metric, or not, depending. Won't be less.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Why wouldn't it be less?

Reply to
PhysicsGenius

Spark plugs, yeah. The US ceramic industry didn't have anything that would stand up to internal combustion stresses, and the Europeans, who did, weren't interested in producing anything with an inch thread. By the time we'd caught up to them in ceramics, the auto industry had standardized on metric threaded plugs.

Now I did no someone who had a car that didn't use metric threaded plugs -- it was a Stanley.

Al Moore

Q: What do the United States, Burma and Upper Volta have in common? A: They are the three most technologically advanced nations not using the SI units.

Reply to
Alan Moore

1000 mL in a liter, holds 1 kilogram of water

1000 meters in a kilometer, 100 centimeters in a meter so 100,000 cm in a km.
4 liters, since each liter is 10 x 10 x 10 cm then the tank would be 10 x 10 x 40 cm

The tank full of water would weigh 4 kilograms, if gasoline then 2.8 kilograms.

Reply to
bw

And the speed of light is "10" All answers are "23" or is it "46" ??

Reply to
bw

It's a metric country- stock, cutters, everything is metric. Most volume of fasteners etc. is in metric. Chances are it won't cost less to make, all other things being equal. That's been my experience in sourcing things like fasteners, anyhow. Custom parts won't matter much.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

I think 12 inches in a foot is a great thing. 12 is a great number (divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6). Why aren't inches divided into 12ths also? 10 is a much easier number than 16 or 8 or 32. I vote for decimals, it just seems right to use 10ths. How many fingers do you have.

Eide

Oops, I realized who I was writing to. There might be a few out there who don't have 10 fingers anymore.

incremental

Reply to
Eide

I thought it was 47

Reply to
Eide

  1. Consult the sources.

Reply to
A.Gent

And the weight of maple surup?

Gunner

"Gun Control, the theory that a 110lb grandmother should fist fight a 250lb 19yr old criminal"

Reply to
Gunner

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