Metric

Actually, I take a certain malicious pleasure in telling my aged mother the outside temperature in Celsius. At 3 AM in southern California it’s 11°C (a rather warm, dry winter, even for here) and she, who grew up in western New York, where truly low temperatures were routine, will believe me for only a moment.

When I attempt the same trick with my brothers and sister, nieces and nephews, all of whom own passports and most of whom can at least mumble in another language, they reality check and seamlessly translate it as Celsius. I’m not sure how many of them could give their height or weight in cm or kg, though.

If even the Brits, if I read the Guardian aright, are still stuck at times on what they might call imperial measure, I suspect that we Americans will continue in our exceptionalism for quite some time to come.

Guineas are weird. But they seem to be just a prestige thing. I remember going with my mother to departments stores in Nottingham c.1965 and asking why the dresses were denominated in guineas as being told that that’t just the way things are, for dresses. Why prestige should call for a strange and hard to use metric I have no idea — call a sociologist (Kieran?).

I think that the English, or at least those of a certain age, schizophrenic about temperature (I am, anyway). The switch from Fahrenheit to Celsius happen in my lifetime and some things seem to work naturally in F and others in C. So a hot summer day is still about 80 degrees (phew what a scorcher) whereas freezing is 0 and all cookery is Celsius.

Why prestige should call for a strange and hard to use metric I have no idea

Well, prestige is exactly wat is not common, isn’t it? So it goes very well with what is not practical, and that in any field. Prestigious computer geeks will use an obscure shell, prestigious religious figures will quote the gospel in greek (and the old testament in hebrew), prestigious clothes are unpractical and so on… Social agents wishing to gain or maintain their status will typically strive to be as unpractical as possible (students wishing to gain the status of scholars will make a point of using rare words and respecting grammatical rules fallen in desuetude, music lovers wishing to be music connoisseurs will praise unknown or notoriously hard to like composers…). Indeed, it has been shown that prestigious stores will sometimes (read most of the times) undertake actions that are directly against their economic needs or against practicality in order to gain status, or prestige.

You were right to ask for a sociologist, since some (Pierre Bourdieu being a prime example) devoted their work to this very question. You could read La Distinction to learn more about that that you could wish.

I have a slightly wacky theory that certain number ranges are are more congenial to working out real-life problems than others. 15-30 is more congenial than 40-60. Most distances (in both miles and feet) one deals with on a day-to-day basis tend to be in the smaller number ranges using American/ Imperial measures.

I don’t think the resistance to the metric system in places like England is ideological in the sense of “we resist rational universal measurements because we’re idiosyncratic and English,” but rather that people are simply more comfortable working with smaller numbers.

I concede that it might be learned, but it might also be something more fundamental and cognitive… in which case, yes, we will still be annoying our HAL Inspiron 9000 computer overlords in the year 2461.

That’s fluoridation. As in fluorine, the element, not flour for making bread.

I suspect that at the moment, those of us radical liberals who might be pushing for metrification have other priorities. But it keeps seeming ridiculous to those of us who travel that the US chooses to isolate itself in this way. But what’s one more?

I live a mile or two away from the only section of U.S. Interstate Highway “marked exclusively in kilometers”:http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/signs/#i-19-tucson — I-19 from Tucson to Nogales. (It really brings the tourists rolling in, I’ll tell you.)

Industry has largely converted; I do all my designs in metric, with the software translating the dimensions to English units for the geezers in the tool room. Of course, you’d be amazed how often “Metric” parts have dimensions like 6.35 or 12.7 mm. LOL

In the year 2642 at the galactic police check stop they will first ask, “Who was the real home-run champ in the 20th century?” Of course “Babe Ruth” will be your free pass, but a “Barry Bonds” will get you the trick question in a rapid fire, “How much do you weigh?” And if you sputter, “One hundred and eighty-five pounds” you will be waved on as just another simple human, while only a confused borg will blurt, “88.45 kilos.”

Looks like the question should be added to the Voight-Kampff test.

