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Metric to Standard

calamity said:
Not when you get to negative numbers.
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It is not perfect, but worked for most temperatures I dealt with. I remember being at Scheveningen beach in the Netherlands during the summer time looking at the temperature sign on the pier and those temperatures converted quite well.
 
Porchev said:
It is not perfect, but worked for most temperatures I dealt with. I remember being at Scheveningen beach in the Netherlands during the summer time looking at the temperature sign on the pier and those temperatures converted quite well.
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-40 C is -40 F. So, I guess, you'd still be kind of close by doubling and adding 30 to get -50F. At that temperature, who cares about 10 degrees?

At -20C you'd be way off though, thinking it was -10F when it is only -4F. That's the one that stood out in my head when you first mentioned your short-cut, because -10F can kill you while -4 is just mighty uncomfortable.

At -10C you'd estimate 10F instead of the 14F, which is OK. But, on the positive side, you would be dead-on with your method because 10C actually is 50F. I notie too that 20C by your method of estimation comes to 70F, which is close enough to the reality: 68F. And, those numbers are probably right in the wheelhouse of the temperature ranges seen in the Netherlands. So, yeah. Good method.

In the US, summer temps of 30C are common. 30C is 86F. So, using your quick look method gets me pretty close with an estimate of 90. 40C is a cooking 104F. Ht, but doable. Your method tells me it would be 110, which is a little too daunting and has me in a pool or sitting in A/C. But, at 35C your method is sweet. The real T is 95, the estimate is 100. And, that is absolutely close enough, even to gauge a bike ride.
 
calamity said:
-40 C is -40 F. So, I guess, you'd still be kind of close by doubling and adding 30 to get -50F. At that temperature, who cares about 10 degrees?

At -20C you'd be way off though, thinking it was -10F when it is only -4F. That's the one that stood out in my head when you first mentioned your short-cut, because -10F can kill you while -4 is just mighty uncomfortable.

At -10C you'd estimate 10F instead of the 14F, which is OK. But, on the positive side, you would be dead-on with your method because 10C actually is 50F. I notie too that 20C by your method of estimation comes to 70F, which is close enough to the reality: 68F. And, those numbers are probably right in the wheelhouse of the temperature ranges seen in the Netherlands. So, yeah. Good method.

In the US, summer temps of 30C are common. 30C is 86F. So, using your quick look method gets me pretty close with an estimate of 90. 40C is a cooking 104F. Ht, but doable. Your method tells me it would be 110, which is a little too daunting and has me in a pool or sitting in A/C. But, at 35C your method is sweet. The real T is 95, the estimate is 100. And, that is absolutely close enough, even to gauge a bike ride.
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I use a "count by 18s" approach. 32F is zero; 50 is ten, 68 is twenty, 86 is thirty, 104 is forty, 14 is minus ten, -4 is minus twenty, -22 is minus thirty and -40 is -40 in both systems.
 
SDET said:
I use a "count by 18s" approach. 32F is zero; 50 is ten, 68 is twenty, 86 is thirty, 104 is forty, 14 is minus ten, -4 is minus twenty, -22 is minus thirty and -40 is -40 in both systems.
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yep, that's what I do.
 
DA60 said:
The point - to me - isn't how easy is it to convert. The point is how easy is it to use each system.

Clearly, the metric system is far, FAR easier to use then the imperial.

For instance, how many cups in 25.87 U.S. gallons? 25.87 times 16 = 413.92 btw. Not so simple...certainly not something most people could figure out in their heads.

But how many decilitres in 25.87 litres? Just multiply by 10...258.7. Centilitres? Multiply by 100 - 2587. And so on...simplicity.


How many feet in 99.5% of a mile? 5280 (feet in a mile) divided by 99.5% = 5306.53366332.... Not so simple.

How many metres in 99.5% of a kilometre? 99.5% of 1000 metres (1 kilometre) is 995 metres. Simple.


And so on and so on...
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I do think the metric system is a straight forward system that is easy to work with. However, the United States switching to the metric system is not a high priority because I think most people don’t have a problem with our current system of measurements. For me everything is written on all the measuring cups and tapes I own so it seems pretty easy. And if I wanted to know how many cups are in a 25 gallons, I would ask my phone :). Additionally, on my measuring cups I have metric and Imperial-type measurements on them right next to each other. Americans often use both systems already, for example, I have two sets of tools in my garage to work with both kinds of nuts and bolts; the speedometers on my cars have both MPH and KPH. When I bought gas in Europe I bought it by the liter, here I buy it by the gallon (roughly 4 liters). 9mm ammunition is very popular in the United States and so is .45. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter that much whether we use metric or "standard", they both work.
 
DA60 said:
The point - to me - isn't how easy is it to convert. The point is how easy is it to use each system.

Clearly, the metric system is far, FAR easier to use then the imperial.

For instance, how many cups in 25.87 U.S. gallons? 25.87 times 16 = 413.92 btw. Not so simple...certainly not something most people could figure out in their heads.

But how many decilitres in 25.87 litres? Just multiply by 10...258.7. Centilitres? Multiply by 100 - 2587. And so on...simplicity.


How many feet in 99.5% of a mile? 5280 (feet in a mile) divided by 99.5% = 5306.53366332.... Not so simple.

How many metres in 99.5% of a kilometre? 99.5% of 1000 metres (1 kilometre) is 995 metres. Simple.


