| Stickist.com https://www.stickist.com/ |
|
| You are looking at the world with a bias https://www.stickist.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=9620 |
Page 4 of 4 |
| Author: | AndyJPro [ Thu May 21, 2015 1:11 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: You are looking at the world with a bias |
Robstafarian wrote: greg wrote: I mean, the US will probably never give up the English system of measurements, even though there are real costs to not having the same system as most of the rest of the world. We would have been ahead of the metric system had George Washington had followed Thomas Jefferson's suggestion. I'm not completely convinced there's a huge cost associated with using imperial vs metric (SI) units in the US anymore. Imperial standards are all dependent on metric standards now, and if you're in any sort of scientific/engineering field you have to learn to do things in SI anyway. As long as the communication as to what unit each number is represented in is clear, it isn't really an issue. I know that's one more degree of complication for something to go wrong, but only one instance of it causing severe issues comes to mind. Personally I blame the standard convention of Arabic numerals as to why imperial units appear so stupid. A base-twelve counting system (duodecimal) is an excellent system of arithmetic, it just looks stupid when adapted to a base-ten system. Twelve, (the quantity, not the symbolic representation) is superior to 10 due to its many factors. twelve divides by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and twelve, where as ten only divides by 1, 2, 5, and ten. So we're missing out on a world accuracy because ( 1/3 ) rounds to 0.3333 . So, practically speaking, feet and inches are an excellent concept of measurement. If we had a base-twelve counting system, it would be even better. Common fractions would convert more conveniently, ( 1/3 ) would be equivalent to (aka represented as) 0.4 in duodecimal; ( 1/6 ) would be shown as 0.2 , instead of having to round it to 0.16667 . So there is some good in using inches and feet* (and days, hours, and seconds), it's just the most common conventional number system doesn't jive well with it. So we're back to accepting something for what it is and learning around it, or unlearning something and learn something in a more efficient manner. *I can't speak to the legitimacy of using 16 ounces to the pound, or using the same word for volume and weight, or any other weird part of the imperial unit system. I can only vouch for feet and inches. Note to European readers (maybe the other continents too?), to clarify in case of confusion, in North America we use a period ( . ) to denote a decimal place, rather than a comma ( , ). Just in case my prior paragraph looked weird. Bravo to anyone who made it through that lengthy post. Phew. |
|
| Author: | Robstafarian [ Thu May 21, 2015 1:29 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: You are looking at the world with a bias |
AndyJPro wrote: Bravo to anyone who made it through that lengthy post. Phew. You are my kind of geek, Andy. |
|
| Author: | Jayesskerr [ Sun May 24, 2015 8:59 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: You are looking at the world with a bias |
... |
|
| Page 4 of 4 | All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ] |
| Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group http://www.phpbb.com/ |
|