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That's not hard to imagine. Quick, what's 1/3 of a meter? The sometimes problem with metric is it's base-10. The prime factors of 10 are 2 and 5. Feet are i
by adamtj 7y ago
That's not hard to imagine. Quick, what's 1/3 of a meter? The sometimes problem with metric is it's base-10. The prime factors of 10 are 2 and 5. Feet are in base-12, which has the prime factors 2 and 3. Three is much more useful than five. There are marks on your measuring tape at exactly 1/3 of a yard or 1/3 of a foot.
Metric is often easier and more convenient, but not always. So, in the US, we tend to use metric or customary units depending on which is more convenient for the task at hand. Actually, it's a lot like the UK and other countries where older systems still exist alongside metric. The difference with the US is that we don't have as many unnecessary laws mandating metric. You're an adult. You're working with other adults. You're perfectly capable of figuring out what to do without the input of lifelong politicians who've never measured a thing in their lives. Except for the amount of your money that they're going to spend. They like measuring that.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago> Quick, what's 1/3 of a meter? 33.3 cm?
- thomk 7y agoOh, you rounded. Got it. ;)
- SketchySeaBeast 7y agoLet's not pretend that any real world application of a third of a foot has infinite precision.
- 1-6 7y agoThat's why you pick highly composite numbers to create your object. 'Quick, what's 1/3 of 12 meters?' Why do they make raised floors 600mm tiles?
- thomk 7y agoAgreed. If you have ever done any type of construction you are very thankful that you can divide a foot evenly by 2, 3, 4 and 6.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- irrational 7y agoYeah, woodworking is so much easier when using feet and inches. It's so incredibly useful to be able to divide a foot into half, thirds, quarters, sixths, and twelfths.
- Taniwha 7y agonah, a mm is an incredibly useful unit for woodworking, it's a little less than the width of a saw cut, it's just about the right precision for most woodworking
- irrational 7y agoIt's not the precision. It's the divisibility. 10 can only be divided in half. It can't be divided into thirds, quarters, sixths or twelfths evenly and that ability is invaluable. This is the same reason why, in the old days of grid layouts, grids were 12 columns wide and not 10.
- Taniwha 7y agoI remember when we built our holiday home - yelling out the lengths of dwangs in millimeters - they were perfect for the job, we never needed to divide them in 3
- doctor_eval 7y agoWhat’s so special about thirds, sixths or twelfths? 10cm = 100mm; 100mm can easily be divided by 2, 4, 5, 8 (=12.5), 10, 20, 25, ... That’s a nice thing about metric. If you don’t like the units you can multiply them
- jdkee 7y ago"Quick, what's 1/3 of a meter?" About a foot.
- mrb 7y agoMy wife's family, who almost all have university degrees, who were all born and raised in the US, and who are very familiar with the imperial system NEVER seem to be able to do math with it. They ask me, a European raised with the metric system, for help. Find out how many fl oz of milk are in a measuring cup graduated in units of cups? Ask mrb. Convert my daughter's height from feet/inches to inches? Ask mrb. Convert a package's weight from oz to lb/oz? Ask mrb. Need to know how cold it needs to be outside in farenheit for water to freeze? Ask mrb. I lost count of the number of times they accidentally mix up for example 1.3 feet with 1 ft 3 in. Sometimes it's due to miscommunication, eg. I have seen "six pound five" interpreted as 6 lb 5 oz by one when the speaker meant 6.5 lb. Or vice versa. It's just comical to see someone trying to argue that the imperial system is "sometimes easier."
- mark-r 7y agoI once worked with a guy who had just bought a surplus cylindrical water tank, and wanted to get an idea of what it would weigh when filled. I asked him for the dimensions and multiplied each by 2.5 to convert to approximately centimeters. Then I multiplied the diameter by 3, approximating pi. I converted each to the nearest power of 2 so I could multiply by adding the exponents. Assuming 1 cubic cm of water is 1 gram, I had the log2 weight in grams. Then I subtracted 10 to divide by 1024, getting approximate kilograms. Then added 1 to get approximate pounds. Finally took 2 to the power of the result. By the time he finished telling me the dimensions, I had an answer for him.
- jessaustin 7y agoHow would one use the diameter to determine weight? Do we square it then divide by four?
- mark-r 7y agoIn metric, the weight of water in grams is equal to the volume in cubic centimeters, by definition. The volume of a cylinder is the area of the circle times the length. The area of a circle is pi * r^2. So my description above skipped a step or two.
- clucas 7y agoI do agree with you that base-12 is easier to work with, but I think it's worth pointing out, appropos of the article, that U.S. surveyors actually talk about feet in "tenths" and "hundredths" - so, quick, what's one third of a foot? About 33 hundredths of a foot. ;)
- p1mrx 7y agoFeet and inches aren't really in "base twelve", because it's not a positional number system. For example, what's 1/3 of an inch? I think we'd be better off using dozenal numbers, but that ship sailed a long time ago.
- raattgift 7y ago> Quick, what's 1/3 of a meter? 33 cm 333 mm 333 333 micrometre 333 333 333 nm ... and so on ... $ units You have: 1|3 m You want: ym * 3.3333333e+23 / 3e-24 > politicians Oooooookay.