And so on and so on...
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Try mixing fuel for your chainsaw or outboard kicker. 50-1 is easy in litres and millilitres but I'd need a calculator to do it with ounces and gallons.
 
Grand Mal said:
Try mixing fuel for your chainsaw or outboard kicker. 50-1 is easy in litres and millilitres but I'd need a calculator to do it with ounces and gallons.
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There's 128 ounces to a US (not Canadian) gallon. Two percent would be 2.56 ounces.
 
SDET said:
There's 128 ounces to a US (not Canadian) gallon. Two percent would be 2.56 ounces.
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You mean Imperial gallons, Canada used that until they switched to the metric system.
 
This was on the back of our exercise books when I was in school. I find the metric system far easier.

exercise.jpg
 
calamity said:
For the most part, metric is much more tidy. Water freezes at 0; boils at 100; a mm is 1/1000th of a meter and a KM is 1000 of them; mass is a kg and force a newton, no one ever confuses the two. That sort of thing. People around the world are good with it, but here at home, not so much.

Americans have these things called feet, which are made up of 12 inches; gallons which are 4 quarts that happen to be 2 pints, and pints are pounds, but also 2 cups. And, speaking of pounds---we have pounds mass and pounds force, unless of course, you've heard of the slug. Which I bet very few people have, except, of course, when we are talking about slimy little creatures with no feet (not to be confused with the feet that consist of 12 inches).

Oh, and Fahrenheit: water freezes at 32 and boils at 212. Yeah, now it all that makes sense. We're nuts.

Anyway, there a few tricks for quickly converting various metric units to standard that I have picked up over the years. A few are simple, a few a little more convoluted.

Celsius to F: 0C is 32F and basically for every delta 10 C we get a change of 18 F. So, 10 C is 50 F, 20C is 68, 30C is 86... Going the other way, -10C is 14, -20 is -4--and, guess what? -40 is -40. :)

Distance is pretty easy to calculate at a glance too. 100 KM is 60 miles. 1 m is 40 inches. So, a meter and a yard are only 4 inches apart. Going small? No problem. A mm, at 40 thousandths of an inch, is really just a large 32nd. 10 mm is 3/8--or at least it's close enough for fast math in a pinch (it's actually closer to 13/32, but that gets a little too hard to work with, IMO).

Pounds are even better. Figure a kg is 2 pounds and you will always be in the ballpark.

Liquids are pretty much like yards and meters. If you think of quart as equal to a liter, you'll be in the ballpark every time.
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We wouldn't need all those conversions if we'd just dump our archaic system of weights and measures and go metric. Feet and inches need to be in a museum somewhere for people to look at and say, "Three kernels of barleycorn? What's barleycorn anyway? and who cares how long a long dead king's foot was?"
 
Dittohead not! said:
We wouldn't need all those conversions if we'd just dump our archaic system of weights and measures and go metric. Feet and inches need to be in a museum somewhere for people to look at and say, "Three kernels of barleycorn? What's barleycorn anyway? and who cares how long a long dead king's foot was?"
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My one problem with Metric is the moronic use of litres/100km. Its bass ackwards. Give me MPG over that nonsense or KpL as it should be. Not only does it require a bit of math to use in any meaningful manner but the more efficient you are the smaller the number. So getting 5.9 instead of 6.1 is actually a pretty darn good improvement but looks like squat on paper.
 
I am an American who spent 20 straight years of his adult life living overseas. Even at the very end I still found myself converting to standard in my head. I recognize metric is by far superior. But some habits are just too hard to break.
 
Dittohead not! said:
We wouldn't need all those conversions if we'd just dump our archaic system of weights and measures and go metric. Feet and inches need to be in a museum somewhere for people to look at and say, "Three kernels of barleycorn? What's barleycorn anyway? and who cares how long a long dead king's foot was?"
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I don't think you'll ever get the Good Ole Boys to accept that a 261 KW engine is the same as one delivering 350 horse power.
 
Quag said:
My one problem with Metric is the moronic use of litres/100km. Its bass ackwards. Give me MPG over that nonsense or KpL as it should be. Not only does it require a bit of math to use in any meaningful manner but the more efficient you are the smaller the number. So getting 5.9 instead of 6.1 is actually a pretty darn good improvement but looks like squat on paper.
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Works out to <4%.
 
calamity said:
I don't think you'll ever get the Good Ole Boys to accept that a 261 KW engine is the same as one delivering 350 horse power.
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No, never, or that a 5 Kilo fish is bigger than a ten pounder.
 
Quag said:
Like I said bass ackwards
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So would the new football field be 10 yards longer and a 10M first down be harder to get because of those extra 3 feet?
 
Measure any way that makes you happy. I'm not retooling though. I do my own drawings, so it doesn't matter to me what you use. I know what I'll be using.
 
calamity said:
So would the new football field be 10 yards longer and a 10M first down be harder to get because of those extra 3 feet?
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Do you really think it will make a huge difference?
 
Quag said:
Do you really think it will make a huge difference?
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4th and millimeters doesn't have the same ring as 4th and inches. :)
 
Dittohead not! said:
Probably not, but let's see them dunk a basketball in a hoop ten meters off the ground.
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A pitching mound 20 meters from Home Plate, with bases 30 meters apart and a home run wall 100 meters away along the foul poles does have some nice symmetry to it though.
 
calamity said:
4th and millimeters doesn't have the same ring as 4th and inches. :)
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Well they would likely use cm not mm or they could just say 4th and a smidgen
 
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