Should America go metric?

[Auloria]

If you are doing science or mathematics at any level of importance, university and after, units are not a problem. Metric doesn't "make science easier." The only thing common units between nations does is create an easier understanding for the common folk to understand each other. For scientists and mathematicians it doesn't even matter.

Considering how much of time I spend doing back of the envelope calculations, I beg to differ.

[gvd13]

As an American (not raised there though) living abroad, keeping track of the different units is a pain in the ass. My understanding of units is very messed up and all over the place. It gets confusing as well. For example, even though here everything is metric, when I talk to people they still refer to a tall guy as "over 6 foot". But then they'll turn around and refer to someone's weight in kgs. I work out a lot, so I'm trying to learn kgs so when I ask people their weight I don't have to stand there for a minute trying to figure out their weight in kgs x 2.2 to pounds. But I have absolutely no concept of fahrenheit. It's so random it blows my mind.

[Deleted]

Yes, metric makes more sense and communicating with americans would be easier since I wouldn't need a converter to figure out what they meant.

[Gheld]

On the topic of temperature - I use Kelvin; it is the better system.

This. Celsius and Fahrenheit are both relative temperature scales and if you use them to do anything scientific your science is bad and you should feel bad. They are both relative to the freezing point of water, and were created before humans had a full understanding of what temperature was, thus neither scale has an appropriately placed zero point representing zero temperature (i.e. Absolute zero).

Because we are mostly made up of water, they are perfectly fine when predicting how hot or cold you will feel when you step outside, but case in point.

If it's 20 degrees C out, it 'feels twice as hot' as when it's 10 degrees C.

But in reality, there is only a 3.5% increase in thermal energy in that situation. So you get a bunch of fools saying "omg it's 20 degrees out, it's twice as hot as it was yesterday when it was 10 degrees" but NO. IT'S NOT. That's bad science based on a purely subjective observation. because the zero point on the Celsius temperature scale is -273.4. So any mathematical operation you do in which you don't treat "degrees C" as "add 273.4 to this value" you are doing incorrectly.

[Ihnasir]

It's absolutely ridiculous that us Americans have to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the world with a stupid measuring system. Grow up and get with the rest of the world. Learn metric, and grow the fuck up, America.

[Linkedblade]

Also, from the OP. Celsius/Centigrade is not metric. Kelvin is metric (SI). And the only metric units are the meter, kilogram, second, kelvin, ampere, mole and candela. All other units are derivatives of these. So using the idea that everyone must use the standard is silly as no one does.

I'm sure no one measures a paperclip using the kg or measures a road in meters. No you use the derivative units that use decimal prefixes.

[Deleted]

Maybe as a grand bargain, while Europeans and other that still use the retarded Long Scale for number names (where a billion is not a billion, but instead, a billion is called a milliard and a billion means a trillion, and so on, which is just incredibly confusing and awkward even for most Europeans) give up on that and switch to the American system of million -> billion -> trillion etc

[Linkedblade]

Yeah and you Europeans should stop using commas in place of a decimal point!

[vastx]

This. Celsius and Fahrenheit are both relative temperature scales and if you use them to do anything scientific your science is bad and you should feel bad. They are both relative to the freezing point of water, and were created before humans had a full understanding of what temperature was, thus neither scale has an appropriately placed zero point representing zero temperature (i.e. Absolute zero).

Because we are mostly made up of water, they are perfectly fine when predicting how hot or cold you will feel when you step outside, but case in point.

If it's 20 degrees C out, it 'feels twice as hot' as when it's 10 degrees C.

But in reality, there is only a 3.5% increase in thermal energy in that situation. So you get a bunch of fools saying "omg it's 20 degrees out, it's twice as hot as it was yesterday when it was 10 degrees" but NO. IT'S NOT. That's bad science based on a purely subjective observation. because the zero point on the Celsius temperature scale is -273.4. So any mathematical operation you do in which you don't treat "degrees C" as "add 273.4 to this value" you are doing incorrectly.

