52 Comments on “Treason in Base Ten”   rss feed

1. Lubos Motl on May 26th, 2006 at 10:26 am

   The metric system is intuitive, removes some hassle from the life, and allows the people to think about other things or nothing at all, if they prefer so. It will be even better when people use the Planck units.

2. Zeno on May 26th, 2006 at 10:49 am

   Former Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene used to go nuts whenever the metric system was mentioned. He frequently wrote that people should join WAM (”We Ain’t Metric!”), his rhetorical vehicle for attacking the use of SI units. Greene’s anti-metric campaign was echoed in a small way by no-talent commentator Jonah Goldberg, who wrote a stupid argument against the metric system. It contained such trenchant points as “Today, the meter is defined as the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458-th of a second. Isn’t that a handy rule of thumb when buying a string of sausage?”

   Oh, yeah, like you have to know that in order to work with a unit of measurement just a bit longer than a yard. It’s like the Australian farm woman who complained that her hens were laying smaller eggs ever since the country adopted the metric system.

3. Alex R on May 26th, 2006 at 11:09 am

   Yes, I agree, it would be good to use the system that everyone else in the world does, but I’m not so sure that the metric system is the “best” we could come up with.

   The big problem with the metric system is that annoying number ten — divisible by 2 and 5, but it’s frequently nice to break things up into 1/3’s, which the *nice* number twelve allows us to do — this makes inches not so bad.

   No, clearly, if we want both arithmetic and our system of units to be simpler, we must stop tying ourselves to evolutionary accidents like the number of fingers on our hands. We should abandon the decimal system and adopt a more convenient base, like base twelve.

   Then the duo-decimal version of the metric system would be a *good* system — as long as we stop using base-ten numbering.

4. Ken Muldrew on May 26th, 2006 at 11:14 am

   Having had extensive experience with both imperial and metric, here is what I have found for everyday use:

   - Celsius temperature is far more convenient than Farenheit.
   - Inches and feet are more convenient than centimeters and decimeters, but millimeters are more convenient than eighths, sixteenths, etc. Yards and meters are a wash. Miles and kilometers happily coexist. For highway travel the mile-a-minute speed makes that more convenient for converting distances to times but it’s also nice to have speeds in km/hr so that everything is divisibly by 10.
   - Liters are close enough to quarts but being able to easily go down to milliliters is convenient. Gallons remain very useful in everyday life.
   - Kilograms are convenient to convert between volumes (in liters) and weights when you assume that all liquids have the density of water. Pounds remain a good, intuitive measure of weight but all small things are done in grams.
   - With areas it’s sure a lot easier to mentally calculate linear dimensions in meters from areas in hectares, but everyone has a good intuition for the rough size of a section, a quarter-section, and an acre, so those are used a lot (especially since that’s the way all the land is divided–changing over would be like moving to a metric clock).

   Basically, the systems seem to coexist quite naturally at equilibrium. The only situation where the old units have been virtually eliminated is with temperature. In everyday life there isn’t a lot of calculation involving a change of scale, so the most convenient scale for units is that which corresponds to the natural scales of our experience. Sometimes those don’t divide evenly by 10. For scientists and engineers, of course, metric units make their professional lives vastly easier, but it turns out that as long as you don’t have a rabidly conservative population (”conservative” as in not liking change), then the imperial and metric systems can coexist quite easily with everyone getting the best of both worlds.

   “But if it be thought that, either now, or at any future time, the
   citizens of the United States may be induced to undertake a thorough
   reformation of their whole system of measures, weights and coins,
   reducing every branch to the same decimal ratio already established
   in their coins, and thus bringing the calculation of the principal
   affairs of life within the arithmetic of every man who can multiply
   and divide plain numbers, greater changes will be necessary.”
   U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, 1790

5. Ken Muldrew on May 26th, 2006 at 11:17 am

   Sorry to followup my own post, but it just occurred to me that cooking temperatures are still done almost exclusively in Farenheit. It’s really just environmental temperatures that are in Celsius.

6. Moshe on May 26th, 2006 at 11:19 am

   That’s funny, I hadn’t realized this evokes such strong patriotic feelings. I made the point only yesterday, in a different context, that such strong belief systems can be manipulated to support almost anything. This is an excellent example where some remnant of the British imperial system somehow became a symbol of American independence.

   (I like the system in Canada where usually both sets of units are used, though I am sure there is a long history there as well).

7. Elliot on May 26th, 2006 at 11:20 am

   And we people in Chicago know what the outcome was with Bob Greene….

