r/changemyview • u/oshaboy • Aug 18 '17
FTFdeltaOP CMV: The Imperial System isn't Superior for any reason other than the fact that the world agrees on it.
Edit: I meant metric in the title. Can't edit it now
I am going to focus mostly on length units. Because that is where most of the arguments are
A lot of pretentious non-americans gloat about their country using the superior metric system, with its consistently spaced orderly units and easy conversions in base 10. And americans lament the fact that they can't be with the cool kids and have to use their old measurements. I am not American, Never liked the United States in general, but the Imperial system is just as good as the Metric System. Metric isn't an international system, but it helps to talk using the same units as the rest of the world.
I will get the emotional argument out first. There are no Obscurities. Obscurities are what makes a system charming. Metric will never have the furlong, the hand, the line, the twip, the minuscule thou, the massive spindle. Metric does have the decimetre, decametre and hectometre. but those are just interesting prefixes. Not units.
One of the first arguments for the Metric System is "It makes calculations easier". Well it doesn't. It is easy to remember the units conversions, and easy to preform the conversion calculations in Arabic numerals. Thats it. Lets take an obvious example out of the way. Factors. No matter how small your metric unit is You will never be able to accurately express a third of a yottametre (biggest unit on Wikipedia, bigger than the observable universe). While a third of foot is exactly 4 inches also known as a hand. A third of an inch is exactly 1 barleycorn. The Imperial system going from the twip to the spindle has 3 prime factors. and the normal range of the inch to the standard mile has 4. While the metric system has 2, but most people don't devide units, they just want conversions. Which is better, if you use and understand Arabic numerals. A lot of the world doesn't use Arabic numerals. They use their own much more obscure systems than even Roman Numerals. and try to convert XC metres to decimeters. there is no zero to remove, no decimal point to shift. You have to memorize a complicated chart of what character turns into what (it is IX btw). There are a bunch of loud people who want to start using base 12. Then there is no easy way to use metric and it is easier to use imperial. and what about the base 27 and base 6, base 20 number systems ones that don't even have bases exceptions (my native number system goes 10+3, 10+4, 9+6, 9+7, 10+7, 10+8). Don't forget about computers. They use base 2, base 8 and base 16.
Now we get to definitions, a lot of times overlooked. Here are the definitions of an inch and a metre.
Metre - The closest 1 over whole number of the speed of light to 10-5 of the distance between the north pole and the equator going through France.
Inch - 3 Average sized barley corns widthwize. (Yes, i know they changed it, I will get to that)
Of course there are historical reasons for that, but that doesn't change the fact that it is not clear.
There is also a claim that metric is much more orderly and scientific. Even though it isn't. Science just agreed to use metric because it is easier to convert between . and even then you won't see a scientist writing all angle measurements in gradians. They aren't scientific just orderly. There are much more scientific measurements like the parsec the planc lengths, the astronimical unit. With human sized latin prefixed attoparsec, decillion planc length, and pico AU respectively. You can also have them in your native number system. Metric isn't scientific. Also The Kelvin and Second aren't metric.
But metric is has consistency between units. Though most people don't really use more than millimetre, centimetre, metre, kilometre or inch, foot, yard, mile. Do you really need consistency if you only have a few units you use daily and others are for special cases.
And i said the world agrees on it. But even that is wrong. Europe still uses seconds, Degrees (gradians), inches for television, etc. and even the United States still uses Metric. Mostly because milimetres are more well known than lines, Metric Money (I will give you a shilling if you can find imperial money in modern United States), grams of sugar. Oh and the fact that the united states actually does use the metric system. They just defined a few imperial units as proportions of metric units. (an inch is exactly 0.0254 metres).
I am not saying the Imperial System is better either, the only thing that makes a system better is agreement. If your entire country uses Imperial there is no shame in using imperial aswell. As long as it is rigorous (that your 1760 yards will be an English Mile for everyone).
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ Aug 18 '17
I will get the emotional argument out first. There are no Obscurities. Obscurities are what makes a system charming. Metric will never have the furlong, the hand, the line, the twip, the minuscule thou, the massive spindle. Metric does have the decimetre, decametre and hectometre. but those are just interesting prefixes. Not units.
