Why still using the imperial system?

Good example with the Bridge, it's exact the point with the USC units, source of fatal errors.

I don't like the bridge example because the values were chosen (intentionally or not) conveniently for metric. Change it to every 4 feet or 1.3 metres and it's no longer convenient in either system. There are better examples that demonstrate the superiority of metric.

For example, pool cleaner says 1 unit per 10,000 gal or 40,000 L.

21' diameter, 3' tall. So ~1000 ft³. Multiply by 1728/231 for gallons.

7 m diameter, 1 m tall. So ~40 m³. Multiply by 1000 for litres.

If you're curious where 1728/231 comes from, there are 12³ (1728) in³ for a ft³. Then the gallon is defined as 231 in³

This is exactly my experience. I've worked for four different manufacturing companies in the Midwest. Three of them were multi billion dollar companies. All four of those companies used metric almost exclusively.

Such a stupid misconception that is constantly reposted

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.

Base 12 is better than base 10. In an alternate universe we use it for everything and it’s a utopia. There is world peace and no one is hungry.

12 is evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. 10 is only evenly divisible by 2 and 5.

(Fun fact, Tetris in that alternate universe doesn’t have the stupid Z and S Tetronimos. People are happy there.)

Yanks stop trying to claim things as your own.

6096 mm does sound really stupid when you could just say 6.096 m.

I get angry when hardware uses imperial units because I can't use my metric tools, which are way the fuck easier. Who wants to use 5/8" when you can use 16?

England still has their speed limits in mph and all road signs are in miles and yards…

I had never considered this before, but you're absolutely right

But if isn't.

• start by putting metric units next to the SAE units in the labels
• Eventually people get used to the units and then you phase out the use of them.

All science and most of the mechanical engineering is done in metric already. If you have a car made in the last 20 years ask the fasteners are already metric. So it really isn't that hard..

With that attitude it will be. Just because it's a hassle does not mean it's not worth doing.

No, you are not permitted these decisions because you are something.

Its still bias

What's so special about the 0 - 100 range? For either system, there's temperatures that have significance.

-20 C is getting dangerously cold (wear all winter gear available if you must be outside for anything longer than brief durations).

-10 C is very cold (winter coat, gloves, hat).

0 C is freezing (winter coat necessary, gloves and hat optional).

10 C is chilly (winter coat unzipped, or jacket and sweater).

20 C is comfortable (t-shirt and pants).

22 C is about room temperature (shorts become viable above this).

30 C is hot (nude comfortable; minimize clothing).

40 C is getting dangerously hot (depending on humidity and personal heat tolerance) (clothing that protects from heat might be more desirable than minimising clothing).

I really like Farenheit system for temperatures. 0 is really cold and 100 is really hot, but both survivable. It's a human-centric system.

I used to make this argument, that Fahrenheit made more sense for weather, but I decided to be (somewhat) scientific about it and test the hypothesis (with a sample size of 1).

So I switched everything I own over to Celsius and set about teaching myself.

This was back in 2019, and here I am still using Celsius 5 years later. I like it a lot more than Fahrenheit.

A couple of major reasons: first, you don’t actually need the precision Fahrenheit gives you for weather. The difference between 68°F and 69°F is so small that degrees Fahrenheit have very little meaning. It was startling to me how quickly I came to understand the differences between degrees Celsius because they have a lower resolution. And of course you can always use half degrees if you need to, but honestly it’s fine without.

What I realized is that, very often, the temperatures that you see on weather reports or apps are really just the Celsius degree values converted and rounded. For example, you’re far more likely to see 68°F or 70°F rather than 69°F, since 20°C=68°F and 21°C=69.8°F. This isn’t true for every weather source, but it was still interesting.

But more importantly, 0 is freezing.

This never seemed like it mattered when I was using Fahrenheit. I know 32°F is freezing, if it’s below that it’s gonna be snowing instead of raining. But the first winter I experienced in Celsius was eye-opening.

I realized that temperatures below freezing in Fahrenheit never really meant much to me. This is sort of hard to explain, but while I knew they were progressively colder there wasn’t much specific understanding. That is, 23°F doesn’t really mean anything to me.

But -5°C? That instinctively meant something to me the very first time I experienced it in Celsius. That’s going to be as far below freezing as 5°C is above freezing. No math involved. Simple. Valuable. Obviously you can do the math to figure the same thing out in Fahrenheit, but with Celsius you don’t need to.

Once you get to know the numbers, it’s just as good as an other system of measurement, and I find I like it more for the weather than I like Fahrenheit.

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

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.

Try working in metric for any significant amount of time and you may change your mind.

Human scale? Not yours or mines, measures of the ffoot, thumbs and random desires of a dead British King in the far past. No problem in metrics, at least if I don't build a hut in the wood with an axe, then maybe using parts of the body for measures are usefull. Not the first furniture I made, also working in metal. Also in mathematic and physic the metric system is way better (Even NASA now uses the metric system since 2 probes crashed on Marte due to calculation errors in the imperial system)

I am willing to bet that you are simply more used to the imperial system.

I am not convinced that it has any objective advantage over the metric system.

My foot is about 50% larger than my SO's, but I can perfectly invision 30cm whenever I want or need to.

Woodworker in US here, and I prefer metric. Also consider the thickness of plywood is actually in metric now - "3/4" is actually 18 mm but they have to market it as 23/32.

I've chosen to join the other 8 billion people on earth.

Dude, WTF are you talking about? When I was a machinist it was so much easier to deal with metric. 1 inch ~ 25 mm, from there it is just way easier to deal with measurements such as 27.5 mm instead of 1 5/64 inches and all of these inverse powers of 2. I was always jealous of the French machinist I worked with talking about how the only units you should ever have to work with is meters and millimeters. If you are concerned about "Human Scale" then intuitively a meter and a yard are close enough for estimates and you don't have to deal with "wait, what is 5/8 + 3/16 + 1 7/64?"

Are you telling us that you are actually making, say a box, by measuring it with your hands and feet? That’s barbaric! I’m guessing you actually use a tape measure like the rest of us.

Woodworking, sure. You have a piece of wood 2' 5 5/8“ long that you need to cut into quarters. Can you calculate that in your head? Metric is SOOOO much easier.

I like imperial for big things. like you said it's easier. For small things like 3d printing and such I prefer metric (basically anything with increments smaller than 1/16"). It just depends on what scale you need to work on.