8. Perry on May 26th, 2006 at 11:22 am

   The day I knew metric wouldn’t work here? 1977, driving down I-75 in Dayton Ohio, sign says “metric signs next 100 miles”…….

9. Cynthia on May 26th, 2006 at 11:26 am

   When NASA announced that the root cause for the loss of the Mars Climate Explorer was the failure to use metric units, this mishap should have lead to the adoption of a public mandate: the mandate to dispense with an antiquated system of weights and measures!!!

10. Ambitwistor on May 26th, 2006 at 11:28 am

    (Anyways, like I was saying) Ahem. The Standard Metric System, a song by Logan Whitehurst. (yeah, yeah)

    The Standard Metric System measures distances and weights,
    For mass and volume, length and height, it’s used to calculate.
    Compared to standard U.S. measures, one can plainly see
    The metric system’s blunt efficiency.

    Yard vs. meter, quart vs. liter,
    The pound squares off against the kilogram, you see.
    A decimal equation defines the U.S. nation,
    As fools afraid to change their terminology.

    The world has the kilometer, and we have got our mile.
    The time has come to face the facts, and face them with a smile.
    So if those foreign weirdos try to ask us to conform,
    We’ll blow their stupid countries all to hell.

    (Very good, very good, exceptional) (It’s so true) (I know)

11. JustAnotherInfidel on May 26th, 2006 at 11:30 am

    This seems like a pretty pointless academic discussion. Remind me: Why are we concerned about this? Is it just so we can be like the rest of the world? I thought the liberal paradigm was firmly at odds with conformity? Or is it just so Dr. Carroll could snipe the Reagan Administration?

    Suppose for a minute we’re not all theoretical physicists. Why should I want to measure things in meters and degrees celsius? Do I want to have to learn a whole new system of weights and measures, just because the government told me that I had to be like the rest of the world, or because a bunch of academics think that I should?

12. The Anti-Infidel on May 26th, 2006 at 12:00 pm

    JustAnotherInfidel: This seems like a pretty pointless academic discussion.

    Then one wonders why you decided to participate in it.

    Remind me: Why are we concerned about this? Is it just so we can be like the rest of the world?

    Yes, that’s the one and only reason for favoring the metric system. Never mind its ridiculous mathematical simplicity. The lib’ral science establishment just wants to weaken us against terrorism.

    Or is it just so Dr. Carroll could snipe the Reagan Administration?

    Even if this were Sean’s entire reason for formulating a post about the metric system, that would be fine with me.

    Do I want to have to learn a whole new system of weights and measures, just because the government told me that I had to be like the rest of the world, or because a bunch of academics think that I should?

    Ah, yes, I forgot that American participation in science, technology, and commerce is dictated by what YOU want! Sorry about that.

13. inboxnews on May 26th, 2006 at 12:34 pm

    posted on digg: http://digg.com/science/Treason_in_Base_Ten

14. Rob Knop on May 26th, 2006 at 12:52 pm

    Not only should we go metric…

    …but we should have evolved with 6 fingers on each hand. Then our numbering system would be base-12, as would be the metric system.

    12 is divisible evenly by 2, 3, 4, and 6, whereas 10 is divisible evenly only by 2 and 5. That would make base-12 a much more convenient “standard” numbering system, if only our damn hands didn’t have five fingers each.

    Oh well.

    But, anyway, Sean, as soembody who’s written a GR textbook, I’m ashamed that you didn’t do G=c=1 instead of hbar=c=1! Man, you quantum supremists are scary.

    I’ve been accused by my TAs of measuring everything in redshift. When you’re talking the Universe, redshift is a good measure of distance and of time…. Somebody came to give a talk last year about the speculation that a GRB was responsible for one of the mass extinctions. I asked a question early on about when the extinction was, and the speaker saw me thinking in my head… he quickly interjected, “z=0.42″, which satisfied what I was after. The TA of my class, who was there, rolled his eyes.

    So, what I’m saying is, I want to see the SPEED LIMIT signs on the side of the highway replaced with signs that say:

    z

15. Torbjörn Larsson on May 26th, 2006 at 12:53 pm

    Interesting to see that there is an actual dislike for an international standard. Not only does it help when communicating, there is conversions that you don’t have to do, see the rocket mishap above on both. What is the point of nonconforming here?

    BTW seeing some comments above, we don’t use the metric MKS system any more. Today we use the SI system. liter and celsius is everyday support units, cubic decimeter and kelvin are ‘correct’ units for calculations. The unit name is always singular and lower case, for example it is 10 kilometer, not 10 kilometers.

    Not that you need to learn all that to start using it…

16. Rob Knop on May 26th, 2006 at 12:53 pm

    How sad. Wordpress didn’t htmlize my left bracket.

    That was

    z<0.000000082

17. Rob Knop on May 26th, 2006 at 12:55 pm

    Interesting to see that there is an actual dislike for an international standard. Not only does it help when communicating, there is conversions that you don’t have to do, see the rocket mishap above on both. What is the point of nonconforming here?

    It’s not what we’re used to.

    That’s ultimately the objection, I think. We learned something else, and dammit, don’t make us learn another one. All the other “rational” arguments are the products of cognitive dissonnance trying to make our “waah, don’t make me change” reaction into something that sounds reasonable.

    I think it’s the same reason for the popular outcry about reclassifying Pluto as “not a planet”. “Waah! The only astronomy I remember from school is the names of the nine planets, and I learned that in first grade! You can’t change that, any more than you can change 2+2=4!!!!!”

    Of course, if you classify Pluto as a planet, then by any rational and reasonable modern classification, the Solar System has way more than 9 planets.

18. Christopher L on May 26th, 2006 at 1:09 pm

    As a Canadian who has went through the education system during “metric times”, I have some observations about how things are changing away from imperial. There is certainly no equilibrium from my perspective. Imperial measurements are dying out. There just a few hold-outs.

    meters are getting to be popular as a way of specifying distance, except with human heights. I have trouble understanding what a foot is. I usually treat it as a third of a meter when I hear it in conversation. Same with inches. I have a mnemonic device to help remember that blasted length for when I talk with the 35+ crowd or with contractors. I have absolutely no notion of a gallon. I know it’s a few liters, but it is completely alien. Same deal with the rest of the volume measurements. My gas, orange juice, and water bill all come in litres.

    Pounds are still common for measuring human body weight and for sticks of butter, but I measure everything else in grams.

    Celsius has completely devastated Fahrenheit here. I have no intuition when it comes to that unit what-so-ever. Completely alien. Once in a while I see a weather report from the US and it is like watching the romans applying some ancient and occult methods of measurement. All I know is that 100+ is a scorching hot day I don’t know what body temperature is in F, freezing, etc.

    Distances and fuel economies are all metric now. Miles are ancient history. The highways have 100kph or 110 kph limits. My car gets 9l/100km, and gas is about $1/l. So costing a trip is easy — divide the total distance by ten (or 9 to be exact), and you have the dollar cost of the trip. Its so easy I can do it in my head. Even calculating the economy is pretty simple. when I fill up, divide the number of liters purchased by the odometer and multiply by 100. I can tell people I get 9l/100 and most people understand what I mean. My dad doesn’t.

    these days the only time my height or weight comes up is on forms, and those forms are preferentially metric, so I’m starting to think of my height and weight in metric more and more. I will certainly try to shield my future children from having to deal with feet and pounds — the last two hold-outs in my mind.

    People building houses seem also to use imperial still. I imagine it will be hard to change that in the short term.

19. Christopher L on May 26th, 2006 at 1:29 pm

    Oops, misstated the fuel economy stuff. If you do a 500km trip and get 9l/100km, then it costs 45l=9l*5. I figured something was wrong when I was typing that.

20. Pingback from inboxnews blog » Treason in Base Ten on May 26th, 2006 at 2:31 pm

    [...] Hey, anyone remember the metric system? Imagine a world governed by units that come neatly packaged by factors of ten, rather than the charmingly anthropocentric system of ounces and inches and acres that we favor here in the U.S.read more | digg story Tags [...]

21. Jeff Nuttall on May 26th, 2006 at 2:56 pm

    I don’t know what body temperature is in F

    Neither do most people who are used to the Fahrenheit scale, even if they think they do. The commonly repeated figure is “98.6 degrees Fahrenheit”, but in fact that figure comes from an error in converting from Celsius to Fahrenheit! The number originated in a German study that found normal body temperature to be 37 degrees Celsius, but when that number got converted to Fahrenheit for reporting elsewhere a spurious third significant figure got added, despite the fact that the results of the study were only originally reported to two significant figures. Actually, average human body temperature is around 98.2 degrees Fahrenheit, though there’s a lot of variation, and anywhere from 97.6 to 98.8 degrees can be considered normal.

    Okay, that’s kind of a tangent, but I thought it was interesting…

22. Alejandro Rivero on May 26th, 2006 at 3:15 pm

    Funny I agree with Alex R (not me!) about using 12 instead of 10. Furthermore, this is the motivation for the sexagesimal system: to get neat divides by 2,3,4,5,6. Great for doing lots and avoiding to tip the waiter.