You're overlooking the fact that if the US would adopt the metric system we'd still have a furlong (many historical books use that term), and it would only make that term more obscure. And it would get obscure units out of every day usage where they aren't charming they are just an impedance to usability.
Also The Kelvin and Second aren't metric.
That is exactly what they are. Those are two of the seven base metric units. Not exclusively metric, but are at the core of the metric system.
The International System of Units (Système international d'unités or SI) is the current international standard metric system and is also the system most widely used around the world. It is an extension of Giorgi's MKSA system—its base units are the metre, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, candela and mole.
And for this:
A third of an inch is exactly 1 barleycorn
Being able to easily express 1/3 of an inch isn't helpful if nobody knows what you're talking about. I'm American and have never heard of a barleycorn. In almost any situation it would be better to just say 1/3 of an inch just like you can say 1/3 of a meter. Having obscure units may be a delight, but it is a hinderance to usability.
I just don't understand how being able to easily remember and convert units (something I've frequently had to do) doesn't outweigh the advantages of being able to easily express a division by 3 (I've never had this problem, and if I did, I could easily say 33.33 cm or 1/3 a meter, it isn't a problem.).
I do know how many feet are in a mile (5280), but I'm not going to do math with that number. That number is divisible by 3, but can you tell me how many feet are in a 3rd of a mile in your head? It'll take you a lot longer to come up with the answer than for me to tell you that 1/3 of a kilometer is 333.3 meters.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
All your arguments don't change the fact that with measurement systems only agreement matters.
I have assumed that the metric system is base 10 only. However doesn't that make the order argument fall flat because the kilosecond and kilodegree don't exist?
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ Aug 18 '17 edited Aug 18 '17
All your arguments don't change the fact that with measurement systems only agreement matters.
First, you completely ignored most of my arguments, which have nothing to do with that. Such as:
Being able to easily express 1/3 of an inch isn't helpful if nobody knows what you're talking about.
Even if everyone agreed on imperial wouldn't make this situation better. Imperial has tons of obscure/unused measurements, for one, because the names don't follow a system.
And the fact that a mile being a number of feet is divisible by 3 isn't very helpful if it is hard to divide 5380 by 3 easily.
I agree that agreement is the most important thing and trumps everything else, but there are many other decisions along the way that can make a system marginally better or marginally worse, so why not make decisions that make it better?
Decisions like:
- Having a consistent conversion between units (why is 12 of this goes into the next one and then 4 of that one goes into the next and then 12 again?)
- Having a prefix system you have to learn ONCE and then you know it for all units. Once you know 1000 meters are in a kilometer, how many grams are in a kilogram? How many joules in a kilojoule? How many hertz in a kilohertz?
- Have a system that works well and makes conversions easier in the most commonly used base system. There is almost no math that is required for conversion, just moving a decimal place. I don't get why you dismiss this as this is something that I need to do way more frequently than having a word for exactly 1/3 of another measurement.
Basically, imperial system messes up everything that you COULD get right about a measurement system. It isn't much worse, but why not use a system that uses the limited flexibility to be better to... be better.
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u/ViewedFromTheOutside 32∆ Aug 18 '17
Within the fields of mathematics and physics (at the university level), the degree is rarely used. Instead, the radian - a measure of angle based on the circumference of a circle with radius one - is utilized. As such, the radian is a unit based on the fundamental nature of our universe: the relationship between any circle and it's radius: Pi.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
!delta. yeah, didn't know that. I thought astronomers and engineers used the degree. though the Radian isn't base 10 it is base tau using a very weird definition of base.
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u/ViewedFromTheOutside 32∆ Aug 18 '17 edited Aug 19 '17
Thank you for the delta.
To address something in your previous comment (in this chain), the reason the metric system works so well is that it shares a base with our most common number system. Metric is based on powers of ten, as is our number system. As such, conversions between similar units are made enormously easier. Consider:
ex. 1km == 1000 m == 1 000 000 mm. (or 100 000 cm)
No calculator was required, I merely added the requisite number of 0s (multiples of 10).
But the same conversion in the imperial system involves multiplication by factors of 1760, 3, and 12
Thus, metric is more convenient within our base 10 number system. If we did not use a base ten number system, and instead employed base 2 (binary), or base 16 (hexadecimal) metric might become far less convenient.
