Metric system is dumb, and here is why (Rant) (2014)

@cheapandtacky: Fun fact: the Farenheit scale's 0 and 100 points aren't quite arbitrary either. 0 degrees farenheit was set to be the coldest temperature that the inventor of the scale managed to achieve in a laboratory - I think was the temperature saltwater freezes, or something - and 100 degrees was taken as the average human core body temperature. But yeah - I'm in the middle of a physics degree in the UK, and having seen some old textbooks that still use the imperial system, I can confirm that the metric system makes calculations a million times easier. Don't even get me started on British Thermal Units...

You are incorrect.

Also, about Home Depot Canada. They do that because construction workers tend to be stubborn and drag their heels hard on change. This is partly because their obstinance is catered to for profit by parts suppliers, so they do not need to learn the metric system anyway as there is no reason to do so. Home Depot is catering to them. The other reason is that there is a great deal of trade in parts and materials between Canada and the US, so it makes a kind of backwards sense to all use imperial in that industry on both sides of the border. US dictates this through market power. However, you will find trade workers here in Canada are quite comfortable with both metric and imperial and use them interchangeably when necessary.

Fluid is sold in litres. 3 litre jug is the large common size. 2 litre is the standard carton.

@insanejedi: Your base 10 counter argument is both true and completely meaningless. Yes, there is no inherent benefit to the actual metric units themselves. You could have used imperial base units in a metric style system, but this is not how people use imperial units. Road distances are given in miles, not kilofeet. The strength of the metric system comes from the fact that people actually use such a system with base units and modifiers in powers of 10. Not a series of completely different units for each quantity with seemingly random conversion factors.

Also the notion that having more divisors is better makes little sense. The whole point is that we as humans use a decimal (base 10) number system, so having conversions which are multiples of 10 makes things as simple as possible. Converting 411 feet to yards is more difficult than converting 411 centimeters to meters even though the answer to the first question is a whole number. Dividing 411 by 3 takes conscious effort. Moving the period two places to the left does not.

Also saying a jet crashed because someone screwed up the conversion from imperial to metric is a very good argument for switching to metric. If the entire world used one system of measurements, such conversions would not be necessary.

I could go on....

This rant completely misses the point of the SI system! Here's the tldr version of why:
1) SI uses a single unit per quantity: length is in metres, mass is kilos, time in seconds, etc. Other words are for convenience only.
2) Non-fundamental units are defined in fundamental units with no conversion factor. Newtons are kg*m²/s, Pascals are N/m², Volts are kg*m²/A/s³, etc.
On another note, Imperial is madness... inch feet yard mile furlong barrel gallon spoon pint pound ounce Fahrenheit... and many of these have variants (e.g. pound force, pound weight, oil barrel, US barrel, nautical mile....). I'd speculate that the cost associated with people dying due the failings of that system is higher than the cost of changing all road signs.

I am in the fuck math in all its forms camp.

You're saying that imperial can be just as good as metric, as long as you disregard how imperial works and replace it with how metric works? That's exactly the sort of argument I'd expect from someone who champions the imperial system!

I have to use both for work (unfortunately both systems are still very much in use in the UK and will be for the forseeable future). For very basic tasks (measuring, cutting) I'd agree that imperial is fine, and possibly even superior to metric in that it's quite intuitive and basically impossible to confuse 8ths, inches, feet etc. As soon as you have to do anything requiring even basic math then metric becomes immediately and obviously easier to work with.

Is imperial really still being used for serious scientific / engineering work in the US? That would surprise me. I can understand it still being used by craftsmen though, as it's just as good for that, and there are obviously legacy issues too in a lot of cases if you do switch.

As an American, I say fuck the imperial system.

• I need to join this 2' 1 5/8" object to this 4' 11 15/16" object so that I will have something close to 7' 1/8"
• How about instead I join this 65.08cm and add it to this 152.24cm for 217.32cm? Yea... pretty sure I will pick metric any day.

And on that note I want bitch about time zones and daylight savings time. UTC for life!

I'm dumb and can't handle fractions. Seriously, fractions when it comes to imperial, confound me. It drives me mad. This is extra unfortunate because I do a far amount of DIY home renos, and as other people have already stated, wood comes in standard imperial lengths here in the frozen north. Most homes in Toronto (wheres I lives) are older than the metric system (mine's just over a hundred years old), and so everything was built to feet and inches etc. I hate it, but I have to live with it.

Imperial is some worthless bullshit, just convert.

The trouble is - imperial doesn't stick with base 12 for everything. 12 inches make a foot, but 12 feet don't make anything. And the inch is generally divided into 16, not 12. The mile is 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards, and those numbers seem as arbitrary as its metric equivalent of 1609 metres.

