we could go back to the original meaning of “foot”. We order things by the foot, which is measured by the emperor’s(president in these times) foot
Understand that I’m not at all against the metric system. And I personally am comfortable with it. It’s just that I’m not at all against any other system of measurement either. IMHO none is inherantly better than the other, and all are used harmoniously in the U.S. depending on the application. As a matter of fact, as someone else already pointed out, the tire industry uses three different measurement systems in combination just to describe the size of a tire. And it works. I see no need to change any of them.
We changed from miles to KM here (Ireland) in the middle of 2004, so some 2004 cars had miles and some had kms on the speedo, the Motorway speed limit is 120km/h, which is about 75 mph, we all just got used to it.
Still have difficulty equating 8.1 L/100km to MPG though. Ditto weight (KG/stone/lbs), Stone (14lbs) is what is really understood in the “are you fat” context.
No one here does farenheit though, Celcius is what is understood. Comlete mess…
I visited England in 1998 and found myself in need of a 1/4-20 bolt for my camera mount. No problem, I thought, here in the cradle of English hardware. But all I got was odd looks until I came upon and ancient hardware store with an old geezer at the counter in Bath. He scratched his head and disappeared into the back room, then emerged with just about the right part. Thank God for geezers! That said, I expect the 1/4-20 camera mount will make it the last English bolt to go.
We are making it hard on ourselves by not converting - I went back to school after retiring from the military and just finished my mechanical engineering degree. We even have US-only textbooks with SAE and metric units for temperature, mass, density, velocity, acceleration, energy, etc; the international versions are all metric. Guess which textbooks cost more and are much harder to find used?
The first car I owned that had mixed fasteners was my 79’ Mustang Pace Car - in the process of changing a clutch I discovered that it had universal joint bolts that required a 12mm 12-point box end wrench to remove. The bolts holding the bellhousing to the engine block were SAE - and it had the 2.3 turbo four, an engine designed in Europe. Go figure!
Thank you sincerely for your service and sacrifice. Military men and women are what has kept us free and strong.
As to the various measurement systems, I guess I just never had any problem working with the different systems, and having spent much of my adult life in manufacturing I’ve had a chance to look at the cost of conversion as well as the barriers. For much of that career I designed (as a part of teams) and built DOD equipment, everything from control systems for Cruise and Harpoon missiles to high frequency switching matices for subs to truck mounted pumping systems and tanks for military trucks. When I think of the millions of design packages out there, millions of machine programs (think CNC), millions of mold forms and metal stamping forms, millions of milling tools, etc that are in SAE that are fully qualification tested, fully interchangable with equipment still in service, and still in use, I realize the incomprehensable cost and complexity of trying to fully convert. And the design packages are DOD-STD-480 controlled. Any change requires a regimented administrative protocol and possible requalification.
I submit that we’d be making it impossible on ourselves by trying to convert. Especially where military equipment is involved, and in-field interchangability with aging equipment is mission critical. Heck, even B52 bombers are still in service and will be for some years now. As are 135s and countless other aircraft. T-28s are still in use as training aircraft. The newest of the B52s, the newest H-models, were accepted by the Air Force in the early sixties, 1961 and 1962. We’d be sabotaging our readiness if we tried to convert those designs.
It took me a while to get around to looking at this thread, but for pete’s sake BruceM, where’ve ya been! I bought a new Saturn in '94, and when I started doing the maintenance work, I discovered all the nuts and bolts were metric. I simply went out and bought some metric tools and carried on. No big deal! I keep my sockets in order on racks, so I’ve never had a problem looking for the next larger or smaller SAE size, but I’ll admit, the fractional sizes can be confusing if one doesn’t work with them every day.
Please, mountainbike!! “We’re the biggest economy in the world!..we’re the most powerful nation in the world…why should we bend to NATO?..(it’d be) impossible…sabotaging our readiness” and on and on. The real reason I hear in all of your posts is: Oh, it would be SO HARD!!! Yes, it would be a bumpy process, but why do you think we’re not up to it? The reason to convert to metric is that the world is growing smaller every day. We are part of the global economy, and no one else–no one–uses our archaic system. In the 70’s, Canada saw the US starting the conversion, and quickly got on board. Eventually, so did the rest of the world. Somehow the US effort got derailed, no doubt in part to informed and articulate people like you, who paradoxically want to keep us in the 17th century, and think it’s to our advantage to make it difficult for every other nation to do business with us. And it’s not only an issue with international trade. Do you remember NASA’s loss of the Mars rover in 1999? Over $100 million literally burned up, and the reason was ridiculous and downright embarrassing: one team used metric units, one didn’t, and when they communicated they didn’t convert properly.
