Metric vs Imperial units

[jon-mullen]

For the record Jon, the French also had this idea about a ten-day week, how about that?

So each mistress could have her own day of the week, I suppose.

I'm glad we have the 360° coordinates, even if it is completely arbitrary. It's evenly-divisible in a ton of different ways and we were never going to get by using radians. Imagine carpenters spec'ing a pi/2 angle.

[mep]

There is also that new angle where a full circle has 400degree.
Therefore a right angle has 100°.
However I think a full circle should have 100°

[raymondu999]

I think you'll find that the UK is metric in all but name so far as engineering is concerned.

The only areas that are still imperial are road use (miles and miles per hour - fuel is already sold in litres) and beer.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a liter of beer than a pint

[mr moda]

Well 22.86 centimetre nails wouldnt sound to great for a band would it.

[Jersey Tom]

And honestly the fractions are easy to work out as soon as you start working with them. Any amount of 32nd's or 16th's or whatever.. you just know off hand.

Oddly enough I always had a hard time reading metric micrometers.

[xpensive]

To my mind, these different systems are not really comparable, with SI-units everything comes together, Force eguals Mass times Accelleration and Power is always Force times Speed, you can twist it and turn it without multiplying-factors or loosing yourself with units and dimensions.

Hp equals lbf times ft/s, or psi times gpm, how the hell do you get that right?

[imightbewrong]

I learned it like that and I double checked it here:
http://dict.leo.org/frde?lang=de&lp=frde

Sorry mep, the question was to autogyro regarding the statement of it originating from the establishment of the prime meridian

[Jersey Tom]

To my mind, these different systems are not really comparable, with SI-units everything comes together, Force eguals Mass times Accelleration and Power is always Force times Speed, you can twist it and turn it without multiplying-factors or loosing yourself with units and dimensions.

Hp equals lbf times ft/s, or psi times gpm, how the hell do you get that right?

You just do it. Not that hard.

Watts = liters per second * bar of pressure too.

[xpensive]

To my mind, these different systems are not really comparable, with SI-units everything comes together, Force eguals Mass times Accelleration and Power is always Force times Speed, you can twist it and turn it without multiplying-factors or loosing yourself with units and dimensions.

Hp equals lbf times ft/s, or psi times gpm, how the hell do you get that right?

You just do it. Not that hard.

Watts = liters per second * bar of pressure too.

It's not like that at all; Watts = m^3/s * Pa

Now please xplain how you get Hp = psi * gpm, without a funny factor of sorts?

[Belatti]

And you are all forgetting about temperature. Water freezing and boiling points at normal atmosferical pressures are an easy and "decimal" way to measure temperature.

You know, if it rains and the temp is below 0°c you know its snow. Has more sense than saying "if the temp is below 32°f"...

Yesterday I took a flight and the captain said "we are travelling at 11.000 metres above the sea level" and you instantly know that the ground is 11 kilometres below, you get a feel of where are you. Now, when he translated that to English, well... 36,000 feet doesnt give me a clue.

[Jersey Tom]

To my mind, these different systems are not really comparable, with SI-units everything comes together, Force eguals Mass times Accelleration and Power is always Force times Speed, you can twist it and turn it without multiplying-factors or loosing yourself with units and dimensions.

Hp equals lbf times ft/s, or psi times gpm, how the hell do you get that right?

You just do it. Not that hard.

Watts = liters per second * bar of pressure too.

It's not like that at all; Watts = m^3/s * Pa

Now please xplain how you get Hp = psi * gpm, without a funny factor of sorts?

Without a constant of multiplication? Who cares! Just saying it's not a big deal.

Just like knowing there are 5280 feet in a mile, or 365 days in a year, or that Planck's constant is 6.626e-34 Joule, or that the yield stress of Cond N AISI4130 is about 60 ksi. It's easy. You know just know it. No need to make it more simple.

And I could just as easily say if a pilot tells me they're 11km above the ground.. I'd have no feel for what that means. Just the same as if someone tells me it's 25C out. Or that they're driving 90 kph.

[gibells]

Sheesh we are bored. Roll on next week!

[xpensive]

Without a constant of multiplication? Who cares! Just saying it's not a big deal.

In other words, you have no idea? But you see with SI-units you don't need one, which is the point here.

Btw, the Planck constant has the dimension of energy times time, SI unit is J*s.

[Belatti]

OK then, easy or not easy, its all just a matter of familiarize.

The problem is when you work in a country like mine, that has 50% imperial and 50% metric based technologies. You can see any workshop has both types of tools, and that represents more costs (tools are expensive) and confusion.

Still, for low torque applications you can tighten a 1/2" nut with a 13mm wrench

[tok-tokkie]

I did my schooling in Imperial & pocket money in £/s/d. Fortunately I delayed going to university & it had metricated by then (though a few books were in the quaint & archaic Imperial units).

What I fail to understand is why they did not re-name the kilogram when the standardized to SI. A kilo of everything is 1000 of the basic unit EXCEPT mass where the basic is the kilo. Stuffed the whole system up. I propose that Archimedes be honoured by re-naming the kilogram the Archi (his full neame is a bit long - what was his first name?). Alternatively Eurika.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes