Yes… Thank you British Empire, French Empire, and Spanish Empire for your contributions to the system.
-British: Mile, Foot, Inch, Yard
-Spanish: Dollar, from the Spanish Pieces of 8
-French: You know what you did
Burgerperson here, metric should be standard
There was something I read once upon a time that was like:
F is how hot/cold people are C is how hot/cold water is K is how hot/cold matter is
I feel like that’s pretty accurate.
I got used to Celsius while living abroad in Europe and Japan and prefer it to Fahrenheit. The extra granularity of the latter scale doesn’t really add much more utility.
However, while 32 F and 212 F are pretty arbitrary, so is calibrating to the freezing and boiling temperatures of water. I’d rather have a scale that’s calibrated to humans rather than H2O.
0 is absolute cold, any other system is wrong.
Fun fact Americans do both
0 C being the temperature water freezes is useful for knowing if there is ice outside, which has practical use. If we keep going the way we are, soon 100 will be an indicator that there is no water outside. Practical if you’re a hydrophobe or hydrophile.
Milk bottles in the supermarkets in the UK are now using weird sizes like 1.136l, because apparently that easier for some old cunt to read.
You really recognize these weirdly precise numbers in packaging.
355ml. 454g. 25.4mm.
Yeah, suuuuure your chocolate bar is precise to 3 sig figs…
I wouldn’t actually be surprised if chocolate bars are that exact. The equipment to do it is easily available, and they would be motivated to buy it to save having even 1 extra gram in the package.
12 fl oz, 1 pound, 1 inch for us Americans or those curious about the imperial system.
Also, are you buying a pound of chocolate?
I’m guessing that the 1.136 L comes from not wanting to change actual package size when switching to metric. Can’t be a coincidence that 1.136L is 2 imperial pints.
It’s not too uncommon for that to happen. The smaller glass Coke bottles are something like 290ml from being converted from flozzies (I think some places have a 355ml one)
It’s like this in Canada for years, everything in groceries is strange numbers in ml or g, converted from pounds/qt/whatever units
212 warm / 100 warm
warmMeme was made by a space shuttle tile.
What I’ll defend, however, is fractional measurements when precision matters.
With decimal measurements, precision can’t be nearly as granular. If your measurement is precise to one 1/8 of a unit, how do you represent that in decimal? 0.625 implies your measurement is precise to the nearest thousandth, but rounding it to 1 also isn’t precise. 5/8, however, tells you the measurement AND the precision.
With fractional measurements, you can specify precision by changing the denominator to any number, whereas decimal is essentially fractional measurements, but with fixed denominator at powers of 10. For instance, a measurements of a half-unit with levels of precision between 0.1 and 0.10, fractional can be 6/12, 7/14, 8/16, 9/18, 10/20, 24/48, etc. Decimal can’t specify that precision without essentially writing a sentance.
What’s simpler to record? “24/48” or “0.5 ± 0.208333…”
If I want to build something and I want it to be 23/48" ± 1/24" how would I write that? Because the way I understand it x/48" would imply a tolerance of ± 1/48".
This hurts my brain. Why do we care about all the weird fractions? +/- 0.1 is just another way of saying 1/10. You can still do that if you want without having to do fraction math in random denominators.
The fraction allows you to communicate length and tolerance in a single number. A decimal implies precision to the last number, a measure with a fraction can show 1/8 as more granular than 1/16. 1/8 of a cm is less precise than a mm, but if you wrote 1.125 cm, you are now implying sub mm level precision.
This matters because the level needed in building generally doesn’t line up to 1/10 measurements. For example if you had a brick wall and a row had 1 cm height differences between bricks in a row it would be extremely obvious and look terrible. A 1mm height difference would be impossible to notice, but is also overkill to get that level. Ideal is about 5/8 cm or 6.35 mm difference over 3 meters of wall. The fractional measure often ends up easier to work with in practice.
“The fraction allows you to communicate length and tolerance in a single number”
I don’t see how that isn’t true of decimals, too. 0.1 indicates a precision of 1 digit, 0.12 indicates a precision of 2, 0.120 indicates a precision of three.
How do you account for doubling precision? Decimal only records 10-fold steps.
In any context where it’s important, you’d note it with +/-. Not really a problem.