Indeed francis, this would have the benefit of sparing us the more witless weather forecast presenters describing tomorrow’s temperatures as being half (or twice) today’s.

Allegedly overhead at Livermore Lab:

The fusion plasma requires a temperature of ten million degrees, but I forget whether that’s celsius or absolute.

Canada’s been metric for decades but lumber is still dimensioned in feet and inches, people still use Fahrenheit, weight is still pounds, height is still feet and inches.

Civil construction (roads, sewers, water) is metric but house construction is specified in metric but built in Imperial. It’s a “soft metric.” When they specify 400mm spacing they really mean 16″ (406.4mm).

Utility isn’t enough. The metric system needs some popular culture love to ultimately prevail. Eminem has 8 mile. Robert Frost has miles to go before he sleeps. Until the metric system gets some people literally singing it’s praises I can’t see it overcoming what’s left of the english system in the US.

hinglemar, I love the Canadian ambiguity about using the metric system.

Pirates like guineas (or, rather, gold guineas). They hide them on desert islands, then later come back to dig them out.

I like ‘stone’. What is your weight in stones?

I suspect that the U.S. is already as metric as it needs to be and the need has diminshed since electronic calculators and computers have become so cheap and ubiquitious (as they were not in the 70’s when the push to convert to metric measures was moving forward and then abandoned).

So, science in the U.S. is metric, building construction, highway distances, and consumer weights and measures aren’t, and I don’t see any reason they going to be — since since there doesn’t seem to be any disadvantage that the U.S. is incurring by sticking with them in those areas.

For woodworking and home repair, I find imperial measures to be superior. For most purposes, cm and half cm is too coarse and mm too fine–being able to halve or double precision of measures by switching between 1/4, 1/8th, 1/16th, and 1/32 inch is very useful as is the divisibility of 12 inches by half, quarter, third, sixth, etc. Wall studs are never going to be spaced other than at either 16″ or 24″ intervals, and 4′ wide panels are going to be around forever. The costs of changing these measures would be very large, and what would the benefit be?

One thing I think is interesting about the topic, though, is that I think it demonstrates the difference between the power of the elites and experts in the U.S. vs other industrialized countries. Elsewhere, the powers that be decide that metric measures will be adopted (or capital punishment abolished), and they are able to successfully impose these changes even against popular opinion. In the U.S. the rabble say, “screw that”, and it doesn’t happen. The rejection of the EU constitution was a notable exception (what were the elites *thinking* putting that to a popular vote? I doubt they’ll make such a mistake again any time soon).

14 lbs = 1 stone, by the way.

Perches were still being used in real-estate ads when I first moved to Queensland ten years ago. A perch is about 25 square metres or 30 square yards.

hinglemar, I love the Canadian ambiguity about using the metric system.
At the grocery store prices are shown as $/lb but at the till it’s $/kg.

Canadian Football is still in yards.

Ski dimensions are metric everywhere but snowboards are Imperial.

My Dodge RAM is a random mix of metric and Imperial.

I blame the French.

The US is the largest single market for consumer products and construction materials, and all trade “partners” are dancing to its whims.

Absolute rubbish. The “metric zone” is vastly bigger than the US. But you have hit on a point – smaller countries with open economies (including my own, Australia) moved to the metric system mostly at the behest of their exporters. IOW we danced to our trading partner’s whims – but the US is not our main trading partner (this effect could explain Canada’s foot-dragging).

IMO the biggest single cost of non-standardisation is thread sizes on bolts.

dca,

Is that age dependent? I’m Australian, and my mother thinks of her weight in stone, but people my age think of ours in kilograms. The last holdout seems to be height: people my own age don’t understand what I mean by being 194cm tall (in fact I phrase it that way for the aura of mystery — why on earth does anyone feel the need to ask how tall I am, can’t they see?), but I suspect that children being born now are more likely to.

English people (I don’t know about the rest of Britain) thought in coins until quite recently, certainly into the sixties, which is why the guinea continued as a price marker. There were golden guinea (and half-guinea) coins, as there were sovereigns and half-sovereigns.

