Imperial versus metric

[Seret]

To be honest, the system that makes the most sense is YYYY/MM/DD, as this means that a list of dates will be sorted into the correct order without any special date-specific jiggery-pokery. I believe the US military use this format, at least in certain applications

All NATO forces (and quite a few others) use a standard Date Time Group format. The time right now for me would be: 041506ZJAN13, or 1506 (GMT) on 04 Jan 13. The Z is for "zulu" or GMT timezone.

[lajoswinkler]

I use DD/MM/YYYY but if I see YYYY/MM/DD, it poses no problems to me.

MM/DD/YYYY is extremely illogical and prone to cause errors. It baffles me. Such things ought to be precise. Who cares about linguistic styles of some quaint pilgrim people? Pronounce the date as you wish, but write it down logically.

[AmpsterMan]

The Imperial system does have some minor advantages. Most units in the Imperial system are multiples of twelve or eight, this means that most things can be easily dividable by 1,2,3,4, and 6 or 8 depending on which unit. This means that fractions like 1/2, 1/4,1/8, and 1/3 are give easy whole numbers.

That said, I think these measurements are more useful for an Agrarian society than a modern one.

[Kerbart]

The system that makes the most sense is DD/MM/YYYY, since days change the most often, then months, then years.

Try sorting by date. YYYY/MM/DD makes much more sense.

[Charzy]

YYYY/MM/DD does indeed make the most sense, since it allows sorting, easy usage of calenders and the dates are actually in order.

[Nibb31]

The ISO standard, which should be the international reference, says YYYY-MM-DD.

It's the easiest format to use for automatic sorting, and it also goes from the more general to the more precise, which makes sense. The reason it uses "-" instead of "/" as a separator is for use in file names.

[42undead2]

The only logic I see in MM/DD/YYYY is that the months are smallest (12), then dates (31), then years (Until human extinction). But other than that, no. I use use DD/MM/YYYY myself.

[Kerbart]

The only logic I see in MM/DD/YYYY is that the months are smallest (12), then dates (31), then years (Until human extinction). But other than that, no. I use use DD/MM/YYYY myself.

The logic is that the people who came to the convention used to refer to a date as, say, "January 15th, 1765" at a time where "logic" wasn't really a qualified discussion point in regards to writing down dates.

The point in convention is that there's value in "using what everyone else is using," see VHS vs Betamax. It didn't really matter which system was superior; as a consumer you'd be stupid to buy the system that offered the least choices in hard- and software, and as a manufacturer you'd be stupid to manufacture the system consumers wouldn't buy. I happily invite you over to live in the US and consistently write your dates as DD/MM/YYYY because that makes so much more sense. Yes, it does. And your life will be an administrative hell.

There are many definitions and conventions that have a historical origin and yes, other choices make more sense. But as long as the cost of changing is higher than the benefits change is not going to happen. At that point one can wonder about "how logical" a certain system is. If the benefits aren't sufficient, change will not happen. A good example is tau vs pi. When you look at it rationally tau makes much more sense. But no, we're sticking with pi. Why? Because everybody does so.

[ZetaX]

Tau is just as wrong as pi. The correct one would be 2·pi·i, but most nonmathematicians would not want that due to the i (with i²=-1) there.

[Amram]

ok, i'll bite, since you singled out 2(pi)i specifically, why is that more correct than 2(pi) or Tau.

[dudester28]

I'm American and I'm honestly no fan of the imperial system. The chances of my country changing its units: probably zero

[ZetaX]

ok, i'll bite, since you singled out 2(pi)i specifically, why is that more correct than 2(pi) or Tau.

It is the period of the exponential Funktion: exp(x+2·pi·i) = exp(x). As a consequence of that, this term appears a lot, be it Fourier analysis or number theory.

[K^2]

A good example is tau vs pi. When you look at it rationally tau makes much more sense. But no, we're sticking with pi. Why? Because everybody does so.