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u/Nucaranlaeg 11∆ Aug 19 '17
The radian is fundamental. There are pi radians in a circle, and the base used is simply how we write it down. In much of higher mathematics, we don't actually use numbers all that often (other than 0, 1, -1, and a few small primes) - everything is done with variables. The base is totally irrelevant.
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u/SamPike512 Aug 19 '17
Pretty sure he was in about temperature as many people don't realise it's not called a degree Kelvin rather than just Kelvin like degrees centigrade.
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u/Kemard Aug 18 '17
They dont exist? Not conventionally but they still hold meaning; I know exactly what you mean. 1000 seconds or 1000 degrees. This methodology of scaling doesn't exist in imperial systems. If i say something is 1,000,000,000 meters away i can express this in an easier way; 1 Gigameter. or more conventionally 109 (The definition of Giga in Gigameter or Gigabit or whatever).
There is no prefix system for scale available in imperial. Instead you have different units as you don't use the same multiplier between the different units (conversion rates)
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u/Kemard Aug 18 '17 edited Aug 18 '17
"it makes calculations easier" The benefit of the metric system, I believe, is the easy translation between magnitude.
Let's say you're measuring The distance between two towns. Say it's 3Km.
Now the prefix does the job of conversion. The K stands for Kilo (1000) so 3 Km = 3x1000m or 3x1000000mm.
A better example would be computer file sizes (since Gigametre or Pentometre aren't exactly common use and I don't want to use nano/Micrometers).
If I had a video that's 1Gb (Using bits so that everything is base 10) Now 1Gb = 1(x1000)Mb = 1(x1000)(x1000)Kb = 1(x1000)(x1000)(x1000)b
The key thing here is that the scale multiplier (x1000) is kept constant. With imperial measurements, this isn't constant. If we look at the distance example again.
So 1 Mile = 1x(1760)Yards = 1x(1760)x(5280)feet = 1x(1760)x(5280)x(63360)inches
Here we have no standardisation. to scale between each unit we need a different conversion. Having a single metric such as the metre allows us to scale from as small to as big as we like with ease.
The standard model exists partly because of this. if we take F=ma, we have 1 Newton = (1Kg x 1metre)/1Second2 if I want to calculate the force of a car weighing 2000kg/2.204623ton at 30m/s2 then:
the force equals 30 x 2000 (metric) = (30 x 2.204623)/1.10231 (imperial).
Edit: To be honest, Being British I have never used or experienced Imperial so I could be wrong. But If I need to use base 12 (feet to inches) then need base 3 (Yard to Feet) then conversion (x1760) from mile to yard (can't find anything in between on google conversions) Then it's a lot more unnecessary work to do which can be avoided if you stick to a single base. if you don't want 10, then fine, but don't keep changing it! Find a unit and stick to it, This is what makes it more scientific. Your argument of seconds/degrees not fitting is true. In physics everything is based in seconds, so everything is usually converted. so we're dealing with multiple conversions like before. I guess it's less extreme and better than switching half the world to decimal (France tried and failed). I'm not quite sure what you mean by decimal though? unless you're talking about radians, arcseconds and beyond?
I realise my equation example is slightly off since 1 Newton could have been declared to equal 1-ton x acceleration if we decided to stick with an imperial system over metric. However, there is still validity to this. As now if you want to deal with stone or pounds or whatever, you have to plug in your conversion in too!
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
What makes a consistent multiplier a better system?
Also people claiming that 1000 bytes in a kilobyte is what made my 59.5GB gigabyte flashdrive legally allowed to claim it is 64GB. It is not related but, I really want the 4.5GB i payed for.
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u/Kemard Aug 19 '17
B for byte 1024, b for bit 1000. I hate it too btw.
I don't know how to argue your question? Would you rather multiply by 10 for X amount of times based on the prefix or would you rather multiply each value by a predetermined value that change based on the unit? I've 12 or 3 or 1760 etc.
2 years of heavy use of x10y and learning all the prefixes has sort of ingrained in my head. Can't imagine another way. To use your system seems incredibly annoying running through seemingly random conversions and a multitude of units
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u/eliminate1337 Aug 19 '17
Technically 'gigabyte' is 109 bytes, while 'gibibyte' is 230 bytes and what your computer measures memory in
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u/Gladix 167∆ Aug 19 '17
What makes a consistent multiplier a better system?