I can remember when “three half-crowns” was considered to be a fair price for all sorts of odd items; seven shillings and sixpence, but thought of as the three coins; the half-crown being the most common “silver” coin. The bingo call for 76 was “seventysix, seven and six, was she worth it?”

One suspects the inflation of the seventies killed this sort of thought.

Do you realize how expensive it would be for the US to replace the statute mile?

Now that we have been doing metrology for a couple of centuries, we’ve discovered that technologically we can measure time to about twice as many decimal places as anything else, and that ratio has held true for so long (and likely future technology so favors future improvements in timekeeping) that we may as well adopt our units to the facts of life.

In principle, of course, you can add as many “dimensionful” constants of nature as you like, with each of them (c, hbar, k_B, etc.) forcing a new unit and a new set of conversion equations on you. For example, there is no fundamental argument for (and in some problems, strong practical argument against measuring height in horizontal length units, or pathlength in root(cross-section) units; in each case, the necessary conversion (fathoms to nautical miles, parsecs to femtometers) becomes part of the “rotation equations”, as c is part of special relativity’s various boost transforms. Writing these ugly dimensionful equations down is usually a mistake—the man forced by circumstance into using asymmetrical units (pilots measure altitude in pressure-equivalent feet, everywhere on earth) can find his own way out, whether it’s candelas and watts, years and light-years, or what have you.

But the question, “how many units shall we carry around?” has only two sensible answers, one for foundational metrology and one for working science and engineering. The first is “just seconds, please”, because it happens that’s all we can measure worth a damn, and probably forever will be. The second is what I advocate deciding on a per-subdiscipline basis, so that kilograms-force and newtons can happily coexist. The foot and inch are bad only because the same person has to deal with both all day long. One fundamental unit (the second), and about two hundred derived units to which metric (or where apt, binary) prefixes may be applied, seems about right.

Seven is just the wrong number, meeting neither need. Blame the French, indeed.

dca, Is that age dependent? I’m Australian, and my mother thinks of her weight in stone, but people my age think of ours in kilograms.

That’s my experience in NZ as well, except that weight-conscious people follow the trade lead and always talk about kilos.

The problem with decimal time (and presumably the reason it never caught on) is that it’s not actually any easier than ‘normal’ time.

Of course it is. Decimalised time would allow one easily to figure out the number of days, hours, minutes, and seconds between any two time specifications, instead of having to convert everything to seconds and then re-convert back to base 60.

24 hours, 60 minutes, etc., will also make no sense when (if) we ever get off this rock and start colonising other worlds. Having a standardised, decimilised system would be useful for ‘universal’ timekeeping.

BTW, everyone should read James C. Scott’s discussion of units of measurement in his _Seeing Like a State_ .

daniel wolf wrote:

Interestingly, it is in US currency that the advantages of a mixed division are apparent. With the quarter-dollar coin, and a fairly rare 50 cent piece, Americans end up having to carry less change in their pockets than Euro holders, who are stuck with 20 and 50 pieces that get exchanged more slowly than quarters.

A 25 cent piece may have a certain odd charm but it has lost favour recently in the greater world.

In 1966 when Australia decimalised their currency they took the 1-2-5 path of 1,2,5,10,20 and 50 cent pieces and 1,2,5,10,20 etc dollar notes. The 1-2-5 path was followed by New Zealand, Britain and recently Europe.

The idea is that most purchases can be made with three or fewer pieces of currency. Thus a $9 purchase can be made with a $5 a $2 and a $1 whereas in the USA one would be forced to use five notes, a $5 and four singles.

[Of course the transaction could also be done with a $10 taking a single dollar in change. But this is just playing into the hands of shop-keepers who would charge us $9.99 to make an ~$10 item appear cheap.]

The advantage of a quarter is that it allows one to conveniently buy something costing 25c. But if one lives in a country where items frequently cost 25c this may merely be the product of merchants reacting to the availability of such coins, rather than a reflection of the quarter’s true utility.

The U.S. should change for the sake of their kids, unless of course they are expecting the next generation to be born with 12 fingers.

But, of course, U.S. kids do all learn the metric system for weights, measures, and temperature in school as well as english measures (rather, metric measures are what they learn in school — english measures are what they pick up by osmosis), it’s just that metric units are not commonly used for many everyday purposes (though every U.S. kid knows about how much a liter of coke is).

And no one has to stop making imperial size bolt threads or two by four planks. The market can work that out. Packets of bolts and so on will just have to be marked with both sizes in both systems for a generation or two.

In point of fact, there are no such things as 2×4 planks and haven’t been for a long time — those dimensions aren’t as important and have shrunk (to 1 1/2 x 3 7/16 at this point). For lumber, the dimensions that matter are the 16″ stud spacing and the 4 x 8 sheet of plywood or drywall, etc. What Canada has done in this regard is pretty silly — they’re still selling 4′ x 8′ sheets but are listing them at some oddball metric size. But of course, out on the job site, I have to assume Canadian carpenters still use rules marked in feet & inches since the panels still *are* 4-feet wide by 8-feet long and the studs need to be on 16″ or 24″ centers to match. Same thing with beer. When in Canada, we buy 12oz cans of beer (same as in the U.S.), but in Canada, the cans can’t SAY 12oz, so they, again, have some nonsensical metric measure printed on them.

What’s the advantage to Canadian kids of selling various things in nonsensical mystery sizes that only make sense if you ‘know the code’ (that they’re really being sold in english sizes and come out to nice round numbers in those units).

it’s true that the US drug market has gone metric, with the notable exception of the 8-ball (=1/8 oz). or so I hear.

What’s really goofy is that everybody considers “28g = 1oz”, and thus you end up with a “448g lb.”, or so I hear… :o)

Call it ‘Metrics… American-style’.

# 34.

Guinea, pound and a shilling.

Nearly, Started out as an auctioneer’s thing (horses especially). Price plus auctioneer’s 5%. Everyone knew what everyone was getting, seller, salesman and the buyer knew what he was paying.

Or so I’m told, anyway.

And also from my younger days-
How many pounds in a kilo?
2.2 and a bag for the dealer

Why the easy assumption that the metric system is the best one? Basically, one meter is one 40 millionth of the Earth’s polar circumference, which is about as odd a standard as you can pick.

Why don’t we set up a conference to design the best possible measuring system; something based on, say, the light-nanosecond (about a foot)?

(If it occurs to you that people now using the metric system might not feel that the change would be worth the effort… why, then, you’ve just figured out why America hasn’t gone metric.)

Seriously, though, I do wonder if there might not be some advantage in designing some wholly new system of weights and measures.

As a 40 year old Australian I’ve been exposed to the metric system for pretty much my entire life.

The result is that I think in kilometres, kilograms and degrees celcius but I’m 6 foot not 182 cm or whatever it is. Like most (all?) Australians I’m utterly mystified when suspects are described by police as being 170 cm or whatever tall.

I suspect when it comes to height there is something about feet and inches that lends itself to easy use. It’s possible that my kids might have a different view but I’m not sure how as their exposure to the metric system will not have been much greater than mine.

“Why the easy assumption that the metric system is the best one?”

Because base 10 is simple. It’s not that a metre is a more ‘natural’ length than a foot, its that its easy to go from metres to kilometres to millimetres. How many inches in a mile? How many square inches in an acre?

Also: Duh!

If you’ll accept ‘kays’, a word of one syllable, then you’ll accept “How many kays to Babylon?”

>> “Why the easy assumption that the metric system
>> is the best one?”
>
> Because base 10 is simple. It’s not that a metre
> is a more ‘natural’ length than a foot, its that
> its easy to go from metres to kilometres to
> millimetres.

Any base is easy when you have a fair amount of practice. There was a time when I was using both base 8 and base 16 heavily, and I could do arithmetic in any of the 3 with no difficulty.