Historic reasons are strong here, but you also have to keep in mind that there are a lot of places where pi appears by itself, and where we'd have to start writing tau/2 instead, which is even more inconvenient than writing 2pi. The most trivial example is pi r², but it's all over the place.

[Azivegu]

Here is another discussion (all be it a small one):

In the Netherlands (and I think Belgium too) when we say ten thousand we write it as 10.000 instead of 10,000 and one euro seventy-five is written as €1,75 instead of €1.75.

Any other people who get mad about this??? This I find far more confusing than the date system because I cant remember which system I need to use.

But for the dates, I think YY-MM-DD is logical from a computer or file management, but I do get that MM-DD is more natural. As long as you clearly define the order, I am ok with it.

[maccollo]

But for the dates, I think YY-MM-DD is logical from a computer or file management, but I do get that MM-DD is more natural.

I think that mostly depends on how it is said in your language. In Swedish for example, we say 1:st January 2014, not January 1:st 2014.

As a result of English being the dominant second language, this has been so confusing to me that I have no idea which one comes first when I'm supposed to write down a date. On computers I can pull down the date taps to look and see which one goes past 12,

and then I know which one it is but if I have to write it with a pen and paper, I'm like.... "I dunno..."

[lajoswinkler]

Here is another discussion (all be it a small one):

In the Netherlands (and I think Belgium too) when we say ten thousand we write it as 10.000 instead of 10,000 and one euro seventy-five is written as €1,75 instead of €1.75.

Any other people who get mad about this??? This I find far more confusing than the date system because I cant remember which system I need to use.

But for the dates, I think YY-MM-DD is logical from a computer or file management, but I do get that MM-DD is more natural. As long as you clearly define the order, I am ok with it.

I get mad over that, too. I always thought number separation should be with comma or blank space, and decimal deparation with points. It seems that most, if not all countries in EU use point for number separation, and USA and Mexico use comma.

[Ben J. Kerman]

I live in the US, and primarily use Imperial for units of measurement, but I wish that the US primarily used Metric, especially since almost all other countries (There are 2 other countries in Africa or something that use the Imperial system, but even they use Celsius for temperature). I know that converting units between the metric system (Converting millimeters to centimeters, as an example ) is very easy, since you just need to add or take away a decimal place. 

On 1/6/2014 at 6:26 AM, Azivegu said:

In the Netherlands (and I think Belgium too) when we say ten thousand we write it as 10.000 instead of 10,000

I think it is like that for most of Europe. Don't take my word for it since I live in the United States, as I said above, but in YouTube videos for companies such as Liebherr, a German construction equipment manufacturer (They also make cranes, refrigerators, gear cutting machines, engines, concrete plants & truck mixers, and some other stuff. It's pretty impressive) I think they use commas as decimal points instead of periods.

EDIT: Nevermind, they don't use commas as decimal points. I watched a Liebherr video and it said the capacity of one of their cranes was 8,000 kg, not 8.000 kg. I was confused with a video from Mammoet, a Dutch heavy transport company about Trailer Power Assist, and it said that the modules had 1.000 HP (NOT 1,000 HP, as we would write it in the US) MTU engines.

Edited June 17, 2021 by Ben J. Kerman
Made sure I didn't look like an idiot,(I don't think it worked) and fixed missspelling of some words.

[YNM]

Wow, what an old dig. Really sorry for the OP and the mods for quoting this.

On 1/6/2014 at 6:26 PM, Azivegu said:

when we say ten thousand we write it as 10.000 instead of 10,000

Incidentally (or perhaps completely logical ?), I'm from Indonesia and we officially do that - comma as fractions, point as 10³. Given you said NL perhaps history had to do with that. However my computer is set up with the other (point as fraction, comma as 10³), so... good luck trying to write documents correctly XD

46 minutes ago, Ben J. Kerman said:

I watched a Liebherr video and it said the capacity of one of their cranes was 8,000 kg, not 8.000 kg.

I think in their own language they tend to omit 10³ separators. They do use comma for fractions though.

EDIT : Well German Wikipedia goes and put in the same as what you thought.

