Metric/imperial

[FungusForge]

Well despite being an American, I still vastly prefer metric. Its sane. Its rather easy to grasp. It doesn't feel like someone was rolling dice to determine how much of unit A will make unit B.

[AngelLestat]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

In baking recipes written with metric units (especially French recipes, for whatever reason), amounts for dry ingredients like flour, sugar, etc. are usually given by weight rather than by volume. So you end up needing to keep a scale on hand to weigh out your ingredients. Recipe measurements in imperial units for dry ingredients are more commonly given in volume units

Ah ok, I understand what you mean. Is not only in france. is in the whole world..  Yes we could use also volume to measure different types of foods, but that will be conceptually incorrect in many ways. People might grow up not knowing the difference between weight and volume.
We solve that issue for the common ingredients with the same type of measuring cups that I show you, you can see the different scales in grams or with a digital balance cup.

For small measures we also use spoons.
Here a recipe page from my country (choose one):
http://www.essen.com.ar/recetas-para-reposteria-y-panaderia/22

46 minutes ago, Ten Key said:

Just my two cents here, but while metric units are great for precision measurements, I think there are instances where they can be awkward for quick, "good enough" information. 

• A year or so ago we had a pet related emergency and ended up in the animal ER with an obviously distressed cat (he face planted into our couch and broke his jaw, but we didn't know that at the time). Our cat weighs somewhere between 10 and 11 lbs. The vet that was checking us in was bound and determined to use kilograms, but she kept having to stop and check her notes because in kilograms, that extra fraction made a significant difference. 

fraction of time that she lost in the conversion?   If all the world will be using a single measuring system nobody would lose time.

Quote

• There are only 25 degrees between room temperature and the freezing point of water on the Celsius scale. There's an awful lot of running room between room temperature and the freezing point of water-- for "day-to-day" temperatures, you can get away with using integers only on the Fahrenheit scale. Using Celsius, you really need those fractions. 

We dont need fractions for temperature..  25c is not much different than 24c, also what is the point,  weatherman are not so accurate.
And in case you need precision.. you can use 24,1   24,7  (with 6 times more precision than fahrenheit)  Not sure what is the problem.
0 degree or less, snow, ice...  

 

Quote

I've been known to dabble in fiction writing. Both settings I've been spending time in lately are technical, and both are firmly metric. And the vast majority of the time, that's a good thing. But I sometimes find myself running into trouble when trying to quickly describe something that's about "yay big". Centimeters feel too small-- you need an awful lot of them to get anywhere. And meters feel too large.

we have a middle scale between cm and meter, is called dm, but nobody use it.  There is no need.
Just divide meter in 100.
These are the only types of distance units we use:

millimeters -  centimeters - meter  - kilometer  - Au - Light year.
We have units to fill the gaps always in tens, but there is no need.

Edited February 18, 2016 by AngelLestat

[Ten Key]

2 hours ago, Temstar said:

Why is that a problem? You don't say "pi is about 3", so why can't lengths have decimal points? How would you quote things like interest rates if you're not comfortable with decimal points?

Precision. Using decimals implies a certain level of precision in your measurement, and that feels incompatible with the approximation you get from "eyeballing" something. You approximate pi to the level of precision you need for your calculation. That's not "about yay big".

I was raised with both types of units, and we used metric almost exclusively in school. We have both imperial and metric tool sets around the house. And while I greatly appreciate the relative ease of metric for electronic calculation, it does feel like certain metric units, particularly the units for length, are not sized appropriately for certain applications.  

2 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

fraction of time that she lost in the conversion?   If all the world will be using a single measuring system nobody would lose time.

There was no conversion-- it was a digital scale and she'd set it to kilograms. But she was a student (it was a teaching hospital) and in the heat of the moment her brain kept dropping the fraction. There are certain times when speed is of the essence and razor precision is not necessary, and in those moments I do not want to have to worry about fractions. And that was one of those moments. The unit was literally too big for the cat. 