For construction, when we aren't just using feet and inches, we use millimetres because at least then we eliminate all decimals and/or fractions. Metric lengths end up with messed up numbers because (in canada) we are forced to use US standards when purchasing tools and materials - which is why most construction work is still done in imperial and converted to metric when regulations demand it (typically government contracts)

Since I do CAD work and frequently must represent measurements on a computer - I say down with fractions. I'm tired of converting decimal inches when I could just work in millimetres instead.

Mass is grams, kilo is just slang for kilogram.

Nope, You're wrong and backwards.

I think your missing the point on the sources of the original measurements. The measurements (such as your speed of light in a vaccum example for meters) are taken from universally available sources, as such if the original measurement is lost it can be re-created. A Kilo for instance is one Liter of distilled water (water being the most common substance on the planet) and 1 Liter is 1000 cubic centimeters.

I think you are completely misunderstanding why people say that base 10 is better for metric. It's not because you can arbitrarily divide the units up by ten - it's because you can rely on the fact that the units are measured in tens. Like, if I am using inches, feet and yards I need to know there are 12 inches in a foot, but there are 3 foot in a yard. That system is so arbitrary its hard to put into words. With the metric system I know exactly how many units are in the next unit up (1000mm is a metre, 1000m is a kilometre.)

I was going to go on reverse rant about why the imperial system is completely crazy but most people in this thread have covered that already. Good work, duders.

That argument kinda breaks down though, if you're concerned about accuracy you shouldn't be using a graduated cylinder with mercury (or alcohol) to do temperature measurements, you should be using a well-calibrated, accurate and precise temperature sensor. Sure, a thermometer in Fahrenheit is more accurate than one in Celsius (that is if the Celsius one isn't also broken down into half and quarter markings) but if you really care about accuracy then you wouldn't be measuring temperature this way.

Yeah!! Go team Metric! Woo!!

@49th said:

nope it's stupid

Hahaha that's hilarious :D

Also, it's football not soccer!

My head hurts reading all this.

The worst part is that a 2x4 isn't actually 2" by 4"! Also, I'm pretty sure even new houses are built using imperial measurements just because the construction industry refuses to make the switch.

@themanwithnoplan: in Celsius when the higher the number above 0 is then the hotter things will get. When you get into the negatives (aka below zero) then shit gets cold and stuff starts to freeze. And a litre of Cola is quite refreshing! You're welcome, sir.

Solution: lets just measure everything in bohr:

That totally makes sense. Thanks duder.

This. I find it hard to comprehend how someone would scale a drawing or map using imperial units. With metric, you have a simple way to read the distances involved.

Imperial is terrible. But it's what I think in so I can't help it. I have to do all kinds of math to estimate or think in metric, although it is admittedly better.

Fuck the system, wake up ppl etc.

Both systems are arbitrary, so why not just have a global standard instead of a single country having a completely different way of doing things because "FUCK YOU BRITAIN YOU AREN'T MY REAL DAD".

You're being a stereotypical American, defending something just because its American.

I'm from UK, where we still use some imperial measurements and I think its fucking stupid. In science, even in America, they do not use Imperial.

Although thankfully my generation in UK is using metric more and more which makes me happy. The only time we use imperial is for cars, we use miles and miles per hour.

TL;DR Its called football, and imperial measurements are super dumb.

While I disagree with your rant that the Imperial system makes as much sense as the Metric system, here's a couple of points that I think we can ALL get behind.

• Timezones are stupid - We should all be on One World Time (OWT)
• Time Change (Daylight Savings) is stupid - Why don't we just start the work day an hour earlier in the winter?

Also, anyone who drives on the left side of the road is wrong.

@masterrain: Those darn Canadians being stereotypical Americans!

1. I get your post was a joke but...

2. Metric was invented by the French

3. Metric is the global standard, it's also called SI (The International System of Units)

@rollingzeppelin: Pretty sure the OP is American, Canada uses metric.

@rollingzeppelin: Yes, but them using the Imperial system still is partially because of the American Revolution.

Oh god this thread is great! Please keep going

He literally says in his post that he's Canadian. Canada uses metric for most things but much of our manufacturing and construction industries still use Imperial.

Are you saying the British using the Imperial System is because America won its independance, I don't get it?

@rollingzeppelin: Not trying to be a dick but from the OP: "I always get into these international conversations between people from Canada and Europe saying how backwards Americans are".

Also he's saying America continued to use Imperial as a way to spite the old world, as they were switching to metric. I'm not sure if that's true, but that is what he seems to be saying. Same reason UK still uses Imperial, we are stubborn.

If the US doesn't want to use the Metric System, oh well. Everyone else uses it. You know it's not hard to adapt to - it really isn't. Many other nations have. All your important industries use metric.