I guess there’s nothing wrong with saying 1/8th metre, 1/8th centimetre, 15/16th metre either. Just as some people might use 0.356 inches.
I’d be a big fan of fractional metric.
Although if we really wanted to go crazy (this will never happen), we’d ditch base-10. It’s a stupid base that we only use because of our fingers. Base 12 is superior and is actually the strongest defense of feet and inches (though yards can fuck right off). It has 6 divisors whereas 10 only has 4.
Base 60 is also cool (divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, and 60), but that would also be significantly more difficult to teach children - it takes them long enough to learn the order of 26 letters.
And being a geographer, I adore 360 because it’s fucking awesome to work with, and you don’t get a better composite until 2520, which is just too much to deal with.
That does make sense when you need absolute precision like when doing abstract math. Otherwise you can just use whichever unit and number of significant digits you need and be precise to that amount. That’s what you do with imperial/American customary units as well; a 5/32" screw isn’t going to be manufactured to the precision of a Planck length; manufacturers specify their sizes to three significant digits of an inch.
Let’s say you have a machining project and your tools are precise to 0.1 mm. So you plan things out at a precision of 0.1 mm. It doesn’t matter that a distance is 17/38 cm exactly. It doesn’t matter that it’s 4.473684210526315789… mm. You can’t set the tool to anything better than 4.5 mm anyway.
Also note that the metric system doesn’t prevent you from using fractions. You’re perfectly free to work with fractions where useful. That’s just not how people talk about lengths because those fractions have no meaning outside your specific use case.
But that 5/32 screw has its precision built into the measurement. Sig figs and error ranges aren’t required for fractional, because both are built into the denominator.
If your 5/32 measurement is super precise you can record it as 160/1024ths, because the denominator has “+/- 1/2048” built into the measurement.
As I said in another (larger) comment, you just don’t know how precision is encoded in decimals, which doesn’t mean that it isn’t. In fact, precision is encoded in decimals, just like with fractions.
0,7 is 0,7 ± 0,05 0,7000 is 0,7 ± 0,00005
I have a set of precision digital calipers that shows decimal or fractional units. Verus a worse set of calipers that’snot 10x worse, it shows exactly the same measurements in decimal units, but with fractional units it will show a difference because that difference can be represented.
Is there anyone in this world needs a caliper of precision between 1cm and 1mm that can’t afford a 1mm of precision caliper?
No, but between 0.1mm and 0.10mm is absolutely a thing.
And that is shown by the markings.
I just looked one up, it’s less than 20€, 0,02mm of precision. There are just 4 markings between 1mm and the next.
So instead of 9 markings, each marking adding 0,01mm, you just add 0,02mm. Doesn’t sound complicated at all.
I haven’t found an analog one, but a digital one with 0,01mm of precision costs 30€. Maybe an analog one costs 50€.
So if adding 0,02 is too complicated, you can just buy a 0,01 one for 30€ more. Which is the price of a pizza for a tool that will last years.
Anything more precise than 0,01. You probably have a lot of experience using a caliper. Whatever method it uses to display that precision is gonna be second nature.
When precision matters, that precision is considered in the measurements. You would never put 0.5 ± 0.208333, you express it as 0.50 ± 0.21. The error value is just the standard deviation of the measurements and it doesn’t make sense to use more than 2 significant digits.
Another example would be measuring large distances using a ruler with centimeter precision. In that case, a measurement would be expressed as 250 ± 1 cm. Converting the measurement from cm to mm, it is 2500 ± 10 mm. This is much more cumbersome with inches or feet as changing units means updating the precision, possibly reducing it.
Did I defend using imperial units?
I’m defending recording precision without having to add a qualifying statement because you can otherwose only increase precision by orders of magnitude in decimal.
With decimal measurements, precision can’t be nearly as granular. If your measurement is precise to one 1/8 of a unit,
My metric measurents are precise to 1/10th of a unit. Like 22.7°C or 34.7cm.
What if you get a new ruler that’s 4 times as precise than the one you have that measures to 0.1cm? You don’t want to record it as 0.70cm, because that’s more precise than your measurement. But you could record it in 40ths with fractions.