The problem is with the inconsistency of English/ANSI units, as you note. Over time I have come to believe that a base 12 system is preferable for measuring, but there is no doubt that it would have to be a _consistent_ base 12 system.

Cranky

At least metric doesn’t use the same word for different measures – as in ounces of cheese and ounces of whiskey; and no one will ever ask you to lease office space in kilos or degrees Celsius :-)

The number system most people use is in base-10. How many complaints would we hear about metric being unusual if it was in base-12? Not fewer, I’m pretty sure.

The ‘advantage of fractions’ is just silly. Yes, you can divide 3/8 in two to get 3/16. So what? You can divide .564 in two to get .282, which is just as easy to do. You can get as precise as you like in metric but imperial measurements soon get unwieldy – who wants to talk about twenty-one one hundred and twenty-eigths when they could say .1640625? Who wants to _multiply_ fractions with different divisors? And then go back to base 12 to step up or down a size?

British people (and Irish people) use feet, pounds and stone for everyday distances because its a common system used by people too old to learn metric, and it has a legacy effect. And if you’re talking about people’s heights, or weights – simple, imprecise measures that aren’t usually operated on – imperial measures are fine. But better? Hardly.

Basically, one meter is one 40 millionth of the Earth’s polar circumference, which is about as odd a standard as you can pick.

The meter was originally so defined because (a) one 40 millionth of the Earth’s circumference results in a unit of usable size comparable to the yard, the ell etc. and (2) more importantly it makes the definition and calibration of the unit distance independent of any particular physical “yardstick” stored in some monarch’s safe. The meter is now defined in terms of time and the speed of light. (All basic SI units, except for mass, are now defined in terms of universal physical constants. Only the kilogram is defined in terms of an actual, physical reference mass). In addition, Imperial units are also defined in terms of SI units. The foot is a derivative of the meter.

For woodworking and home repair, I find imperial measures to be superior. For most purposes, cm and half cm is too coarse and mm too fine—being able to halve or double precision of measures by switching between 1/4, 1/8th, 1/16th, and 1/32 inch is very useful as is the divisibility of 12 inches by half, quarter, third, sixth, etc.

I find this not wholly logical. The cm and half cm may be too coarse, but the inch is even coarser. Subdivisions of the inch mitigate this, but if the mm is too fine, then so are 1/16 and 1/32 inch. 1/4 inch is about a half centimeter, and 1/8 inch about 3mm. Wood and metal work functions just fine outside Imperial areas too.

I find this not wholly logical. The cm and half cm may be too coarse, but the inch is even coarser. Subdivisions of the inch mitigate this, but if the mm is too fine, then so are 1/16 and 1/32 inch. 1/4 inch is about a half centimeter, and 1/8 inch about 3mm. Wood and metal work functions just fine outside Imperial areas too.

The point is that with an english tape measure, you can easily choose a the degree of precision appropriate for any given measurement. Yes, 1/8 inch is about 3mm, but there are no repeated 3mm markings on any metric rule I’ve seen. The ones I’ve seen are marked only with cm, 1/2 cm, and mm. Of course it’s possible to build a wall, book-case, or deck that way, but it’s more of an inconvenience. Or at least, I found it less convenient to use metric for those purposes when I tried it.

My Pet Theory about the US’s use of the metric system:

The only group of people in the US who use the metric system consistently (in multiple types of measurement and on both large and small scales) is the military (ok, scientists, too, but there really aren’t that many of them). And people who like the miltary aren’t big fans of rationalization/metric, and people who like metric ain’t that big fans of the military.

Historical reasons, obviously, but an interesting divide.

What about the angle measurement? 360 degrees – why not 100 or 1000? Wiki says it’s probably because of the number of days in a year. Time to metricise?

That would be the radian. Very convenient for trigonometry and calculus, but possibly less useful in real life. I think there’s a pretty strong argument that 90º is easier to grasp than 0.5Ï€ radians.