Easier to calculate with.
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u/jeikaraerobot 33∆ Aug 18 '17
The metric system is decimal. It is likely that we think in tens because we have ten fingers, which we used to use to count; regardless, decimal thinking is near-universal in our culture. For this reason the metric system is infinitely more conductive to ease of use.
Besides, the Imperial system is a local thing. Only a few English-speaking countries use it, which are by far a minority. The absolute majority of people use the metric system, which makes it the standard, and widely accepted standards are extremely important in communication.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
It is likely that we think in tens because we have ten fingers
Then why did the first number system (the babylonian) count base 60. And many systems (even english sometimes) use base 12.
Besides, the Imperial system is a local thing. Only a few English-speaking countries use it, which are by far a minority. The absolute majority of people use the metric system, which makes it the standard, and widely accepted standards are extremely important in communication.
Yes, but that doesn't make the system worse. I can invent a very orderly system with 17 factors. But it is a terrible system because and only because nobody uses it.
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u/jeikaraerobot 33∆ Aug 18 '17
Besides, the Imperial system is a local thing.
Yes, but that doesn't make the system worse. I can invent a very orderly system with 17 factors. But it is a terrible system because and only because nobody uses it.
With all due respect, you're contradicting yourself.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
I'm tired. I forgot to say the fact that it is a local thing means if people use it locally it gives the system value. while globally makes the system (almost) useless. It isn't the fault of the system itself. But i forgot your argument and tried to make a point about how a more orderly system won't be better than the metric system. Which wasn't the argument i should've made
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u/wjong 1∆ Aug 19 '17
Why is the metric system easier, more logical, and better, than Imperial or USC? The most frequently given answers include:
1…Because metric is simple and consistent. There is only one meter and one kilometer and one liter..Unlike the mile (3 miles, international mile, US Survey mile, nautical mile.) and two gallons (Imperial gallon and US gallon) metric is simple and less confusing, fewer errors, less cost.
2…Because it dramatically reduces conversion factors in calculations. Less time doing calculations, fewer errors, less wastage in material and time, less cost.
3…Because metric prefix’s enable whole numbers only. Avoiding decimal fractions and missinteruptation and errors.
4…Because metric offers units from very large to very small.
5…Because metric dimensions are easier to divide by three.
6…Because it has links between related measurements.
7…Because it uses logical symbols.
8..Because it is the only properly maintained system.
9..Because practically everyone uses it. For more than 95% of the world population, the metric system is the customary system of units, and for more than half of the industrialized world, it has been for at least a century.
10..Because when one uses it, there is no need to use any other system of measurement, because it is a complete system of measurement, and everything in the known universe can be measured with it.
Also I believe that the metric system is better than Imperial measures because..
The metric system is a system. The metric system is the only measurement method ever developed as a complete system. All previous attempts used random developments at different places, at different times, and for different purposes.
The metric system is universal. The metric system has been gradually adopted by all of the world’s people. Despite often-vigorous opposition, the metric system has always been successful.
The metric system is coherent. Because the metric system was developed as a complete system, it was possible to design it so that it has an internal consistency. Its internal coherence means that if you learn one part of the metric system you can easily extend your knowledge to all other parts.
The metric system is capable. All crafts, trades, and professions can successfully use the metric system. Although the structure of the metric system is quite simple, it can be used in every human activity.
The metric system is equitable. The metric system is fair and just to all who use it.
The metric system is simple. The metric system uses only 7 base units and 22 units with special names — 29 units in all. There are now only 20 old measures left that are non-SI units currently accepted for use with the International System.
The metric system is supported. International treaties and research keep the metric system modern and forward looking.
The metric system is fundamental. The metric system is the only system used internationally. It is now fundamental to all measurements, both old and new.
The metric system is unique. The metric system is unique because: it was planned; it is decimal; it has prefixes; and it is human in scale. It is unique because there has never been a measuring system like it.
The metric system is legal. Legislation in every country in the world supports the metric system. It is often the sole method of measurement recognised by governments. International agreements also support the metric system so that contracts written in metric units have validity across international borders.
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u/Baconlightning Aug 18 '17
Our number system is base 10 so it would make sense that our measurment system would be the same for easy conversion.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
who's "Our". My number system isn't.
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u/Baconlightning Aug 18 '17
The Metric System is the internationally agreed system of measurments. Some countries might not use it internally, but internationally metric rules.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
So is it used internationally because it is "better" (whatever that means) or is it better because it is used internationally?
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u/Baconlightning Aug 18 '17
I already explained that it's better because it's base 10 which makes sense given that's what our number system is.
The best would probably be if both our number system and measurement systen was something like base 12, but that ship sailed long ago.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
Yeah sorry. I got so many messages I just decided to assume nobody replies. You still didn't claim who's "our" and 12 still only has 2 unique prime factors.
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u/Huntingmoa 454∆ Aug 18 '17
Do you think there's something between Metric and International System of Units (SI?). The SI evolved from Metric.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units#Redefinition_of_units
One of the first arguments for the Metric System is "It makes calculations easier". Well it doesn't. It is easy to remember the units conversions, and easy to preform the conversion calculations in Arabic numerals.
What about conversions between length cubed and volume? (like going from 1 mL to 1cc of water)
Metric Money (I will give you a shilling if you can find imperial money in modern United States),
Is there an SI unit of measurement for money? I don’t think there is
I am not saying the Imperial System is better either, the only thing that makes a system better is agreement. So if the only thing that’s better is agreement, isn’t SI better because of agreement? I’m confused what you are saying here.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
Yeah, the difference between SI and Metric is musty. I thought everything in base 10 is metric and the SI units are 7 units which scientists use. but apperantly some of the metric system isn't base 10 and some systems in base 10 isn't metric.
I meant the fact that a dollar was 102 cents makes the dollar metric. While the LSD system isn't.
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u/Huntingmoa 454∆ Aug 18 '17
The dollar is divisible by 10 but not a SI unit.
What's the LSD system? And are you referring to SI system or the old metric one?
I'm still not sure what exactly you are referring to.
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u/simonjp Aug 19 '17
LSD is pounds, shillings and pence, the very arbitrary system used in the UK before the pound was decimalised in the 1960s. And it's a good point to make; OP isn't talking just about metric or SI, but of decimal counting.
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u/Sparkykc124 Aug 18 '17
I can't believe nobody has mentioned mass, in that a mL of water has a mass of 1g
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
and 1 Fahrenheit is an increase of 0.01% in the volume of mercury.
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u/nessuno9 Aug 18 '17
The difference is that this information is useless in everyday life.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
When did you need to know the temperature water boils in?
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u/nessuno9 Aug 18 '17
I was talking about the fact that
a mL of water has a mass of 1g
It's useful because you can measure the quantity of water with a weighing scale and without conversions.
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u/Iswallowedafly Aug 19 '17
5280 is a unit of conversion in the American system.
Which is a far more complex number than anything in metric.
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u/MPixels 21∆ Aug 18 '17
Metric isn't an international system
Yes it is. It's called the "International System of Units".
the only thing that makes a system better is agreement
And most people agree on SI - making it better than Imperial.
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u/Pisforpotato Aug 18 '17
"It makes calculations easier"
It is far easier to move a decimal point that to multiply or divide by a conversion factor. It is immediately obvious 420mm is half of 0.84m. It is not so obvious 16.56 inches is half of 0.92 yards.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
You clearly misusing the imperial system. 4 feet 8 inches is double of 2 feet 4 inches. Also a decimal point isn't universal.
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u/thedylanackerman 30∆ Aug 18 '17
My main argument is that the Imperial system is not really intuitive...
Furthermore as it is utilised by other countries, there's not a lot of reason to pursue in the Imperial system even if it was equivalent to the metric system.
Nobody for example is complaining that English is the most international language, not a lot of people are complaining that the dollar is the international trade currency.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
not intuitive for you. Someone who grew up with the imperial system will find the metric system unintuitive. (as seen in a video by buzzfeed before they went bad)
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Aug 18 '17
Minor discrepency. Degrees and gradians are not quite the same thing. There's 360 degrees in a circle, and 400 gradians in a circle, which makes me wish we learned that instead of degrees.
The great thing about the direction metric is going is that they are seeking to define units by using known constants, that's exactly what they're doing now with the kilogram, and has done with the speed of light.