It's all based on simply shifting the decimal place around to convert from one unit to another. It's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Simple. And I mean, REALLY simple. It's so simple children as young as 7 can easily grasp the metric system. Sure, you can use the Imperial System, or what have you, but the Metric system does the same job and it's just easier. Much, much easier. Incredibly easy. I mean, it's as simple a system as you can get - you can't get simpler than Metric. Why make life difficult for yourselves? There's a simpler system which is more widely used.... I don't know why you don't switch. Almost everyone else has!

You can stick to the feet and yards and gallons and whatnot, but you're just doing yourselves a disservice.

MY CAR GETS 40 RODS TO THE HOGSHEAD, AND THAT'S THE WAY I LIKES IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or just stop being a 3-stone stick in the mud.

OK now I get what @corruptedevil is trying to say, thanks. Funny that they use a system invented by the British to spite the British.

Also from the OP:

"How do I know? Because I'm a Canadian born in the late 80s when they instituted the metric system, and I still get angry everytime I get into an argument about the metric system inside of a steakhouse that is serving steak by the Oz.'Metric is the only way to go! Can I have the 16 oz. Prime Rib please?'"

@rollingzeppelin: Yeah well... er... *sticks tongue out*

I'd be happy to make the switch if someone could cite a benefit that would justify the billions of dollars in cost it would take.

The mental convenience individuals would have in converting from one unit of measurement to another does not count, in my opinion. It is easily outmatched by the difficulty the individual would then experience in having to now "think" in terms of the alien units.

I have an intuitive understanding of how long a mile is, because I have in my experience traversed thousands and thousands of miles. In this experiential sense, I have never once traveled a kilometer. Thus, when someone tells me point A is five miles away, I understand that on an intuitive level: that's approximately 3 times as far as I walk to work every day, or approximately half the distance I drive to my parents'. You could tell me the distance is 3 kilometers, but that doesn't mean anything to me without a mental conversion to miles. That is to say, regardless of how easy it is to convert one metric measurement to another metric unit of measurement, I can't actually use that result really until I convert it back to imperial. The "convenience" one speaks of in reference to the metric system then, while (in my opinion) undeniably real, is only truly available either to those who grew up with it or those who are having to deal with multiple orders of magnitude as a matter of their profession. It seems to me that only the native metric user and the engineer really benefit at all from using the metric system: conversion has really nothing to offer the individual imperial system native.

Given that you cannot really offer enough justification for an individual to want to convert, the only remaining reasons why the U.S. might wish to would have to be some compelling factor that forced our hand collectively. In fact, this is really how most of the world came to use the metric system: either countries' colonizers or economic superiors were using it, which forced a conversion in the name of industrial and economic survival. For instance, Japan adopted the metric system in 1885. At that time, they had absolutely negligible economic influence and most of industrialized Europe had already adopted it. Thus, it's a position where there is no international party that is doing any kind of business in whatever Japan's indigenous system of measurement was, and dozens doing business in metric whose business is precisely what Japan needs.

For Japan, metrication was an absolutely essential step in the process of engaging with the industrialized world economically. They were forced to do it. And all i mean to observe here is that no such compelling market force exists to justify metrication for America. Any such conversion would cost billions of dollars, and what is there to be gained economically when we're already the world's biggest economy and everyone wants to do business with us anyway? The only thing we'd get out of metrication is international tourists' relief from a minor inconvenience in coming to America, and goodness knows there's still going to be dozens more, other nuisances to complain about even after the conversion.

Obviously the metric system is far superior to the imperial system and it would be much more practical and logical to all just use the same system.

I'm not proposing a sudden and abrupt removal of the imperial system, but I'm sure we can gradually erase it from existence step by step. One measurement at a time.

First you make children learn both measurements at the same time in school, then gradually phase out the imperial system. In a generation or two we'll be rid of that horrendous attempt at measuring things.

Fuck anyone who thinks it's a good idea to use month/day/year though, that should be changed immediately and totally.

This is one case where America just has to roll over and accept the metric system. It's the metric system or go home. Oh yeah and as @hassun mentioned it's day/month/year. The other thing is just for crazy people.

Probably already been said - but, there are huge, building-filling, extremely complex and grossly expensive machines all over this country that work in inches/degrees F/etc. It's one thing to rewrite science and engineering textbooks and buy some new lab equipment. It's quite another to re-tool the entire production line of the country.

You may think one way of doing things is more elegant and sensible. I might even agree with you. You should stop concerning yourself with this. For your own health. It's an ineffective way to approach the world. No one actually cares what you think is sensible and elegant. The best thing you can do right now is try to understand why things are the way they are. and if by some freak stroke of luck you are eventually in a position to make some real change, you'll do the right thing based on working knowledge instead of fucking it all up beyond repair based on zealotry and ignorance.

That's a short term argument that becomes less relevant the further out we go.