• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Metric to Standard

calamity

calamity

Privileged
Supporting Member
DP Veteran
Monthly Donator
Joined
Feb 12, 2013
Messages
160,900
Reaction score
57,844
Gender
Undisclosed
Political Leaning
Centrist
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.
 
I much prefer metric. Conversions, calculations and formulas are just so much easier in metric.
 
Metrication was introduced into Australia well before I was born so that's what I've grown up with. That being said, I'm just as fluent with the imperial system and can easily convert one to the other. Much prefer metric though.
 
Praxas said:
I much prefer metric. Conversions, calculations and formulas are just so much easier in metric.
Click to expand...

Metric is absolutely beautiful. As an engineer it's like music to me. Standard is a nightmare. BTU, Horsepower, Slugs, pounds, feet, inches which break down into fractions and thousandths. Ugh.

Give me a joule and, within seconds, I can calculate volts by knowing amps and newtons by knowing the meters, usually in my head. Give me btu, and I'm heading off to the computer before I can calculate anything, unless I estimate by saying a btu is about 1000 joules, and then start calculating in metric. Doing it in English is a nightmare.

The only english system I like is pressure. I totally understand psi. MPA is a bit more cumbersome when faced with loads in pounds and area measured in inches. But, it's nice when dealing exclusively with newtons and square mm, but we never do at work--it's always pounds and often inches, although mm are showing up more and more.

In my job, I find myself converting metric to english and vice-versa in my head all the time.
 
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.
Click to expand...

I hate the metric system but it is the world standard so I have learned to live with it
 
Well, I'll say this. We didn't put a man on the moon using fractions. We did it with decimals.
 
Mac77 said:
Standard measurment can use decimals too
Click to expand...

It can, but usually doesn't. And not with tools. I can't imagine a rocket using a 9/16th hex.
 
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.
Click to expand...

If you look closely, notice most standard measurements are fractional, meaning people can work day to day with little to no measurement tools. Society has used fractional forever, because pulling out a ruler 1000 years ago to measure 33.3 cm of one meter of cloth would have been an impossibility, while measuring 1 foot of 3 feet of cloth meant folding it into thirds and cutting it.

Fractional runs directly with how the brain funtions, while metric is more scientific. That being said I use standard measurement day to day, for nearly everything. Many of our architectural achievements were done in standard with a slide rule, even many computers were designed with archaic slide rules, with accuracy that astounds people today.

I work with automotive, and I still like to call engines by cubic inches rather than liters, foot and inch pounds rather than newton meters, mph rather than kph, And ofcourse I can not stand that a fifth of whiskey had some shaved off it to meet a metric standard, sure .785 is a hair less than a fifth, but a fifth of a gallon is a gold standard of measurement.
 
beerftw said:
If you look closely, notice most standard measurements are fractional, meaning people can work day to day with little to no measurement tools. Society has used fractional forever, because pulling out a ruler 1000 years ago to measure 33.3 cm of one meter of cloth would have been an impossibility, while measuring 1 foot of 3 feet of cloth meant folding it into thirds and cutting it.

Fractional runs directly with how the brain funtions, while metric is more scientific. That being said I use standard measurement day to day, for nearly everything. Many of our architectural achievements were done in standard with a slide rule, even many computers were designed with archaic slide rules, with accuracy that astounds people today.

I work with automotive, and I still like to call engines by cubic inches rather than liters, foot and inch pounds rather than newton meters, mph rather than kph, And ofcourse I can not stand that a fifth of whiskey had some shaved off it to meet a metric standard, sure .785 is a hair less than a fifth, but a fifth of a gallon is a gold standard of measurement.
Click to expand...

Not to mention a 2000 sq ft house sounds a lot better than one that is 185 sq meters.
 
calamity said:
Not to mention a 2000 sq ft house sounds a lot better than one that is 185 sq meters.
Click to expand...

Well look at a mile, then google roman mile, roman mile is a little shorter, but it was measured in 1000 paces, which is not to far from metrics 10, but it was designed to be measured with no equipment, just basic math. All standard miles were based off roman miles, which were based off an even more ancient system, except the german mile, prior to them accepting metric, their mile was 4-5 english miles.

Pounds were between 12-16 ounces too, always rounded numbers for fractional use to simplify dividing. Oddball measurements include stones, which has no set definition except in britain, it was used through europe at one point or another, but britain is the only one to keep it. Imagine going to school and weighing stuff in pounds but weighing yourself in stones, and measuring distance in meters and kilometers, but measuring speed in mph.

We also use cords for measuring wood, which is so innacurate it is unreal, but it allows simple conversion. We also get imperial gallons vs american gallons, we mostly copies imperial standard which was mostly copied from roman standard, but hell gotta have an oddball gallon.
 
i use the metric system at work (i work in biochem,) and i like it. however, i am still kind of attached to pounds, inches, and MPH in my day to day life. i get why there's resistance in the states to changing it.
 
Mac77 said:
Standard measurment can use decimals too
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know most of the fraction to decimal conversions by heart, and they make a lot of sense.

1/64.0156253/64.0468755/64.078125
1/32.031253/32.09375
1/16.06253/16.1875
1/8.1253/8.375
1/4.253/4.75
1/2.5

Even more cool is when fraction results just drop the 0 from the decimals smaller than .1
5/32.1562515/32.4687523/32.78125
5/16.312515/16.9375
5/8.625
The patterns seen there is music to my brain. Not sure why.
 
KevinKohler said:
It can, but usually doesn't. And not with tools. I can't imagine a rocket using a 9/16th hex.
Click to expand...

Machinists use decimals with the same accuracy and convienence as in metric
 
I use metric for most things but height and weight for people.
And for flying
 
Last edited:
Mac77 said:
Machinists use decimals with the same accuracy and convienence as in metric
Click to expand...

Highly accurate, IMO. We use Tenths and Thousandths, where the metric folks use Microns and fractions of a mm. Personally, I can more easily visualize a 1/4 of a millimeter and 5 microns than 10 thousandths or 2 tenths. But, I actually prefer working in thousandths and tenths.
 
Quag said:
I use metric for most things but height and weight for people.
And for flying
Click to expand...

Yep. 182 cm and 91 kilo doesn't quite read as cleanly as 6-ft; 200 lbs.
 
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.
Click to expand...

Moves have been made to convert the USA to the metric system. The only problem is that the legislation makes it voluntary. it will take movements in individual states to make the change mandatory. And there is some public resistance to that. At least one state started converting miles to kilometers on the interstates and the public screamed bloody murder. I am all for going to the metric system.
 
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.
Click to expand...

although I live metric I still think standard for a few things like my weight which is likely simply due to laziness on my part

I remember about 10 years ago my guy was working out in the garage and told one of his grandkids to go get the yard stick

they stood staring at him looking puzzled and finally claimed they didn't know what he was talking about

he thought they were being a smartass

nope

they called it a meter stick :mrgreen:
 
ObamacareFail said:
Moves have been made to convert the USA to the metric system. The only problem is that the legislation makes it voluntary. it will take movements in individual states to make the change mandatory. And there is some public resistance to that. At least one state started converting miles to kilometers on the interstates and the public screamed bloody murder. I am all for going to the metric system.
Click to expand...

It's a huge problem in steel purchasing. Metric sizes are simply not standard. Steel thicknesses come in gauges and fractions of an inch. Of course, we can always buy coils worked to whatever thickness we want, but when buying structural steel shapes and flats, everything is sold in inches. It would probably cost a fortune to retool everything to metric.
 
_Sal said:
question for you guys...

does the speedometer in your cars have both mph and kilometers?
Click to expand...

yes, but my car is Japanese. :)
 
_Sal said:
ah, interesting...thanks

I wonder how they separate cars in manufacturing that are going to cross the border?
Click to expand...

I don't think they do anymore. All the cars I rent, be they Ford, GM or Chrysler, have speedometers in both units.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom