As I guess you did also, I grew up with both. Metric was taught in school, Imperial was what my family used. Metric is clearly better in many ways, not least as soon as you start converting between length / mass / volume. But the one area Imperial wins is division. You can cleanly divide 10 by just 5 and 2, whereas 12 (inches in a foot) has factors of 6, 4, 3, 2...
A third of a yard is a foot. A third of a foot is 4 inches. A third of a metre is 333.3recurring mm.
Hah. Yes, Imperial is wildly inconsistent, and in practice almost as bad as the pig's ear of 19thC measurements metric was made to fix. But... I dunno, maybe there's a weird argument to be made for annoying everyone like that to encourage more thinking. Because I can remember learning how to convert from grams to pounds, and doing that maths in my head on the fly - and now, since I haven't done it for about 20 years now, it's all gone from my memory. Metric is terrifically useful, and almost completely sensible, but it doesn't give your mind a workout when you try to use it...
The same argument applies for keeping individual currencies instead of turning everything into the Euro (or something else).
I'm not sure it's an argument that has many friends, mind you! I don't think many would agree with me (and I'm not even sure I agree with myself, I'm just throwing these ideas around a bit)...
Yeah. Pounds <=> kilos isn't hard, a kilogram is 2.2lbs so for most practical purposes you can just double / halve it for a reasonable estimation.
The "mental workout" argument is an interesting one. I started school in the 1970s and we were tarred with the "kids of today" brush even back then. Unfairly, I might add, most of us came away reasonably proficient at ay mental arithmetic (though I'm a geek so y'know...) I went to the corner shop a few days ago, bought two items at £1.40 and 65p, and the lass reached for a calculator. I quietly rolled my eyes thinking "really?"
But the Matrix's Oracle "bake your noodle" question is: she has a calculator, why should she _need_ to be able to do it in her head? I was appalled that she couldn't (and hey maybe she actually could and it was just store policy to check everything) but I'm struggling to put into words why it really actually matters any more.
Einstein purportedly didn't know his own phone number, which on the face of it is shocking. But why would he need to when he could just look it up? When is he ever going to call himself?
We were very well on our way to go metric before the idea was tossed out. It was back in the 1970s when I was in grade school and we were being prepared for the eminent switchover to the metric system. The tens times tables were super critical to know, we were told. (Somehow, I also mix it up with the terrifying impending doom of the eventual nuclear war with USSR. Another important piece of school curriculum we were taught. I also may have thought that if I learned the metric system we would win the Cold War.) Yet, before the biggest war of them all (the Cola wars), the soda companies were "all in" on the metric idea and prepared for it. And that, my friends, is why we have 2-liter bottles of soda on grocery shelves in the US of A.
As I guess you did also, I grew up with both. Metric was taught in school, Imperial was what my family used. Metric is clearly better in many ways, not least as soon as you start converting between length / mass / volume. But the one area Imperial wins is division. You can cleanly divide 10 by just 5 and 2, whereas 12 (inches in a foot) has factors of 6, 4, 3, 2...
A third of a yard is a foot. A third of a foot is 4 inches. A third of a metre is 333.3recurring mm.
Well said, and I hadn't thought of it that way. Thanks, Alan!
I mean, it's still rubbish. 😁
Eg, I used to shoot field archery, standard arrow gauges were 5/16" and 11/32" - which is thicker? Hang on, let me get my slide rule...
Then there's the rampant inconsistency. The UK and the US both use pints but they're different measurements? What?
And "cups" can get in the sea.
Hah. Yes, Imperial is wildly inconsistent, and in practice almost as bad as the pig's ear of 19thC measurements metric was made to fix. But... I dunno, maybe there's a weird argument to be made for annoying everyone like that to encourage more thinking. Because I can remember learning how to convert from grams to pounds, and doing that maths in my head on the fly - and now, since I haven't done it for about 20 years now, it's all gone from my memory. Metric is terrifically useful, and almost completely sensible, but it doesn't give your mind a workout when you try to use it...
The same argument applies for keeping individual currencies instead of turning everything into the Euro (or something else).
I'm not sure it's an argument that has many friends, mind you! I don't think many would agree with me (and I'm not even sure I agree with myself, I'm just throwing these ideas around a bit)...
Yeah. Pounds <=> kilos isn't hard, a kilogram is 2.2lbs so for most practical purposes you can just double / halve it for a reasonable estimation.
The "mental workout" argument is an interesting one. I started school in the 1970s and we were tarred with the "kids of today" brush even back then. Unfairly, I might add, most of us came away reasonably proficient at ay mental arithmetic (though I'm a geek so y'know...) I went to the corner shop a few days ago, bought two items at £1.40 and 65p, and the lass reached for a calculator. I quietly rolled my eyes thinking "really?"
But the Matrix's Oracle "bake your noodle" question is: she has a calculator, why should she _need_ to be able to do it in her head? I was appalled that she couldn't (and hey maybe she actually could and it was just store policy to check everything) but I'm struggling to put into words why it really actually matters any more.
Einstein purportedly didn't know his own phone number, which on the face of it is shocking. But why would he need to when he could just look it up? When is he ever going to call himself?
Eh. We live in interesting times.
We were very well on our way to go metric before the idea was tossed out. It was back in the 1970s when I was in grade school and we were being prepared for the eminent switchover to the metric system. The tens times tables were super critical to know, we were told. (Somehow, I also mix it up with the terrifying impending doom of the eventual nuclear war with USSR. Another important piece of school curriculum we were taught. I also may have thought that if I learned the metric system we would win the Cold War.) Yet, before the biggest war of them all (the Cola wars), the soda companies were "all in" on the metric idea and prepared for it. And that, my friends, is why we have 2-liter bottles of soda on grocery shelves in the US of A.
I had no idea about this! Thank you.
I followed up, and just saw that a law did in fact pass in 1975 - which fell totally flat because it was voluntary (*facepalm*): https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/25/18693533/metric-system-measurement-us-conversion-act-verge-science