    There was a rumour that even today somebody in London was conspiring so that 1 cent of euro is 1/144 of pound!

23. JustAnotherInfidel on May 26th, 2006 at 3:16 pm

    Anti-Infidel:

    Is there any evidence that the imperial system of units prohibits or limits our participation in math, science, or commerce? Did Canadian childeren suddnely become players on the world stage when they started counting their heights in meters and buying their gas in liters? Do American companies actually lose business because we want to sell in pounds and foreign companies want to buy in kilograms? Has anybody here ever heard of someone losing a job to someone else who was more familiar with metric units?

    Second, I was trying to frame this debate outside of an academic setting, by using a rhetorical device (that aparently you missed)—most Americans do not need to communicate lengths and measures outside of this country, so why should some person from Kansas buying apples in a supermarket be forced to convert weights (and, equivalently, prices) from pounds to kilograms, just so a bunch of academics can say “Well at least we’re in line with the rest of the world…”

    (This is the point. Nothing about a liberal science establishment—I’ll reread my post to make sure…)

    If your only motivation is “It makes us like everyone else in the world”, what happens when that motivation is removed? What happens when most of the country doesn’t share your need to communicate with people who use different units? And think about this—”Albert Pujols hits a home run over 150 meters!!!” doesn’t quite sound as prodigious as ” over 500 ft.!!!” What will our professional athletes do?

    My suspicion is that we will eventually get metric units across the board, but not in my lifetime. (And for the record, I don’t actually hate metric units—my policy is that if lab students use inches, feet or ounces in their reports, we go outside and burn their paper.) Anyone who needs metric units is already pretty familiar with them, and I just don’t see Americans en masse supporting such a sweeping change.

    Finally, I appologize for calling this a “pointless academic discussion”… Just another reminder that I should think about the comments that I post before I actually post them.

24. Alejandro Rivero on May 26th, 2006 at 3:27 pm

    Now, if you want to go to base ten, I sould propose to start day-to-day, speaking of centihours and milihours instead of minutes and seconds. Better, decidays, centidays, millidays and microdays. One second is about 11.57 microdays. One minute is about 0.694 millidays, and one hour is 4.166 centidays. Once we are used to it, we can go for the coordinate system, these pesky East West coordinates and all that. And lets move the meridian to Canarias or Madeira, to get positive sign for all Euroasia and Negative sign to USA.

    But wait! The unit of the International System is the second. So well lets measure in kiloseconds, megaseconds and all that. It is a lot better to say 3.6 kiloseconds than one hour. “I’d be back in a few hectoseconds, dear”.

25. Emily on May 26th, 2006 at 3:45 pm

    Measuring units are a very interesting thing in Puerto Rico. The system there makes perfect sense to me, because I grew up with it, but when I explain it to people in the States I get puzzled looks, hehe. For example:

    - Speed limits are in miles per hour, but distance signs in highways are in kilometers.
    - Weather-related temperature is in Fahrenheit, but body temperature is in Celsius.

    This leads to some interesting situations. For example, 40 degrees of temperature are bad for Puerto Ricans regardless of the units. If it refers to weather, 40 (F ) is freezing cold (this is probably the lowest recorded temperature ever in the island). If it refers to body temperature, with 40 (C ) you’re dying of a fever. The first time I got sick after moving to the States, I had a temperature of 102 and I had no idea what that meant until I realized it was Fahrenheit and I needed to convert it to Celsius in order to understand it.

    With respect to distances, it’s about 50 km from my parents’ home to where I went to undergrad in UPR Mayaguez, and it takes a little less than an hour to drive that at 55mph if there’s traffic. People usually estimate off the top of their heads how long it will take to drive somewhere, even though distances and speeds are in different unit systems. Also, even though the distances are measured in kilometers, the usual quote for the size of the [rectangular-shaped] island is “100 x 35″ — but those are miles. For the longest time this confused me, and when someone asked how big is Puerto Rico I would say “100 x 35 but don’t ask me the units because I’m not sure”.

    Also, gas is purchased by the liter, which resulted in quite a shock to me the first time I was in the States a few years ago and saw a gas station sign that said “$1.89″, because naively I thought this was not for gallons but for liters, as it is in PR (where gas was $0.45/liter at the time).

    Oh, and people’s heights are in feet and their weights are in pounds. The area of a house is in square feet, but the area of the land the house is on is in “hectareas”, which I believe is metric. Ahh, but when you talk about larger areas still, they are in square miles.

    I’m sure there’s many other examples, but these are the ones that I remember most.

26. fh on May 26th, 2006 at 3:47 pm

    JAI, I think it’s just a matter of a more convenient system in the end. What you say is that the conversion is so inconvenient that it’s not outweighed by the convenience benefits and that that minority of the population (eg. embarassed lab students or NASA scientists) that has to communicate with the rest of the world just has to deal with the added inconvenience of having to use two systems.

    Fair enough, there is no reason that it should be so, but to little reason to change it either.

    Now paper sizes on the other hand….

27. Amara on May 26th, 2006 at 3:59 pm

    Paper sizes AND number of hole punches. And don’t forget electrical outlet configurations. Even if everyone on this continent agrees to be on the same power scale, Switzerland and Italy and Britain just want to be different….

28. spyder on May 26th, 2006 at 4:17 pm

    You would have thought I had called the Pope a Communist.

    That was nearly it too. The most common rejection of the metric system, particularly in the media, was that it was a Soviet, Commie plot. During the first (fake) embargo of oil and gas, many stations attempted to cover up the rapidly escalating price, by selling gas in liters. This was tantamount to treason indeed, and though people needed to buy the fuel, and had ration cards to do so, they resisted these Commie pinko stations as much as possible.

    Ironically it was the 80’s that produced a generation of people who could convert kilos to pounds to ounces to grams without having to use calculators, triple beam scales and currency converters being the tools of that trade. Likewise our beverage manufacturers have gone out of their way to sell products in liters and ounces, cross-referencing all the containers because the UPC labeling, pricing, and accounting features of markets require the conversions. I laughed when 40ozs were reduced to one-liter containers priced the same; a sweet deal for the retailers and corporations. And lastly, my sports of swimming and waterpolo, converted, along with track and field, to competing at metric distances for the most part. We don’t see the 100 yard dash, nor the 1650 freestyle swim; race distances are in meters, pool and track sizes listed metrically. We use the four meter shot line, and must convert high jump scores to feet and inches, but the records are recorded in metrics.

29. Supernova on May 26th, 2006 at 4:27 pm

    I’m still laughing at the phrase “malaisical cosmopolitan wussification.” I’ll have to work that one into my daily conversation somehow.

30. Dimitri Terryn on May 26th, 2006 at 4:51 pm

    “Suppose for a minute we’re not all theoretical physicists. Why should I want to measure things in meters and degrees celsius? Do I want to have to learn a whole new system of weights and measures, just because the government told me that I had to be like the rest of the world, or because a bunch of academics think that I should?”

    Interesting comment. You could ask some Iraqis why they should be considering democracy. You may ask the Chinese why they do not adhere to human rights standards. After all, they aren’t used to them…

    I think a future US adminstration must take the brave step to start teaching the metric system to one of the future generations. They will get used to it, and the people who object to it will eventually die. Consider Europe. We switched to a single currency a few years ago. This caused some grumbling amongst some older citizens, but on the whole it did not take too much effort to get used to. The benefits of having a single currency throughout the euro-zone far outweigh the disadvantages from having to remember that €1=40BEF in my case.

    For all you Americans who dislike condescending Europeans : adherring to an outdated isolationistic system of units is one of the reason why this attitude exists.

31. Arun on May 26th, 2006 at 4:56 pm

    Back in engineering thermodynamics, the (moronic) faculty wanted us to use steam tables in non-SI units. I forget the units but they were in BTU and pounds per square inch and other such nonsense. ( It wasn’t clear why that course was useful to us, but it was required. ) Anyway, we simply refused to work until we got steam tables in SI, and within a week we had them.

    You can see from here:

    http://www.engineersedge.com/thermodynamics/steam_tables.htm

    that morons still use non-SI units. These are infinitely painful to compute in, and what should be a breeze turns into a minor nightmare.

32. Mag1KaL on May 26th, 2006 at 5:42 pm

    The conversion to metric in Canada wasn’t without some of the same controversy… I searched for it on the CBC archives and found some videos detailing the issue.

    http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-75-1572/science_technology/metric_system/

33. JustAnotherInfidel on May 26th, 2006 at 6:03 pm

    Mr. (Dr.?) Terryn—

    There will be resistance to a change from the customary system to the metric system, but I think it would take some pretty dedicated individuals to form an insurgency…

    And you’re saying Europeans hate us because of our units? That seems pretty superficial to me…

    fh—

    Perhaps metric units are more convenient, but certainly not if all of your tools (like a mechanic) are built to accomodate another unit system. And they certainly aren’t more convenient if you’ve spent your whole life using somehting different.

    I agree that we should probably have the metric system in principle, I just don’t think that it’s is feasible (at this point, at least) in practice.

    And I’ve never actually torched anyone’s paper—pre-med students are easy to motivate!

34. skywalkthisway on May 26th, 2006 at 6:16 pm

    As someone born in the US in the early 80s, I was taught to use both units, although I’m not sure when. I suspect that my science classes were taught primarily in metric units after a certain age, although I would not swear to that. Then I studied physics and astronomy, so the units I use are an interesting mishmash.

    Temperature: To me, Fahrenheit temperatures make a lot of sense for some applications. In the northeastern US, the air temperatures range from 0 (or below) to 100 (or a little above) Fahrenheit. It makes it convenient for me; I judge temperature on a roughly 100-point scale (anything off that scale is either frigidly cold or extremely hot). Outside of that particular belt, of course, the temperature ranges start to look a little more odd. Similarly, body temperatures generally fluctuate about 100 (and the story about 98.6 is one I had heard before, as of course the exact conversion is obvious, but that makes it no less amusing). But for anything outside of these applications (oh, and cooking, but that’s just a function of the dial on my stove), I’d rather use Kelvin anyways. Incidentally, global temperature maps, with the US in Fahrenheit and the rest of the world Celsius, are deeply amusing.

    Length: 6 in one hand, half a dozen in the other. In terms of determining height, feet and inches work better for me, but that’s mostly because I don’t have a reference for the same in centimeters. For travel distance, a mile a minute is useful but I’m pretty sure we could adjust to 100 kph. And again, for really big or really small distances my scientific training kicks in and I switch to Angstroms, nanometers, microns, mm, cm, km, AU and variations on parsec.

    Weight/mass: I know body weights in pounds, because that’s how I grew up, but I’m surprised that more Americans haven’t subtly started to switch to kilograms (doesn’t sound as big in those units, after all). Similarly, I’m more used to pounds for lifting weights, although I don’t think a change in that would be difficult. In virtually any other application, I use metric units of mass instead of Imperial units of weight.

    Area and Volume: Metric all the way. The only exception, perhaps, being gas by the gallon, because that’s how prices are expressed; I could certainly do things the other way with no difficulty. And on a side note, I hate cooking, partially because of the insane units of volume used (Teaspoon? Tablespoon? Can’t we please just switch to ml? But I suppose a lot of secret family recipes would have to be converted…)

    And of course, any other application I learned only metric units, with a few exceptions. Pressure comes more naturally to me in psi or atmospheres than MPa and GPa; I’ve seen all of them, but I have less intuition for metric units. I’m also kind of used to barometric pressure in inHg. Oddly, though, I’d rather use large numbers of Pascal to express material strength; go figure. And my thermo class was odd; it was an engineering course, so we had to be able to use both sets of units, even down to having two sets of steam tables in the back of the book. I think they might have even used mixed units in some of the problems, which was just irritating.

    I think in time we will switch over, as more people become fluent in both and the advantages of factors of ten become apparent to people who don’t necessarily use scientific notation frequently. This could maybe be enhanced by calling them Imperial units; what red-blooded American wants to be part of an evil empire? Besides Yankees fans, of course.

35. Say Lee on May 26th, 2006 at 6:28 pm

    Then there is g, numerically 32.2 and 9.81, respectively in the English (I prefer that to Imperial) and SI units.

    So if it is left out inadvertently in any force calculation, one will underestimate by about 3.5 times less in the SI units. Some consolation!

36. Rob Knop on May 26th, 2006 at 6:40 pm

    Is there any evidence that the imperial system of units prohibits or limits our participation in math, science, or commerce

    Well, there was that Mars probe that crashed. Of course, we could balem that on the commie Europeans for using the metric system….

    -Rob

37. Anonymous Coward on May 26th, 2006 at 9:49 pm

    I should point out that in REAL units, \frac{2 \hbar ^2}{m e^2} \simeq 1 (its actually 0.951… ). Google Proves it.

38. Dan on May 26th, 2006 at 10:22 pm

    As a child, I could not *believe* there was some people using a base other than 10.

39. Torbjörn Larsson on May 26th, 2006 at 11:14 pm

    “And don’t forget electrical outlet configurations. Even if everyone on this continent agrees to be on the same power scale, Switzerland and Italy and Britain just want to be different….”

    It will be a long road. Looking at trains, the first standards seem to be signal systems, which is rather more hard to do than conforming road signs. It is slooowwwly coming along.

    “And you’re saying Europeans hate us because of our units? That seems pretty superficial to me…”

    Dimitry didn’t say hate. But it’s unusual to almost always insist on bipartisan solutions instead of once or twice accept wider solutions. So I believe we think of americans as apart, and not always in a good sense.

    “I just don’t think that it’s is feasible (at this point, at least) in practice.”

    Eh? Others have done it. If your concern is investment, it will pay off eventually.

    “any other application I learned only metric units, with a few exceptions.”

    There are quite a few exceptions. Usually in sciences, there fundamental or anthropic values makes more sense, like Planck units or hours instead of kiloseconds. Live and let live, I say.

40. Michael D on May 26th, 2006 at 11:39 pm

    While I tend to agree with the comments that the metric system is much easier to work with on a daily basis, and of course in science and engineering contexts, I wonder whether the cost of changing the system in the US would be worth it?

    unless you go the cheap option and give everyone bumper sticks which say “km = miles * 1.6″ then that’s a lot of road signs and car speedometers to phase out…

    whereas, if it were put the money into say… hybrid research or perhaps new smaller size wheels on bicycles- that would be money well spent!

    –
    as an aside - for some reason in australia, the metric still hasn’t caught on for heights of people. “oh, he’s about 6ft, is so much easier than 180cm, or 1.8 m”
    and I also almost failed a 9th Grade math(s) test when on exchange in the US, as a question on “Convert the following measurements” wasn’t that easy….

    m

41. Amara on May 27th, 2006 at 12:47 am

    In metric, there is still the SI (mks) and the Gaussian (cgs) conundrum. if one is an astro-plasma person, it’s easy to forget a 1/c or (4 pi eps_0) or some such thing.

    elementary charge = e = 4.8E-10 statCoulomb
    current = 1 statC/sec = (1/3)E-9 ampere

    Potential is statC/cm, which doesn’t grok with me at all. To convert to something familiar: e(SI)/e(cgs)=3.335E-10C and multiply (3.335E-10/(4 pi eps_0) *10^2 (in meter) = 299.7, final units in Volts

    bleh

42. Arun on May 27th, 2006 at 7:44 am

    “Then there is g, numerically 32.2 and 9.81, respectively in the English (I prefer that to Imperial) and SI units.

    So if it is left out inadvertently in any force calculation, one will underestimate by about 3.5 times less in the SI units. Some consolation! ”

    Well, there is “lb” (pound, unit of mass) and “lbf” (pound-force, unit of force) and one can confuse the two. It is hard to confuse kilograms and Newtons.

43. Joao Carlos on May 27th, 2006 at 11:53 am

    A triffle “off-topic” but just to show the persistence of Avoirdupois system. We have a little Marine Corps in Brazil (Brigade size). Of course, all the doctrine was translated from US Marine Corps. The definition of “Starting Line” for an Amphibious Assault was stated as “1.000 yards from the beach”. So we painstakingly converted those 1.000 yards to “9 hundred and such meters”.

    When US Marine Corps started changing their mannuals to fit the metrical sistem, they simply expressed it “1.000 meters from the beach” (you know… a meter and a yard are so near, and a beach is never “straight lined”, so…)

    But it’s not true that everything was measured into convenient “dozens or scores” of units. For instance, portable weapons were defined into inches/100 (.30 in rifles, and so on…)

    The big problems I see are: 1 - changing all industrial standards (used for centuries, now) to metric system, when the main producers of it are used to Avoirdupois measures; 2 - People around the world are so accostumed to use Avoidupois units, followed by the metric expression (for instance: .30 caliber - 7,62mm; 1″ pipes - 2,56 cm) that it will not change an inch (2,56 cm) in anything…

44. Ponderer of Things on May 27th, 2006 at 10:05 pm

    I am surprised nobody weighed in on this from experimental physicist point of view.

    Designing parts is a lot of hassle. Translating inches to mm and back for every part, hoping that something doesn’t get messed up. Most people have no idea whether 9/64 is greater or lesser than 3/16. They might have some idea what 0.14 is compared to 0.18, though. To compound these problems, most americans are terrible with fractions. I mean, the 1/3 pound burger didn’t survive simply because most people thought it was smaller than quarter-pounder!!!

    Ever tried to find the correct allen wrench for a screw? Slightly smaller… Nope, slightly bigger… Maybe it’s metric? Is this metric or is this english? Two sets of wrenches for everything… buying screws just to find they are the wrong size…
    A lot of machine parts are made in germany and japan… guess what system they use? etc. etc. Absolute nightmare.

