Discussion
Seeing a temperature quoted in Fahrenheit on another forum made me aware of the mixture of units I use.
For 'room' and most outdoor temperatures I use Fahrenheit, but switch to Centigrade below about 5C. (This probably stems from the time as student when I had to record outdoor temperatures in winter and they were given in C, so I started connecting C to how cold it was).
For lengths I use millimetres and centimetres for small lengths, inches and feet for medium lengths, and then recently I've found myself using metres instead of yards as the EU poisons my brain.
For volume I tend to think in cartons of orange juice.
For 'room' and most outdoor temperatures I use Fahrenheit, but switch to Centigrade below about 5C. (This probably stems from the time as student when I had to record outdoor temperatures in winter and they were given in C, so I started connecting C to how cold it was).
For lengths I use millimetres and centimetres for small lengths, inches and feet for medium lengths, and then recently I've found myself using metres instead of yards as the EU poisons my brain.
For volume I tend to think in cartons of orange juice.
I think people like to use units which give values that are more meaningful or at least give a number that is easier to handle
10 km is easier to think about than 10,000 m
1 mole is easier to think about than 6.02 x 10^23 (rough number of atoms in 1 mole of a substance..for example, 12 grams of graphite, or 23 grams of sodium metal)
Some units help people visualise some parameter e.g. 20 football pitches in area, as long as 30 double-decker busses, the weight of 1000 bags of sugar, that kind of thing
Some things are expressed as a logarithm, for example pH (which relates to the concentration of hydrogen ions in a solution), or decibels, because the numbers are easier to handle.
10 km is easier to think about than 10,000 m
1 mole is easier to think about than 6.02 x 10^23 (rough number of atoms in 1 mole of a substance..for example, 12 grams of graphite, or 23 grams of sodium metal)
Some units help people visualise some parameter e.g. 20 football pitches in area, as long as 30 double-decker busses, the weight of 1000 bags of sugar, that kind of thing
Some things are expressed as a logarithm, for example pH (which relates to the concentration of hydrogen ions in a solution), or decibels, because the numbers are easier to handle.
Simpo Two said:
I've found myself using metres instead of yards as the EU poisons my brain.
You do know that the metre is a British invention....right 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre#History
I consciously switched from F to C for temperatures, and imperial to metric for weight, a few years ago. So I just don't know what my imperial weight is any more, and no longer have to worry about remembering how many lbs in a st, ozs in a lb, etc.
It just seemed completely ridiculous to persist in using such inconvenient scales, schools don't teach imperial any more and I also wanted to avoid accidentally polluting my kids brains with it
LordGrover said:
Mostly, 'imperial' measurements are French, or at least continental.
For example, pounds and ounces avoirdupois - and the mile is based on Roman/Latin word mille for a thousand paces.
I was taught both metric and imperial and how to convert in the 60's!
Why the Dickens we still use imperial measurements is beyond me.
From here. For example, pounds and ounces avoirdupois - and the mile is based on Roman/Latin word mille for a thousand paces.
I was taught both metric and imperial and how to convert in the 60's!
Why the Dickens we still use imperial measurements is beyond me.
It's about time we went properly metric instead of this half-arsed mixture we have to deal with today. I went to school in the sixties and seventies and we were taught the metric system then. Pretty sure it wasn't new then.
How the juddering feck can someone argue that 16oz to a pound and 14lbs to a stone is a sensible system?
How many imperial fetishists know how many feet or yards in a mile? How about the freezing and boiling points of water in Fahrenheit? Clearly some do, but most don't.
It makes it darn difficult to compare and quantify many things because we switch from ounces to pounds to stones to hundredweights to tons etc. Stick to kilograms and all is simple and well.
Or go the merkan way and everything in ounces and pounds - at least they're consistent.
LordGrover said:
LordGrover said:
Mostly, 'imperial' measurements are French, or at least continental.
For example, pounds and ounces avoirdupois - and the mile is based on Roman/Latin word mille for a thousand paces.
I was taught both metric and imperial and how to convert in the 60's!
Why the Dickens we still use imperial measurements is beyond me.
From here. For example, pounds and ounces avoirdupois - and the mile is based on Roman/Latin word mille for a thousand paces.
I was taught both metric and imperial and how to convert in the 60's!
Why the Dickens we still use imperial measurements is beyond me.
It's about time we went properly metric instead of this half-arsed mixture we have to deal with today. I went to school in the sixties and seventies and we were taught the metric system then. Pretty sure it wasn't new then.
How the juddering feck can someone argue that 16oz to a pound and 14lbs to a stone is a sensible system?
How many imperial fetishists know how many feet or yards in a mile? How about the freezing and boiling points of water in Fahrenheit? Clearly some do, but most don't.
It makes it darn difficult to compare and quantify many things because we switch from ounces to pounds to stones to hundredweights to tons etc. Stick to kilograms and all is simple and well.
Or go the merkan way and everything in ounces and pounds - at least they're consistent.
"Two farthings = One Ha’penny. Two ha’pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = A Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.
The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated."
bearman68 said:
Metric all the way - how can you calculate anything at all in imperial systems? I have no idea how many BTU's our boiler output is......
It's only because you were never taught them. Imperial is called Imperial because you can build a f
king Empire on it! We shall now sing the national anthem.
Halmyre said:
Footnote from Pratchett and Gaiman's 'Good Omens':
"Two farthings = One Ha’penny. Two ha’pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = A Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.
It's cleverly angled but all you actually needed was pounds, shillings and pence, just one more than we have today. The other terms are simply colloquialisms. 12 divides up more ways than 10. "Two farthings = One Ha’penny. Two ha’pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = A Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.
Regardless of which is 'easier', it's the fact we have to adopt everything from bloody Europe that I find annoying. And that includes croissants and sitting on aluminium chairs on a freezing pavement. Bah.
Simpo Two said:
It's cleverly angled but all you actually needed was pounds, shillings and pence, just one more than we have today. The other terms are simply colloquialisms. 12 divides up more ways than 10.
They should have gone with weights. 16 ounces in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone, 8 stones in a hundredweight, 20 hundredweights in a ton.Simpo Two said:
Regardless of which is 'easier', it's the fact we have to adopt everything from bloody Europe that I find annoying. And that includes croissants and sitting on aluminium chairs on a freezing pavement. Bah.
Quite. Only foreigners and animals eat outside.Although I do enjoy a pot of Italian-roast coffee (made in Harrogate...) on a Sunday morning to wash down my croissant and pain-au-chocolat.
I am an engineer, where most things are metric because equations are easier if they are in consistent units. I can't believe how much time must have been spent converting imperial units from tables; and every conversion increases the chances of mistakes.
Outside of work I use °C, metres, millimetres (and occasionally inches and yards, but never centimetres; don't get me started) and miles due to cars and road signs being in miles. I will readily use kilometres when driving abroad. I don't think it makes much difference unless you need to calculate anything at which point the benefits of metric become apparent. With common imperial units of length you have:
Thou, inch, foot, yard & mile (plus several others in specialist areas).
In metric you have the metre, and that's it. Everything else is metres with a prefix in multiples of a thousand.
Likewise, for mass:
Imperial: grain, ounce, pound, stone, hundredweight & ton.
Metric: kilogram (which is a bit odd in itself, but we'll let that go as it is still easier than imperial!).
Most metric units only need conversion factors of 1,000, while most imperial units need numbers which are not easy to remember.
And metric also doesn't use fractions: think about the steps involved in adding six foot eight and five sixteenths to four foot eleven and seven tenths and you'll see what I mean. Even adding seventy five point two centimetres to eleven hundred and thirty eight point six millimetres can be done fairly quickly, and expressed in any metric unit, in the head.
Mike...
Outside of work I use °C, metres, millimetres (and occasionally inches and yards, but never centimetres; don't get me started) and miles due to cars and road signs being in miles. I will readily use kilometres when driving abroad. I don't think it makes much difference unless you need to calculate anything at which point the benefits of metric become apparent. With common imperial units of length you have:
Thou, inch, foot, yard & mile (plus several others in specialist areas).
In metric you have the metre, and that's it. Everything else is metres with a prefix in multiples of a thousand.
Likewise, for mass:
Imperial: grain, ounce, pound, stone, hundredweight & ton.
Metric: kilogram (which is a bit odd in itself, but we'll let that go as it is still easier than imperial!).
Most metric units only need conversion factors of 1,000, while most imperial units need numbers which are not easy to remember.
And metric also doesn't use fractions: think about the steps involved in adding six foot eight and five sixteenths to four foot eleven and seven tenths and you'll see what I mean. Even adding seventy five point two centimetres to eleven hundred and thirty eight point six millimetres can be done fairly quickly, and expressed in any metric unit, in the head.
Mike...
mike_knott said:
think about the steps involved in adding six foot eight and five sixteenths to four foot eleven and seven tenths and you'll see what I mean.
True - though they wouldn't have used tenths of an inch. So all fractions would use, or could be converted to, the same common denominator. Mental arithmetic was much better in those pre-calculator days.Halmyre said:
They should have gone with weights. 16 ounces in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone, 8 stones in a hundredweight, 20 hundredweights in a ton.
In practice it's unlikely any profession would have needed all of that scale. A coalman would only work with tons and hundredweight. A grocer would only use pounds and ounces - and so on. My mother, who trained as a pharmacist, used ounces and drams. So in real life it wasn't as bad as things might seem.Edited by Simpo Two on Tuesday 10th February 16:09
Simpo Two said:
mike_knott said:
think about the steps involved in adding six foot eight and five sixteenths to four foot eleven and seven tenths and you'll see what I mean.
True - though they wouldn't have used tenths of an inch. So all fractions would use, or could be converted to, the same common denominator. Mental arithmetic was much better in those pre-calculator days.Halmyre said:
They should have gone with weights. 16 ounces in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone, 8 stones in a hundredweight, 20 hundredweights in a ton.
In practice it's unlikely any profession would have needed all of that scale. A coalman would only work with tons and hundredweight. A grocer would only use pounds and ounces - and so on. My mother, who trained as a pharmacist, used ounces and drams. So in real life it wasn't as bad as things might seem.Edited by Simpo Two on Tuesday 10th February 16:09
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