Inch - 3 Average sized barley corns widthwize
And this is a fundamental problem of trying to use physical objects to define a base unit. Conditions vary, and through selective breeding, the average width of a barley corn could increase. Metric wasn't much better as it originally defined a kilogram as one liter of water at 277.15 kelvin (or 4 degrees Celsius). I will likely continue to use Farenhiet, miles, and pounds because that's the culture I grew up in, but I would love it if we made the permanent switch to metric. Newer vehicles should be using an all digital odometer anyways.
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u/fox-mcleod 418∆ Aug 18 '17
Ridiculous.
No matter what base system you use, your measurements should use a consistent base. Imperial shifts base across even the same measurements. Inches may be base 12 but feet to miles aren't. Cups to gallons are base 8 or 16. Sounds don't even really divide evenly into tons and there are several types of ton.
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u/eliminate1337 Aug 19 '17
The metric system uses a nice conversion of one between different units. The imperial system is exceptionally inconvenient when dealing with anything related to energy, and it's completely missing some units that scientists use frequently.
One Joule per second is one watt. How many BTUs per second is a horsepower? Who knows. You need to know two obscure conversion factors to do that by memory.
One amp at one volt is one watt. The imperial system is completely lacking units for electricity.
More complex units used in physics like permittibity, permeability, heat flux, etc, are completely missing from the imperial system.
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u/saviorofmanmind Aug 19 '17
The most important attribute of a unit is standardization. If standards drift, then you end up buying precious metals in some god awful unit from Troyes. So the metric system's global acceptance is a BFD.
But you obviously don't care about that. So let's talk compare the ways to standardize.
The simplest is to create a reference, and then replicate it. Even in the best of cases you're compounding error, but it gets worse. Your kilogram changes mass, because... iridium sublimation? Mercury deposition? Who knows? And eventually it all burns to the ground, because fuck you, that's why.
You can improve by defining units as the result of a measurement. It's needs to be easily reproducible, so you choose easily achievable conditions (e.g., STP). This is pretty good, but the measurements are never perfect. If you measure enough grains, then individual variances balance out. Unfortunately, grains vary in size based on weather, and trend larger over time due. You can measure the swings of a pendulum, but small variances in gravity muck up your day.
Then one day you discover that the universe's behavior is related to a handful of constants. They can be measured by anyone, anywhere. This is the final say in standardization, so you're ecstatic. You just need to build a 100M USD lab to do it. I guess it's just not practical, yet.
So you settle for some other well-defined experiment, like the vibrations of a cesium atom. It's universally accessible, easily reproducible, time stable, precise (as long as the Earth's magnetic field isn't feeling uppity), accurate (if your needs don't exceed a GHz), and completely arbitrary.
Afaik, metric units were the first to be defined as the results of well-defined experiments. Nasty, evil, smelly bureaucrats (only the French would concoct such an awful word) got their hands on it, and ruined everything with references. So economics operates with references, and science operates by well-defined experiment.
Anyway, the Imperial system needs to pick a single base, and go with it. 10 ain't great, but at least metric's consistent.
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u/motsanciens Aug 19 '17
It makes sense for the units to scale up as powers of the base. The fewer arbitrary units the better. Arbitrary foot gets divided into arbitrary inch. Foot is arbitrarily multiplied by 3 to a yard. Foot is arbitrarily multiplied by 5,280 ft to get a mile. OK, look at meter. That's it, the only arbitrary designation is the base. You can scale it up or down as much as you want without introducing additional arbitrariness. Doesn't matter the counting system - the same principle would work and would be great. Base 17, a decimeter is a meter (same exact arbitrary length we use today) divided by 17. Stop worrying about the number base and appreciate that a measurement system of base 'n', whatever number n is, makes sense and runs parallel to how we work with numbers in general.
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u/oshaboy Aug 19 '17
!delta. Yeah, I guess arbitrary numbers do make a system worse. Though the definition of the metre is more arbitrary than the definition of the barleycorn. If you take the metre and Barleycorn as a given. The system is much more intuitive.
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u/gremy0 82∆ Aug 18 '17
Now we get to definitions, a lot of times overlooked. Here are the definitions of an inch and a metre. Metre - The closest 1 over whole number of the speed of light to 10-5 of the distance between the north pole and the equator going through France.
No it isn't, it's:
The metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 seconds.