EDIT 2 : As an interesting aside, all three of Chinese, Japanese and Korean use the "US" system, although for Chinese and Japanese since they have symbols for 10,000 (萬 / 万) as well as multiplies of it (so 10⁸ then 10¹² then 10¹⁶ and so on) they rarely need to use the 10³ separator, usually only for technical stuff.

Edited June 17, 2021 by YNM

[wumpus]

On 1/2/2014 at 6:56 PM, Camacha said:

I understand that the Apollo computers were internally using metric units. To help the astronauts, who were used to imperial units as pilots, the numbers were converted to display as those.

It somewhat amuses me, as computers already display in the decimal system to make human readability easier - as opposed to their native binary systems.

Please be aware that this discussion was started to discuss the real world implications of the different systems, not what system is better or worse Analysis of advantanges and disadvantages, personal experiences and interesting anecdotes are more than welcome though!

In "Carrying the Fire", Micheal Collins insisted that "ft/sec" was the only proper way to measure spacecraft speed, although that was typically compared to mph.

Luckily for electrical engineers, there are no imperial measurements for electricity: no 12 1/2  Edisons to the Franklin.  Although some PCB manufacturing places expect your PCB to be designed using "mills" (1/1000th of an inch, not mm).

For people who grew up on imperial, I highly recommend exersizing in "imperial": measure weights lifted in pounds, running in miles (and speed in miles/min).  It seems better in convincing your body to get stronger and makes any improvement more naturally undestandable.  Otherwise there is no good reason to use them.

Edited June 18, 2021 by wumpus

[RCgothic]

As an engineer who has to use both systems, as far as I'm concerned if all knowledge of the Imperial system were burnt in a fire nothing of value would be lost.

Edited June 17, 2021 by RCgothic

[kerbiloid]

The Imperial system is better.

Spoiler

 

[mikegarrison]

I work in an industry where, everywhere in the world, airplane altitudes are measured in feet and speed is measured in nautical miles per hour.

Temperatures are always a problem because the most physically meaningful scales are K and R, but the most commonly used ones are C and F.

In emissions we use "emissions index", which is a measure of the mass of an emission / the mass of the fuel consumed that produced it. This is a non-dimensional number, but is easiest to express as g/kg -- there being no common way to say 1/1000ths of a pound per pound.

The comments about base-twelve, however, are on point. With 12 you can get half, quarter, third, sixth, or twelfth all as whole fractions. With base 10 all you get are half, fifth, and tenth.

Edited June 17, 2021 by mikegarrison

[Silavite]

29 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

In emissions we use "emissions index", which is a measure of the mass of an emission / the mass of the fuel consumed that produced it. This is a non-dimensional number, but is easiest to express as g/kg -- there being no common way to say 1/1000ths of a pound per pound.

I wonder if that convention came from atmospheric science (given that emissions is connected to atmospheric chemistry) since water vapor mixing ratio is commonly stated in g/kg.

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, RCgothic said:

As an engineer who has to use both systems, as far as I'm concerned if all knowledge of the Imperial system were burnt in a fire nothing of value would be lost.

Yeah, I agree. Aside from the fact that aero / nautical standards  are in Imperial.  I don’t think I can properly imagine the depths of horror that would be involved in trying to transition global navigation from Imperial to SI (which I once thought meant Standard Imperial )

Again. An acre is the area of a rectangle whose length is one furlong and whose width is one chain.

Like, seriously? Yeah, I know, I’m sure it made sense at the time, but….

and a tip of the hat to the necromancer: well played, sir!

Edited June 17, 2021 by StrandedonEarth

[NFUN]

3 hours ago, RCgothic said:

As an engineer who has to use both systems, as far as I'm concerned if all knowledge of the Imperial system were burnt in a fire nothing of value would be lost.

Every single Mech E major I knew would convert the imperial units they were given in problems to metric to do the work and would convert them back at the end, even though they were mostly American and they were taught in Imperial in most classes since the beginning of school

 

Just say no.