It would be in this situation, if you were talking to me in person, that I'd nod and say "I know, right??"...

The internet both enlightens me and makes an excellent crutch.

[Jackielope]

I'm inclined to go to metric for length and volume measurements because they're more granular and have better precision though there i something almost "magical" about someone being 6 feet tall or more. I personally don't like Celsius because it's less granular than Fahrenheit, even if Fahrenheit has strange numbers when it comes to water freezing and boiling (32 and 212 are weirder than 0 and 100 after all).

Branching out from my own opinion on what I'd personally prefer, I think it would be in the best interests of the US and other Imperial system countries to go over to metric so we can all communicate and corroborate more effectively.

And Kelvin might be good for full-on scientific work, but Celsius tends to be better for everyday temperatures because it's fewer numbers to say and think about, plus it's more relevant to human physiology.

[schwarzkopf]

On the topic of temperature - I use Kelvin; it is the better system.

1K = 1C however 1K <> 1C.

So yeah it is confusing.

[Gheld]

Also, from the OP. Celsius/Centigrade is not metric. Kelvin is metric (SI). And the only metric units are the meter, kilogram, second, kelvin, ampere, mole and candela. All other units are derivatives of these. So using the idea that everyone must use the standard is silly as no one does.

I'm sure no one measures a paperclip using the kg or measures a road in meters. No you use the derivative units that use decimal prefixes.

Kind of but not quite. prefixing SI units in order to make their expression more logical in a conversation is not deriving units.

A derived unit would be "kilometers per hour" or "meters per second per second" or "(kilogram)(meter per second per second)(meter)(hours)" or "kilograms per mole" yada yada.

[Deleted]

If it's 20 degrees C out, it 'feels twice as hot' as when it's 10 degrees C.

But in reality, there is only a 3.5% increase in thermal energy in that situation.

You miss the point that the difference between 10 K and 20 K is negligable to human beings. You'll have frozen to death long ago. 20 C and 10 C is however a meaningful distinction for human beings - which is precisely why C is vastly superior for daily use. For the same reason why using meters (rather than say parsec or ly) when measuring distances between stars would be ridiculous.

[Linkedblade]

<snip>

So the argument here is for the sake of convenience. In that case why should the US inconvenience ourselves by converting. Everyone has access to a device that can convert units. Why does anything need to change?

[Arkenaw]

No thanks, and good luck forcing millions of people to suddenly adapt to it.

[Chrysia]

So the argument here is for the sake of convenience. In that case why should the US inconvenience ourselves by converting. Everyone has access to a device that can convert units. Why does anything need to change?

Because, ultimately, for most measurements the metric system is more logical and easier to use. It's also the international standard, so most professionals get used to it anyway at this point.

---------- Post added 2012-12-13 at 06:36 AM ----------

No thanks, and good luck forcing millions of people to suddenly adapt to it.

Who's saying anything about "suddenly?" They've already talked about this, and Canada has been phasing it in for the last 40 years.

[blaqkmagick]

Lol I love the people saying Celcius isn't specific enough.

Can anyone really tell the difference between 23 degree weather and 24?
And the beauty of it is it breaks down into decimals! So if you really do feel inclined you can say 23.4 lol

[Sunseeker]

While I like metric for it's simplicity, I don't think it's realistic for the US to switch. Most Americans don't use or even understand metric, it's not taught outside certain hard sciences and the cost to convert all the signage in the country would be astronomical.

[Deleted]

in soccer it's called the 18 yard box not the 16.46m box even though most of yurop is metric. doubt shit like that will change

depends on the language. The exact measurements may be 16.46, but in German it's simply called the 16er (Sechzehner).

[Deleted]

Yeah, it should have long ago, and I'm an American. The one and only thing I like about our system is the foot because metric goes from CM to Meter with nothing nice in between.

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