[Kerbart]

22 minutes ago, Ten Key said:

I was raised with both types of units, and we used metric almost exclusively in school. We have both imperial and metric tool sets around the house. And while I greatly appreciate the relative ease of metric for electronic calculation, it does feel like certain metric units, particularly the units for length, are not sized appropriately for certain applications.  

Humor me. Between km, m, dm, cm and mm, which every metric grammar school student grows up with, and the  µm which every science/technical student will be more than familiar with, what length unit is the metric system missing that is not sized appropriately for certain applications, and what would be the corresponding imperial units that are?

As for "dropping the fraction," the scenario described is just as applicable to a scale that shows pounds and ounces, the student would be dropping the ounces in that case, making the final measurement really not that much more accurate. If you claim, oh, but someone would NEVER drop the ounces, my answer would be that someone (used to metric) would NEVER drop the first digit on a scale either. I sound like a repeating record, but if you're used to a certain system you're not making the mistakes that "the other side" claims are easily made in the other system. It doesn't work that way. 

[Camacha]

4 hours ago, Ten Key said:

I've been known to dabble in fiction writing. Both settings I've been spending time in lately are technical, and both are firmly metric. And the vast majority of the time, that's a good thing. But I sometimes find myself running into trouble when trying to quickly describe something that's about "yay big". Centimeters feel too small-- you need an awful lot of them to get anywhere. And meters feel too large. Giving an approximate length using fractions or decimal points just feels weird. Centimeters and inches are roughly comparable, and so are meters and yards, but there doesn't seem to be a metric equivalent for feet in common usage. Even the decimeter feels too small, and I don't think that unit comes up in everyday conversation.

This does not seem to be an actual argument. You have an almost excessive amount of prefixes to reduce accuracy or increase reasonable range. Whenever you feel those might not be appropriate, you still get decimals to suit your needs. You can go both ways as you please and with significant ease. If you still cannot something that fits the bill, you can indicate (in)accuracy by using half, quarter or similar loos-y metrics. Your cat, for example, would be between 4,5 (four and a half) and 5 (five) kilogram. Or actually, 5,0 kg, because the first thing you learn in high school is about significant figures.

Let us be fair: if you cannot find measurements and accuracies to fit your needs in the metric system, the problem is not the metric system.

 

4 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

we have a middle scale between cm and meter, is called dm, but nobody use it.

It is used all right, though decilitre certainly is more common than decimetre. It does, however, illustrate that the metric system is apparently fine grained enough to even drop certain orders of magnitude, because people do not feel the need to use every single one as much.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Camacha

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

Humor me. Between km, m, dm, cm and mm, which every metric grammar school student grows up with, and the  µm which every science/technical student will be more than familiar with, what length unit is the metric system missing that is not sized appropriately for certain applications, and what would be the corresponding imperial units that are?

As for "dropping the fraction," the scenario described is just as applicable to a scale that shows pounds and ounces, the student would be dropping the ounces in that case, making the final measurement really not that much more accurate. If you claim, oh, but someone would NEVER drop the ounces, my answer would be that someone (used to metric) would NEVER drop the first digit on a scale either. I sound like a repeating record, but if you're used to a certain system you're not making the mistakes that "the other side" claims are easily made in the other system. It doesn't work that way. 

Frankly, the most obvious example is my home thermostat. With it in F, I can set it in whole degrees. And 1 degree F really does make a difference in comfort. To get the same resolution, I would have to set the thermostat in half-degrees in C.

My experience in Europe (in hotels) is that thermostats don't go in half-degrees, which means Europeans have only about 1/2 the fineness in home temperature control. Not a life-changing thing, but it is a real world example.

The flip side of that is that even in the US more and more people buy liquids by the liter. It's just a more convenient measuring system for the real world than ounces and pints and quarts etc.

[SuperFastJellyfish]

This is more of a space lounge topic, IMO.  There is no science here...just circular tribalism.

[Shpaget]

5 hours ago, Ten Key said:

Precision. Using decimals implies a certain level of precision in your measurement, and that feels incompatible with the approximation you get from "eyeballing" something. You approximate pi to the level of precision you need for your calculation. That's not "about yay big"

There was no conversion-- it was a digital scale and she'd set it to kilograms. But she was a student (it was a teaching hospital) and in the heat of the moment her brain kept dropping the fraction. There are certain times when speed is of the essence and razor precision is not necessary, and in those moments I do not want to have to worry about fractions. And that was one of those moments. The unit was literally too big for the cat. 

Using any unit implies precission.

There are no fractions in metric.

What imperial unit would not be "too big" for medication? Active substances in drugs are usually measured in miligrams, or even micrograms. How would you express that order of magnitude in imperial?

How is a gram a unit that is too big for a cat?

[Camacha]

1 hour ago, SuperFastJellyfish said:

This is more of a space lounge topic, IMO.  There is no science here...just circular tribalism.

By that measure, the entirety of science is tribalism.

 

3 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

My experience in Europe (in hotels) is that thermostats don't go in half-degrees, which means Europeans have only about 1/2 the fineness in home temperature control. Not a life-changing thing, but it is a real world example.

Analogue thermostats generally have stepless positioning, digital thermostats often indicate a decimal. Most people will not notice a difference of a degree, a tenth of a degree certainly is enough.

Not to mention the temperature gradient across a room generally is several degrees.

[FungusForge]

17 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Active substances in drugs are usually measured in miligrams, or even micrograms. How would you express that order of magnitude in imperial?

According to wikipedia, the only weight unit that small would be the grain, which is 64.79891 milligrams exactly. To go below that one would probably end up using fractions of grains.

 

 

A totally random thought, but sometimes I wonder if aliens would use metric too. The whole system is based on water after all.

[Hary R]

12 minutes ago, FungusForge said:

According to wikipedia, the only weight unit that small would be the grain, which is 64.79891 milligrams exactly. To go below that one would probably end up using fractions of grains.

 

 

A totally random thought, but sometimes I wonder if aliens would use metric too. The whole system is based on water after all.

They will use gloofies...

If a civilization happen to exist there, their unit of measurement will look nothing like what we have here on earth, this is due to the really arbitrary way imperial, US customary and metric unit were created to begin with ( created for human use only). But due to the nature of physic, i'm sure they will be a way to convert alien gloofies to metric, imperial or US customary units.

[Camacha]

2 minutes ago, Hary R said:

They will use gloofies...

If a civilization happen to exist there, their unit of measurement will look nothing like what we have here on earth, this is due to the really arbitrary way imperial, US customary and metric unit were created to begin with ( created for human use only). But due to the nature of physic, i'm sure they will be a way to convert alien gloofies to metric, imperial or US customary units.

Do not forget the metric system has redefined itself a couple of times. A second is now directly related to the vibrations of an atom. This will be true in most of the known universe. The only thing that is unsure is whether they will use a decimal system. A hexidecimal, binary or any other system is about as likely.

[Hary R]

1 minute ago, Camacha said:

Do not forget the metric system has redefined itself a couple of times. A second is now directly related to the vibrations of an atom. This will be true in most of the known universe. The only thing that is unsure is whether they will use a decimal system. A hexidecimal, binary or any other system is about as likely.

may be but why that precise atom, how would you be sure the will choose that atom to define a second? It still is an arbitrary decision by a human but it will make gloofy to metric conversion easier.

[Camacha]

Just now, Hary R said:

may be but why that precise atom, how would you be sure the will choose that atom to define a second? It still is an arbitrary decision by a human but it will make gloofy to metric conversion easier.

No one said they will pick that exact atom. It is, however, a universal unit of measurement. The same atoms will vibrate at the same rate. This is much better than some rotational period of a planet that changes its rotational planet regularly and continuously.

Besides, it is more likely their number system is an issue than the atom. They will know the atom and probably know how to measure its vibrations. They will not intuitively know that 9,192,631,770 means what we feel it means. If you are to use a duodecimal system (for example, because they have twelve fingers), that number would suddenly mean 47,198,021,124 in decimal numbers. Maybe they have a logarithmic system or some other contrived-but-to-them-totally-logical construct.

[p1t1o]

oof! is this still going?