Manning, as I’ve already stated, I have nothing against the metric system and for those industries wherein it’s necessary the transition is already made. For those industries such as the DOD industry supporting military equipment designed in past decades, much of which is still in service, and the construction industry, there’s absolutely no reason to change. Artificially forcing such a change would be expensive and senseless.
It would make no more sense than trying to force any industry such as the auto industry, that’s global and using metric, to go back to inches.
Systems in use in the 17th century are not intrinsically inferior to the metric system. As a matter of fact they worked beautifully for centuries.
I recall the loss of the Mars rover, but not the details. I’ll bow to your apparent knowledge of what happened. In so doing, my point becomes emphasized. Inches don’t usually convert exactly to metric, and metric doesn’t convert exactly to inches. To illustrate my point, imagine if you will trying to manufacture airframes systems for a B52 bomber. Imagine how many problems might be introduced if you tried to convert the tens of thousands of drawings to metric. Rather than improve things, the conversion would introduce countless opportunities for error. Just “rounding” during the conversion process could introduce countless fite interference problems. B52s and my babies, I’m right at home on a G or an H, but I’m not sure i’d want to fly on that one.
It ain’t whining. It’s experience talking.
Ancient measuring systems worked well for centuries because accurate methods of measuring small amounts did not exist. Sundials and hourglasses worked for time, and the king’s foot for linear measure, and stones for weight, and drinking cups, bushel baskets, and barrels for volume…you get the idea. None of these makes sense any more as a basis for measurement.
I understand your objections to the military having to convert. It would be a huge, difficult job and no one wants to be on the leading edge. This inertia is the same reason that so many government offices (mine included) use antiquated computer systems. The databases are huge and no one wants to be on the conversion team. The difference is that by the time new software is in use at any agency, it will be outdated. Not going to happen with the metric system.
I review plans for building permits, and the site plan uses the engineer’s scale (1 in = 10 or 20 or 30 ft. etc) and the building plans use the architect’s scale (1/4, 1/8, 3/32 inch = 1 foot. Both of these systems are dumb, dumb, dumb. Well, maybe not dumb, just difficult to work with. The metric system is sensible, simple, and beautiful. My job would be easier if it was in use.
Just like the mechanics, we’d have to keep two sets of tools handy–one for new, metric plans and one for older, traditional units. Over time, metric would take over. I wish!
Inches can be measured just as precisely as centimeters. One system is not inherently more accurate than another.
I submit the parthenon as evidence that ancient systems worked beautifully for small measurements. The columns built by the ancient Romans included very fine curves over their very tall structures made of numeous perfectly fitting blocks, the curves designed to compensate for optical illusions that would have otherwise caused the columns to look thin in the middle.
I submit also the Mayan structures, made of enourmous stone blocks that fit too perfectly to slide a piece of paper between them.
Note that in both of these submissions the pieces were carved on the ground and hoised into place. Neither of these could have been accomplished without the ability to accurately measure small amounts…very small amounts.
As a matter of fact, tiny fractions of inches can be measured just as accurately as can centimeters. I’ve seen coordinate measuring machines that can measure into 5 decimal places…in inches. The acciracy of a measurement is in no way related to the measuring standards used (inches or meters).
Gallaleo would have also been amused at the statement that they were unable to measure small differences. He pretty accurately measured in tiny fractions of degrees, and calculated the relative movement and speed of celestial bodies by doing so.
Regarding the engineer’s scales, how else would you scale down a 15 foot design to fit on a size D drawing…or, to modernize the statement, a computer monitor? Or in your case, do you submit that a 1 acre plot plan should be on a 1 acre piece of paper? I’ve worked with “scaled” drawings my entire adult life. The system isn’t dumb, it works beautifully. And it is as easy to divide inches, feet, and yards as it is to divide meters.
The metric system is more rational. (Ah, those clever French in Napoleon’s day.) For example, in the metric system the unit of force is the newton and the unit of mass is the kilogram. In Newton’s second equation, F=m•a, ‘F’ is specified in newtons, ‘m’ is specified in kilograms, and ‘a’ is in units of meters/sec/sec. Simple, no? In contrast, the English system has pounds-force (lbf), poundels (pdl), pounds-mass (lbm), and slugs (no abbreviation). In Newton’s equation F=m•a, if ‘F’ is expressed in units of lbf, then ‘m’ must be specified in units of slugs; and conversely, if ‘m’ is expressed in units of pounds-mass, then the units of ‘F’ are poundels. The units of ‘a’ are ft/sec/sec in both cases. I only know this because I was taught such in a technical high-school. I may be the only man still alive who knows about poundels and slugs.
