No matter how you cut it, measurements are irregular and none can conform to a single rule...much like languages or certainly parts thereof. There are 365.25 days in a rotation of the sun by the earth. not a number easily divisible by 10 which is the decimal system in a nutshell. Good luck with arranging a calendar of 100 days, or weeks of 10 days.
I work in my engine building hobby hobby with both decimal systems and imperial. There is also decimal imperial as opposed to fractional. Both make sense. Imperial is more organic.. surely all the rage these days.
However you are forgetting one area that metric does quite nicely.
1 cubic meter of fresh water at sea level is 1000 KG or 1 metric ton (or more properly, a tonne). Volume to Mass.
Yeah, I know the old phrase "a pint's a pound the world around", but doing engineering, the type where three digits is enough (and four too many, and five is WAY out), the mass to volume above makes for easy rules of thumb. Yeah, you do the math afterwards, but the metric equivalence above is very useful. I deal... well used to... deal in sea ships, coal, cars, and containers. The "pint is a pound" really isn't helpful there. Mind you, everything is still in TEU, or Twenty-foot Equivalent Units, but they do have metric standards.
And don't get me started on baking. Metric and by weight, thank you very much.
So I must cordially disagree. I remain in favor, outside of time and navigation issues, the metric system.
At any industrial scale, metric measurements work best precisely because you simply throw a Kilo or a Mega or a Giga at it are you're good. I'm not sure I mentioned it here but tires are measured in both imperial and metric units simultaneously. A 225-50R17 for example. And of course I like to talk about the fact that firearms use both. I have two pistols, a .45 and a 9mm. I think whatever lasts in the long term is best, discipline by discipline.
I have recently started up with mixing cocktails and they have their own peculiar measurements. I never quite figured out how much is a jigger or a gil, so I went metric. It's a lot of fun to use lab-style graduated cylinders for the measuring tasks.
As I've been thinking about it, there's no reason not to have imperial-style fractional terms applied to metric measures. The trick will be to reuse the current terms, invent new catchy ones or revive archaic ones. What would you call a 36th of a meter?
An inch is your thumb, a yard is from shoulder to fingertip and a foot is your foot. And time is not metric, neither navigation. Metric makes sense, but a lot of life needs rough estimation. That's where Imperial comes in handly.
No matter how you cut it, measurements are irregular and none can conform to a single rule...much like languages or certainly parts thereof. There are 365.25 days in a rotation of the sun by the earth. not a number easily divisible by 10 which is the decimal system in a nutshell. Good luck with arranging a calendar of 100 days, or weeks of 10 days.
I work in my engine building hobby hobby with both decimal systems and imperial. There is also decimal imperial as opposed to fractional. Both make sense. Imperial is more organic.. surely all the rage these days.
However you are forgetting one area that metric does quite nicely.
1 cubic meter of fresh water at sea level is 1000 KG or 1 metric ton (or more properly, a tonne). Volume to Mass.
Yeah, I know the old phrase "a pint's a pound the world around", but doing engineering, the type where three digits is enough (and four too many, and five is WAY out), the mass to volume above makes for easy rules of thumb. Yeah, you do the math afterwards, but the metric equivalence above is very useful. I deal... well used to... deal in sea ships, coal, cars, and containers. The "pint is a pound" really isn't helpful there. Mind you, everything is still in TEU, or Twenty-foot Equivalent Units, but they do have metric standards.
And don't get me started on baking. Metric and by weight, thank you very much.
So I must cordially disagree. I remain in favor, outside of time and navigation issues, the metric system.
At any industrial scale, metric measurements work best precisely because you simply throw a Kilo or a Mega or a Giga at it are you're good. I'm not sure I mentioned it here but tires are measured in both imperial and metric units simultaneously. A 225-50R17 for example. And of course I like to talk about the fact that firearms use both. I have two pistols, a .45 and a 9mm. I think whatever lasts in the long term is best, discipline by discipline.
I have recently started up with mixing cocktails and they have their own peculiar measurements. I never quite figured out how much is a jigger or a gil, so I went metric. It's a lot of fun to use lab-style graduated cylinders for the measuring tasks.
As I've been thinking about it, there's no reason not to have imperial-style fractional terms applied to metric measures. The trick will be to reuse the current terms, invent new catchy ones or revive archaic ones. What would you call a 36th of a meter?
Here's an excellent book on American history of measurement and how we almost were first to use the Metric system. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/498350.Measuring_America
An inch is your thumb, a yard is from shoulder to fingertip and a foot is your foot. And time is not metric, neither navigation. Metric makes sense, but a lot of life needs rough estimation. That's where Imperial comes in handly.
I agree generally...however time is navigation and that is distance, but not volume. I have tried to become "Ambi-standard" as both have strengths.
Michael has written a great ponderable here!
Amen! Standard measurements are much easier to comprehend and use in the Imperial system.
Amen! Standard measurements are much easier to comprehend and use in the Imperial system.