[andrewas]

6 hours ago, Ten Key said:

There was no conversion-- it was a digital scale and she'd set it to kilograms. But she was a student (it was a teaching hospital) and in the heat of the moment her brain kept dropping the fraction. There are certain times when speed is of the essence and razor precision is not necessary, and in those moments I do not want to have to worry about fractions. And that was one of those moments. The unit was literally too big for the cat. 

Pounds are probably too big for the cat as well, if you are calculating drug dosages. And its no harder to remember 10.2kg than 22lb 8oz. The problem in your scenario is not the system of measurement, but that the student was having trouble in the heat of the moment. A more experienced vet in the same situation would have the speed you want, and when necessary the razor precision.

[Hary R]

2 minutes ago, Camacha said:

No one said they will pick that exact atom. It is, however, a universal unit of measurement. The same atoms will vibrate at the same rate. This is much better than some rotational period of a planet that changes its rotational planet regularly and continuously.

Besides, it is more likely their number system is an issue than the atom. They will know the atom and probably know how to measure its vibrations. They will not intuitively know that 9,192,631,770 means what we feel it means. If you are to use a duodecimal system (for example, because they have twelve fingers), that number would suddenly mean 47,198,021,124 in decimal numbers. Maybe they have a logarithmic system or some other contrived-but-to-them-totally-logical construct.

Well it's what i said, they will have something that will look nothing like what we have due to all our system were created for human use.

[Camacha]

1 minute ago, Hary R said:

Well it's what i said, they will have something that will look nothing like what we have due to all our system were created for human use.

Not really. We have the hexadecimal system and the binary system, which we both use on a daily basis without realising it too much. Of course, we created many more systems, many not intended for humans.

[cicatrix]

1 hour ago, FungusForge said:

A totally random thought, but sometimes I wonder if aliens would use metric too. The whole system is based on water after all.

The whole system is based on the fact that we have ten fingers. Celsius simply split the range from freezing temperature to boiling temperature into ten times ten degrees.

So, I suppose, if aliens have four fingers their system would be either 4-based or 8-based. 

Still, the Babylonians used 60-based system as it was very convenient to divide by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30.

So 60 = 5 * 12 = 5 * (3 * 4). We still use it with hours of day/night (2 * 12). And every hour being 60 minutes with each minute being 60 seconds.

 

Edited February 18, 2016 by cicatrix

[Hary R]

2 hours ago, Camacha said:

Not really. We have the hexadecimal system and the binary system, which we both use on a daily basis without realising it too much. Of course, we created many more systems, many not intended for humans.

Ok fair enough, indeed there are many systems in use that are not intended for humans. As for alien, until we meet them, there no way to really know.

[sevenperforce]

16 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

Ah ok, I understand what you mean. Is not only in france. is in the whole world..  Yes we could use also volume to measure different types of foods, but that will be conceptually incorrect in many ways. People might grow up not knowing the difference between weight and volume.
We solve that issue for the common ingredients with the same type of measuring cups that I show you, you can see the different scales in grams or with a digital balance cup.

 

Yikes! Using a cup measure with built-in gram conversion is going to be even worse than using measurements which are already volumetric.

I'm all about weighing my ingredients when applicable. But in the pre-industrial age without calculators or digital scales, the Imperial system was far, far more powerful.

8 hours ago, Camacha said:

Analogue thermostats generally have stepless positioning, digital thermostats often indicate a decimal. Most people will not notice a difference of a degree, a tenth of a degree certainly is enough.

I've never seen a digital thermostat with a decimal.

Generally speaking, a measurement system with more discrete-step units on human scales will be more descriptive and thus more powerful than a measurement system with fewer discrete-step units on human scales. More useful in some cases, less useful in other cases.

And I think that the ease of learning metric compared to the relative difficulty of learning Imperial is part of the reason people seem to think metric is "better" or Imperial is "backwards". Think about it this way: metric has higher data compression than Imperial. Metric is like trying to describe something in Simple English. Easier to learn but also less powerful for certain applications.

