Submitted by iamveryDerp t3_10m91c7 in todayilearned
Reply to comment by gravi-tea in TIL to decide what measurement system America should use, John Quincy Adams took 3 1/2 years to produce a 268 page Report on Weights and Measures that ultimately concluded changing to the French metric system would be too difficult for the young nation. Congress took no action on the report. by iamveryDerp
Answer these questions without looking them up:
No reason to switch. It works great and doesn’t need to change.
Asking questions that are only relevant in a specific circumstance means nothing.
Heres the equivalent metric system questions:
I knew the answer to all of those and I live in the US. For the imperial system questions I only knew 2 off the top of my head.
Another fun fact there are 100 hectares in square kilometer. How any acres in a square mile? I have no fucken idea!
All that said I'm not saying we should switch. We already use metric for science and other necessary applications and hey imperial is kinda fun.
There are 640 acres in a square mile
Yup! thanks, I actually realized I prob knew this one too as I've been delving into learning about acreage and such lately. Fun stuff.
That’s not really equivalent. A kilometer isn’t equivalent to a mile. The equivalent would be how many feet in 1000ft. Surly you can answer that. Imperial is just as easy when you use the equivalent ratios. It really doesn’t matter which system you use in every day life.
In situations where you need to convert back and forth mentally a lot it’s easier, but that’s such a small portion of the time it’s negligible.
>That’s not really equivalent. A kilometer isn’t equivalent to a mile.
There is no way a person can be this stupid to not understand why what they said is the equivalent of the original statement, if you're not trolling I feel fucking terrible for you.
> That’s not really equivalent.
Yes, they are. The questions above are the metric equivalents of what was asked for originally in customary units, you inexplicably asked a completely different, unrelated set that required mixed units. The point is that if you use metric you don't need customary at all.
Imperial is not just as easy, because someone unfamiliar to the system cannot make any assumptions about feet in a yard, or yards in a mile.
>The equivalent would be how many feet in 1000ft.
I think you are really close to grasping the point here - metric is better because each unit scales easily with the previous one. The relationship between a meter and a kilometre is obvious, that is not true of feet vs miles. A yard is to a mile as a metre is to a kilometre, except the latter is far more intuitive.
No. The original question is how many feet are in a mile. The equivalent would be how many meters in a mile. You can’t change the distance so make your argument sound right, leave the distance the same and try to support your argument. The argument fails.
You failed to grasp that. You were close though.
> The equivalent would be how many meters in a mile.
No, it wouldn't, because the entire argument is conversions within a system, not between systems. They aren't saying metric works better with customary, they are saying metric works better and so why use customary at all? This isn't hard to grasp - a yard is to a mile and a meter is to a kilometre - you don't mix them. The metric system means you don't need to know metres in a mile, because you wouldn't ever think or measure in terms of miles (you'd use kilometres). For instance, it is not a weakness of customary that miles do not have a clear relationship with hectares - they are separate systems not intended to be used together - the weakness is instead that miles have no clear relationship with acres.
Are you being deliberately disingenuous? Surely you understand miles have no place in the metric system, so you don't need to convert to them?
A mile is an arbitrary distance we agreed to call a mile. It’s the exact same distance no matter what method of measurement you are using. So, if you use metric to measure that distance, it doesn’t help you at all. In day to day life being able to convert within a system really doesn’t matter, and even more so today when you can do it on your phone in seconds or via Alexa or the like.
You are either profoundly stupid, or trolling.
The point is that you wouldn't ever refer to miles. You would refer to kilometres. Being able to convert within a system is useful all the time, don't be ridiculous.
You don’t need to refer to it as a mile, you only need to know how many meters are in it, which you don’t, thus proving knowing how many feet are in a mile really isn’t necessary in most applications.
That's not equivalent at all.
How many feet (standard small imperial unit of length) are in a mile (standard large imperial unit of length)?
The equivalent question using metric units would use two standard metric units of length ( i.e. meters and kilometers).
2 is the only reasonable comparison (without converting between 2 systems instead of using 1. And even than, who cares except very specific scientists what temperature mercury freezes at.
When do you need to know when water boils? Turn heat on high and wait. The temp water freezes is much more useful information and everyone knows that.
The rest are very equal comparisons.
You are really... asking about CONVERSIONS BETWEEN METRIC AND IMPERIAL as the "gotcha" when someone asks about conversions IN IMPERIAL ONLY.
To make it fair, use ONLY metric, just like the original question did with imperial.
Come on, you can't be that stupid, can you?
Your failure to miss the point is no example of my intelligence.
Your failure to see the relevance is your own and the reason you can’t grasp such a simple concept is why you don’t understand why things have no real reason to change.
The irony here is just.. keep going dude, you are being hilarious.
I'd be the last person to change to metric, but I'd be lying if I said there is no reason switch. I work for a company in the USA that has gets a lot of materials from Canada and Europe. It'd also save me a few seconds every time I did some arithmetic and depending on my station, that might be a lot.
I agree there's no need to change. But there's also no need to remain. Personal inconvenience aside, i'm more in favor or changing that remaining.
Sure there are some reasons to switch. The US military uses metric since they operate where most of the prod uses it, and things like Subs use British pipe threads because it’s much easier to get parts overseas. A world standard would make that easier, but nobody really agrees on an absolute standard. Each area has its own perks.
>A world standard would make that easier, but nobody really agrees on an absolute standard.
No, the world has agreed a century ago. USA does not want to do it cause it is apparently so hard. That is the ONLY reason given, "it is difficult and it sucks during the transition period" so they kick the can to the next generation. Every generation so far has been too selfish to take on the task. THAT IS THE TRUTH. Laziness, selfishness and incompetence.
No country strictly uses metric. Each has their own quirks, and nobody really agrees on one absolute system. It’s all arbitrary, so it doesn’t really matter.
It’s not hard because it’s hard to understand, it’s hard because it’s expensive and has no real value in changing.
>No country strictly uses metric.
Looks around in his Finnish apartment...
Nope, everything is metric, unless it is imported from USA. I mean, i have a bunch of imperial tools.. because some things are imperial because of USA but otherwise... I can not figure out what isn't metric.
>And nobody really agrees on one absolute system. It’s all arbitrary, so it doesn’t really matter.
SI units. You really are one of the most ignorant muricans or you are trolling. And of fucking course it matters. It costs YOU money to NOT convert, and it actually cost US money because YOU don't want to change. Like i said, i have to have some tools twice, just because ONE country, 5% of the world does not change. UK has a mess too, that is an EXCEPTION.
>It’s not hard because it’s hard to understand, it’s hard because it’s expensive and has no real value in changing.
It cost you money every single day and you have to change one day. It is just that YOU don't want to do it because you are selfish and lazy. I remember this one dude talking about doing things because they are hard. Wonder where that fellow came from, which country's president said that.. You just do not want to because it is too hard for you, let the next generation deal with it.
Actually it does have value in changing. Even in my job alone we'd actually save a considerable amount of time and money using metric.
Then use metric. Nothing is stopping you if that’s true.
What's stopping us is half of our materials are not in metric.
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