Because I work mostly on German and Japanese cars, all of my torque wrenches (all Hazet tools from Germany) are calibrated in newton-meters. Curiously (or not) one newton-meter, a unit of torque, is dimensionally equivalent to one joule, a unit of energy. Ponder that. In the English system, ft-lbs is a measure of energy, and lb-ft is a measure of torque, if one cares about such distinctions.
As for units of time measurement, during the First French Republic the 24-hour day was divided into ten hours, each hour into 100 decimal minutes, and each decimal minute into 100 decimal seconds. I have seen such clocks numbered I-X (1-10) in museums. One revolution of the hands of the republican clock required 24 conventional hours. The French also developed a republican calendar, too complex to discuss here.
I imagine the French suffered some chagrin at the hands of the English at the start of industrial revolution. I visualize the Brits, a nation of shopkeepers, hammering out steam engines to the designs of James Watt, in their bastardized units, knowing more about accounting than physics, yet all the while spreading British influence around the world. At the same time Sadi Carnot and Joseph Louis Lagrange, who laid the mathematical groundwork of thermodynamics and reformulated Newton’s Laws, respectively, did not see their genius moving their country forward.
One final remark: Robert Bosch, founder of Bosch GmbH, came to America at the age of 18 years or so to work in Edison’s Labs to learn the ways of American engineering, which was then admired around the world. How times have changed.
I concede mountainbike’s point that the ancients were able to measure small distances. Fine. What this discussion is about is the idea that in the present day we are stubbornly holding on to an archaic system, just because we’re big, and therefore we can. Our system is going to get more archaic as the years go by. I don’t dispute that in some applications English units are useful in ways that metric units are not. No system is perfect. But the rest of the globe has decided that metric is more useful than whatever units they used before. We will convert eventually, when the problems are bigger than expensive USA-only engineering textbooks (as mentioned by Mazdude above.) When using English units costs enough money for enough of the right people, the US will convert. It can’t come soon enough for me.
A USA born geomechanics lecturer at UQ (in Australia) took it upon himself to appologise on behalf of all Americans for his homeland’s failure to adopt the metric system. ( he still taught from a textbook that contained the archaic units though)
Manning, I disagree on two premises with your comment about the subject of the thread. I contend that we’re not “holding on to an archaic system just because we’re big and therefore we can”. First, the system we’re holding on to is not archaic. Just different. Second, we’re “holding onto” it because it works just as well for many puposes and many industries as the metric system. As a matter of fact, in many industries and areas that deal with documentation from prior eras, such as the industry you’re in, it actually works better and makes more sense to stick with the the standard systems. A deed defines land in acres and measures it in feet. It always did. It always will.
There is no artificial constraint on holding on to traditional measurement systems. If industries where they work well, they stay. In industries where metric works well, it becomes the standard. It isn’t stubbornness, just common sense.
Nroq, regarding your Australian lecturer’s apologizing on behalf of all americans because we haven’t adopted the metric system, that level of arrogance, self-anointed rightousness, and pomposity is appalling beyond belief. We need no apologist in this arena. We’ve done nothing to apologize for. And nobody has appointed him to apologize for us.
It has occurred to me that the practice of dividing and inch into fractions instead of decimals is actually the use of a binary system, like computors use to do math.
1/2 can be written as binary .1
1/4 can be written as binary .01
9/16 can be written as binary .1001
Is binary less precise than decimal? I think not.
Less precise ? I agree in principle it is not. But in practice, wether it be linear measures or looking for the right socket, it’s easier to get more precise when working and in less time. In that respect, yes. I agree that it’s not archaic in the sense that “same” makes. But, to hold onto a system that has somehow managed to garner the support of the rest of the world while costing us so much over the years seems very archaic in attitude to say the least.
We as a people wonder why we carry so much debt. and still cling to practices that must drive our cost in world trade up is ludicrous. It’s the same attitude we have about expecting the rest of the world to speak our language for our convenience. As long as we throw money at the situation, it works. But I’m not willing to if here is a better way. And metrics is better.
IMO, one of the reasons so many other civilizations have failed is their reluctance to adapt. This is one of those failures.
Also in binary:
1/3 (0.333… in decimal) is binary 0.010101…
2/3 (0.666… in decimal) is binary 0.101010…
1/5 (0.2, not a repeating decimal) is binary 0.001100110011…
1/10 (0.1, also not a repeating decimal) is binary 0.0001100110011…
If you want the greatest number of simple fractions to come out as simple non-repeating “decimals”, your best bet is to go to base twelve. (Or base sixty like the ancient Babylonians, but there are limits to how far from common sense people are willing to stray.)
Base sixty? Wait a minute! We still use base sixty for measuring time and angles.