    Mr. Machine Shop guy, here’s the drawing - this M5 screw should be 1/4″ from one edge and 78.3 mm from another edge. Use calculator if you want to double check the numbers.

45. Count Iblis on May 28th, 2006 at 6:57 pm

    It’s simplest to use Planck units and express everything in terms of dimensionless numbers.

46. Kaleberg on May 28th, 2006 at 11:40 pm

    Choosing units is extremely task related. I was browsing a French computer site and noticed that computer screens in the homeland of the metric system are denominated in thumbs (pouces), where a thumb is apparently computer French for an inch. (The word for a speaker seems to be the same as the word for pregnant, enceinte, but the French were always more open in discussing that sort of thing).

    One good example of task specificity came up in the IEEE magazine. Why are capacitors denominated in microfarads and picofarads, but never in nanofarads? Obviously, microfarad range electronics designers work in microfarads, while picofarad range designers work with picofarads. Need a nanofarad, use a 1,000 picofarad capacitor.

    As a fish egg fancier, I always wondered why did the godless (and metric) Soviet Union sold caviar in 14 ounce pounds? Their system of pressure altitudes for high flying aircraft is metric, but different from the Chinese metric pressure altitudes. Of course, low flying planes, up to 18,000 feet measure altitude based on calibrating the altimeter at takeoff using barometric pressure and known elevation, so the aircraft altitude approximates actual altitude over mean sea level. Go over 18,000 feet and its all done with millibars, and calibration be damned. So if you are flying in a small plane and your pilot says you are at 4,000 feet, those feet are not the same as the feet a jet pilot would use when announcing that the plane is at 32,000 feet.

    Also, when was the last time you bought produce or meat by the ounce? My supermarket, and just about every other supermarket in these United States, sells by the pound and the hundredth. In other words, the supermarket checkout station designers have imposed a decimal based system on us, and since it was done by a business, not the government, there has been nary a squawk. Try finding a 32 fluid ounce bottle of Coke or 4/5 gallon of Scotch. It’s like gasoline, sold by the gallon and the hundredth.

47. Amara on May 29th, 2006 at 2:35 am

    Ponderer of Things: “A lot of machine parts are made in germany and japan… guess what system they use? etc. etc. Absolute nightmare.”

    And then there is Shimano, who produces bicycle parts that don’t conform to anyone’s unit system and for which one needs a new tool each time there is a new line of parts!

    Some here might be amused at space mission teleconferences during the mission’s instrument construction and integration phase, if those missions involve instruments and spacecraft built in different countries. There are detailed discussions of nuts, bolts, screws and their tools. Sometimes these screws and tools items are given to the other teams (with the appropriate paperwork and if it doesn’t involve ITAR).

48. Say Lee on May 29th, 2006 at 8:02 am

    Luckily kgf is rarely used, otherwise the same could be said of the SI too.

    Then there is the triplets of tonne (metric tonne), short ton and the long ton.

    Wonder whether the short ton (2,000 lbs) is an American invention that attempts to maintain a semblance of going Metric!

49. Count Iblis on May 29th, 2006 at 4:05 pm

    Zeno #2:
    

    It’s like the Australian farm woman who complained that her hens were laying smaller eggs ever since the country adopted the metric system.

    Michael Duff mentioned the case of a woman who was asked by a TV interviewer if she believes in Global Warming. She said: ”If you ask me, it’s all this changing from Fahrenheit to Centigrade that’s causing it”.

50. Sushi Out of Water on May 30th, 2006 at 8:16 pm

    You know what’s crazy?
    I went to school in the 80s and we were taught nothing but the metric system. To this day I don’t know the English system and that’s worked in my favor. Every single year and in every single science class in college I had to know the metric system and would have a test on it and would ace it, invariably, since I had learned the metric system in 3rd grade first.

51. Alejandro Rivero on Jun 1st, 2006 at 5:55 am

    #41 (and hard hardware in general): it is intriguing that industrial installations in Spain, theoretically a SI country, use inches for pipes and similar. This is because a lot of it is produced in UK, I guess.

    Also skin (for tannery) is measured in square foots, or it was twenty years ago. Perhaps UK controls the commerce here too?

52. Pingback from Big Ears | Cosmic Variance on Jun 29th, 2006 at 10:00 am

    [...] Sean « Treason in Base Ten      High On the List of Headlines I Never Thought I’d Read » [...]

Comments are currently closed.