Another way to look at it is that decimal is already a fractional system (1/10, 1/100, 1/1000) that doesn’t allow you to use 90% of possible fractions.
If there’s a technical need you can have your scale divided into whatever you want. There’s nothing preventing you into dividing your scale every 0.25mm to get 1/4th precision. It’s very rarely done because there’s no need, but it’s absolutely possible.
Thermometers have sometimes division per 0.5°C instead of 1°C
The metric system isn’t stopping you from using fractions though
0.625 implies your measurement is precise to the nearest thousandth
It does. If it were precise to less than that, you’d say 0.62 or 0.6 to indicate hundredths or tenths. Why would you say 0.625 if you’re not precise to thousandths? You’d say 0.62500 if you wanted to indicate precision to hundred-thousandths.
But what if your precision is greater than 1/100 but not 10 times as precise?
If you have 0,7 that is more precise than 0,7 and less precise than 0,7. You can just say 0,7 ± 0,02.
If you are drawing maps, a precision of meters is enough. If you are building a house, cm it is. If you are making furniture, mm. If you are working with metal, um (micrometer)
That is not a flaw of decimals. It is a flaw of you not knowing how precision is encoded in decimals.
0,7583 means 0,7583 ± 0,00005.
0,758300 means 0,75833 ± 0,0000005.
0,76 means 0,76 ± 0,005.
That is why when in a store an item costs 7,5€, we don’t say 7,5€. We say 7,50€. Because it is precise to a hundredth of a €, not a tenth of a €.
In my opinion, Fahrenheit is a much better system for weather. Anything below 0°F and above 100°F is actively dangerous for a person to exist in. Anything in between is just normal weather. For anything scientific, I think K makes more sense than C. To me, C is actually only rarely useful.
In physics maybe but plenty of scientific fields where your temperatures are commonly not superfreezing. Using K just bloats up your numbers then, without any benefit. In case you ever need K, just add 273.15 to the temperature in °C. The only difference is the base, the increments are the same. Fahrenheit is much less compatible with Kelvin.
In my opinion C and F are equally good for everyday use. Neither is better than the other. Although C is more “scientific” than F, it’s still a very much arbitrary scale at the end of the day. Knowing water freezes at 0C is not different at all than knowing it freezes at 32F for the purposes of knowing you might have ice on the road. Knowing 35C is hot weather is no different than 100F. The human mind can adapt to each of them just as easily as the other. Neither of them makes your life harder or easier than the other.
For normal weather, 0°F to 100°F is easier to understand than -17°C to 38°C. Just like 0°C for freezing water and 100°C for boiling water is easier to remember. It’s just how our brains work. We like nice round numbers. Plus, there’s a higher fidelity between 0 and 100 than between -17 and 38.
Why would anyone care about -17°C? It is an arbitrary number without any relevance. The only relevance it has to you is if you think in Fahrenheit where it is an arbitrary zero point. Not even 38°C is a number you frequently hear used, unless its seriously hot and it happens to be the ambient temperature. Human body temperature is more relevant, but it isn’t a round number in either of the measurement systems, nor is it identical between individuals either.
That “higher fidelity” argument just makes me wonder if some people don’t know the decimal system. 22.7°C, there you go. Most people don’t need that level of precision but it if they do, they simply add a position after the comma and are done with it.
It really makes no real difference for everyday use. The higher resolution of the scale is not relevant at all for deciding what to wear outside. It takes no time at all for your brain to adjust to either one of them. 38 becomes no different to you than a nice round 100.
Easier to understand FOR YOU.
There is a reason only 3 countries is the whole world use the imperial system of measurement.
L nationality and its system its trying to uphold, barbaric concept about to or at the finishing line to end our very existence through its “interests”
because celcius is about how aater feels, faranheit is about how you feel and kelvin is about how atoms feel
every “you” is subjective, water is not.
Water is not subjective? Interesting? So water will freeze exactly at 0 and boil at 100, and it won’t matter about say pressure? Or whats in the water, like say salt? And pretty sure I’ve seen videos and done it myself where you bring pure water below 0 and it doesn’t freeze. Suppose this video is just fake then? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Nse-LUpVQu8
Seems water is a tad bit subjective. Like the rules for when it freezes and boils is… not exactly constant. I mean, they are, under ideal conditions on Earth. But… ya know, that sort of goes against the circlejerk…
i’m quite sure average person doesnt have to deal with pressure differences, salinity, distilled water and such daily to such extent it makes water bad reference point, at least considering how we are basically made from water and life here is based on water.