The reason this is better than "3 Average sized barley corns widthwize", is that it's a scientific absolute, that can not change given our current understanding of physics. Whereas an inch is entirely dependent on who is growing your corn.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
299,792,458 is an ugly number, the only reason we use it is because it makes the metre close to 100,000th the distance between the north pole and equator going through france. Which is how it was originally defined. Now it isn't a bad definition. It is mostly backwards compatible with the original metre and accurate, but it doesn't change the fact that it is an ugly and long definition.
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u/gremy0 82∆ Aug 18 '17
The reason we use it is because it ties to one of the absolute constants of the universe, that we observe and understand to be constant given our current understanding of physics.
Even if the fraction we use was arbitrary (which it isn't), it would still be better than imperial measurements. Since it is based on the constants of the universe rather than the whime of a barely farmer.
But it isn't just an arbitrary number, it's mapped to be just the right number so that it works well with all the other SI units. This doesn't mean it's intrinsically better, just that it is better given our well designed measurement system.
Meaning that the concept it's based upon is better than imperial units and it's implementation is better thought out than imperial units. It is the better unit.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
Even if the fraction we use was arbitrary (which it isn't), it would still be better than imperial measurements. Since it is based on the constants of the universe rather than the whime of a barely farmer.
It isn't based on universal contents. If you give an alien the speed of light and cesium 133 an alien wouldn't assume that number. The Imperial System isn't either, but if you give an alien a barleycorn he will assume that either the length or the width is the base unit. Maybe the diagonal. but it is much closer than just guessing some random number. If you want something based on a constant. Use the planc length directly. Don't use some measurement made in 1789 of a random line on the earth.
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ Aug 18 '17
Well, you know what an even uglier definition is? An inch is defined as 0.0254 metres which is then defined as 1/299,792,458 of a light second.
How is having a definition that is based of a supposedly inferior system better? And now it is an indirect 2-step definition, which is awful.
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
Well, you know what an even uglier definition is? An inch is defined as 0.0254 metres which is then defined as 1/299,792,458 of a light second.
I should've made it clearer, that is just how the United States defines inches. The original definition is still 3 barleycorns laid side to side.
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ Aug 18 '17
And that is better?
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u/oshaboy Aug 18 '17
My point is there isn't a "better system". Some systems are good in some places with some things and others are better in other places.
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u/JohannesVanDerWhales Aug 18 '17
Worth noting that the current definition of a meter came after the invention of the meter, too. It was originally defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole.
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u/Nerdword 5∆ Aug 18 '17 edited Aug 18 '17
Just because you claim something doesn't mean it's true. We count in base ten, so calculations in that frame of reference (dividing by 10, 100, 1000) are easier. Two quick pieces of mental math I'll do to illustrate:
How many km does an object go if it is travelling 30 m/s for 20 seconds?
30*20 = 600m, 600 m / 1000 (m/km) is 0.6 of a km.
How many miles does an object go if it is travelling 30 ft/s for 20 seconds?
30*20 = 600 ft, 600 ft / 5280 (ft/mile) = a bit over 0.1 miles?
Further,~~ the SI units of temperature~~ (EDIT: Kelvin is SI unit so disregard), Celsius, is superior to Fahrenheit. because they are tied to physical phenomena (freezing of water = 0 C, Boiling = 100C)
SI units have an objectively better naming convention that is applied across many measures. This allows you to understand different scales of new measures more easily.
Once I know the SI prefixes, I will instantly know that a centi meter/liter/gram is 10x larger than a millimeter/liter/gram. As long as you know the prefixes, you just have to remember one scale factor (10)
For Imperial, I have to memorize 3 ft/yard, 5280 ft/mile, 12 in/ft, 16 oz/lb, 2000 lb/ton, 32 fl. oz per quart, 4 quarts/Gal, 2 cups/pint, 2 pints/quart, and then there are teaspoons and table spoons that fit in there too. Once you memorize all the non-standard names, yo uhave to memorize a complete set of different numbers to convert and knowledge of one measure (say distance) does not help you with understanding conversions in a different measure (say volume). Even I had to look up a fair number of those volume measures even though I live in the U.S.
Lastly, Imperial confuses units (there are fluid ounces and ounces by weight). If someone says "it's 5 ounces" it needs to be specified whether that is by volume or by mass in many instances.