[sevenperforce]

17 hours ago, Kerbart said:

It's funny that you mentioned this. My sister is into Baking (with a capital B) so I brought her over some American measuring cups (small & large) last time I visited. I also mentioned that the American way of things, by measuring in volumes, seemed more practical to me than the European way of using a scale. Boy, was I wrong...

She promptly sent me a link to a site for Bakers (capital B again) where an American Bakeress (Bakress? Bakerette?) went into an entire tirade against volume measurements and why weight units were so much more accurate. Depending on how you measure it, "one cup of flour" has a tremendous variance in it. On the other hand, 150g of flour is 150g of flour. But not only that, converting portions to bake something bigger or smaller is much easier with weights (masses, really, of course) than with volumes. In the kitchen, and need only half of 3 3/4 cup? Good luck with that. Dividing 375g of flour in half is a lot easier (you don't need a calculator to figure out it's 187g).

In the end it's a matter of perspective. If you're used to using cups, using a scale will seem cumbersome. If you're used to a scale, the cups seem clumsy. The superior method is not one or the other; it's the one you are used to.

Well, she's absolutely right that weighing ingredients is superior in terms of precision and accuracy. No doubt about it. But it's not just a case of "well, this is what you're used to". Even if you're equally practiced with both methods, weighing your ingredients with a scale is always going to be an added step. Sure, it's worth the extra effort, but it's still an added step.

Your example actually illustrates the usefulness of the Imperial system, believe it or not. There are eight ounces in a cup, so half of 3 ³/₄ cups is simply 1 cup and 7 ounces. I can just add two full cups and then remove two tablespoons (because 2 tbsp = 1 oz) and I've halved it. Sure, it seems inelegant, but it's quite fast. Much faster than if you were trying to increase your 375 grams by a third.

The Imperial system takes longer to learn, but it was very useful in a preindustrial society that lacked digital scales and calculators.

[YNM]

18 hours ago, PB666 said:

my #1 rule of cooking, never use the same spoon twice unless its measuring the same thing and you don't stir. Taking a spoon that has been used to measure one item and/or then stirring the pot with it is the best way of contaminating the second item (lowers shelf life, contributes to spoilage). Take it from someone with food sensitivities, its a no-no, think migraine city, food poisioning, etc. I use a teaspoon for measuring sugar because it has a long handle, which means I don't get sugar grains on my hand, I use a table spoon for measuring grains such as for breakfast (but now I simply pour at a certain rate for a certain amount of time).

Hmm. Noted well on accelerated expiration. I think I meant to say that to know you're having half teaspoon you don't need a separate spoon than one teaspoon. Holds for one-off though (like, add sugar to your tea - most of the time I only use one teaspoon of sugar for one glass of tea).

34 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Your example actually illustrates the usefulness of the Imperial system, believe it or not. There are eight ounces in a cup, so half of 3 ³/₄ cups is simply 1 cup and 7 ounces. I can just add two full cups and then remove two tablespoons (because 2 tbsp = 1 oz) and I've halved it. Sure, it seems inelegant, but it's quite fast. Much faster than if you were trying to increase your 375 grams by a third.

The Imperial system takes longer to learn, but it was very useful in a preindustrial society that lacked digital scales and calculators.

Or you can just flatten it out and reduce the height to a half. Or so.

Edited February 18, 2016 by YNM

[Shpaget]

46 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

I've never seen a digital thermostat with a decimal.

Let's change that.

 

@YNM, OTTD, heh? I love that thing!

Edited February 18, 2016 by Shpaget

[sevenperforce]

10 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Let's change that.

 

@YNM, OTTD, heh? I love that thing!

I see no decimal. What's that comma going there?

Kidding, kidding, of course.

18 minutes ago, YNM said:

Hmm. Noted well on accelerated expiration. I think I meant to say that to know you're having half teaspoon you don't need a separate spoon than one teaspoon. Holds for one-off though (like, add sugar to your tea - most of the time I only use one teaspoon of sugar for one glass of tea).

Or you can just flatten it out and reduce the height to a half. Or so.

Volumetric measurements certainly make it easier to eyeball fractions.