The average person doesn’t live at sea level. More than half of all people have a boiling point of more than two degrees lower.
Most water that people who live near sea level live near is salt water.If you’re willing to accept that level of imprecision, you may as well go with average human body temperature, since it’s literally our temperature.
Both fahrenheit and Celsius are defined by relatively arbitrary standards in relatively arbitrary ways. One decided water should freeze 100 degrees from boiling, the other 180. Should ice be 2 orders of magnitude from boiling, or half a circle?
Celsius should be preferred because it’s the standard. Some french people decided they liked powers of ten more that others, so here we are. Thanks Napoleon.
Neither system is adequate for the physically based goals of a modern unit system. Hence neither has any relationship to water anymore, instead being defined by actual physical invariants.
Water has different boiling and freezing temperatures depending on salinity, alcohol content, and atmospheric pressure.
The 0 is freezing 100 is boiling is a good rough estimate but it’s not a universal law.
and how many differences do people have? give me universal law on how cold or hot person feels.
Beyond 100F you have a fever.
I’m no proponent for the American system but that’s a decent point of reference.
0F though? No idea.
I feel like faranheit is trash.
Hey I’m American and think we should switch to metric. While Celsius has a more objective basis than Fahrenheit, doesn’t seem like the same slam dunk as the other measurements.
Are there applications where we’re measuring in centicelsius or kilocelsius? There aren’t weird non-base ten increments of Fahrenheit. In Fahrenheit 0 is cold and 100 is hot as well…
I’m still fine changing to it, just doesn’t seem to have the same “in your face” value for this graphic.
centicelsius or kilocelsius?
In physics at these scales kilo Kelvins are used.
We do use metric in America. All the time actually. It’s taught in high school science classes. We use it in science, medicine, aerospace, military, and engineering.
And drug dealing
I too live in America and grew up here. I know what metric is. But it’s not dominant, which I think you know.
It is in all the areas that matter. Who cares if our road signs and weather reports aren’t.
I’m curious, what are the areas that matter that you see metric having replaced imperial?
I still see imperial used for building materials, tools, furniture, product dimensions, food packaging, recipes, travel distances. The doctor still tells me my weight in pounds. It’s what we use at my job when describing products to clients.
Medicine, any science, aerospace, military. Food packaging is in both, and nutrition information is listed in grams. Engineering is an annoying mix of both. Construction is still mostly imperial which often causes the former annoying mix. Cooking and baking is usually imperial but increasingly in metric as well. Anything international is done in metric.
Come up with a metric time system then. Also, fix the damn calendar.
they tried to but it was a complete failure
Also, fix the damn calendar
13 months, 28 days per month = 364 days. New Year’s Day can be its own holiday separate from the rest of the year, and every fourth year it can be 2 days long.
Now we just need to get Big Calendar on board.
The second is the metric time system: A day is 86.4 kiloseconds!
Jokes aside the French did come up with Decimal Time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time), but it didn’t catch on.
Never too late to catch on.
Oh yeah? How about
Neat ! Gradians
Ok, that’s on me, I knew that existed. I meant adopt a metric time system.
But why? Binary is a better basis for numbering, when I was demo coding in assembler on the Commodore 64, I learned a technique to vastly speed up trig calculations: divide the circle into 256 degrees, you can use simple 8 bit integer math to blast out sine values. I figure the same should go with time. It’s not like we still use our fingers to count.
Meanwhile, me counting to 4 in base two using my fingers.
Why would you want to change the time system? The whole world agrees on the current system
Also, fix the damn calendar.
The calendar has been intentionally mangled to obscure the solstices, equinoxes, etc. for the sake of religion. The shitty and arbitrary nature is a feature, not a bug. It’s emphasizes hegemonic control of our lives.
A similar thing is happening with time where solar noon, sunrises, and sunsets are obscured for the sake of capitalist work clocks.
The system doesn’t want our lives based on the natural world around us. It wants control.
They’re never going to “fix” this because it already works as designed.
