Metric vs. other measurement systems - chart

[IntheGroove]

You mean my 1200 watt vacuum doesn't have 5.6 peak HP...

[jdurand]

You mean my 1200 watt vacuum doesn't have 5.6 peak HP...

it does if you stick a screwdriver into the blades at full rpm. It's a very short peak.

To see this effect better, use of of the 10 billion lumen flashlights that only cost $29.95 (+ Shipping and handling)

[carl blum]

Hi Gang:
Why O Why do they teach Metric as conversions from Imperial? The true confusion is converting any Imperial unit to anything else! I mostly use metric in my shop resisting the urge to use inches since metric is so much easier to deal with. I really decided metric is cool when I realized a cubic meter of water weighs a metric tonne! Here is a video that explains it all:
https://www.google.com/search?q=snl+...qfVE-fykk,st:0
Best wishes, Carl.

[Bony]

Well said Carl. From your example a cubic metre of water contains 1,000 litres and it follows that one litre of water weighs one kilogram, a millilitre weighs one gramme etc.
It's all so easy using the metric system, with a divisor between like units of one thousand. Eg 1,000 mm = metre, 1,000 metres = one kilometre etc.
I'm still confused as to why in the US large units of measurement are not converted into more manageable units for example a dozer weighs 100,000 lbs, that's incomprehensible. Why don't you guys say 50 tons ?, or whatever the conversion is.

[Bony]

According to Google, only three countries in the world use the Imperial system of measurement, Liberia, Myanmar and the US. What does that tell you?

[mklotz]

According to Google, only three countries in the world use the Imperial system of measurement, Liberia, Myanmar and the US. What does that tell you?

The US doesn't use the Imperial system. They use a system termed the 'US customary units'. The US system is based on the Imperial system and shares some units with it but some units differ and units that are not in the Imperial system are included.

Both systems are ridiculously and unnecessarily complex. They vividly demonstrate the stupidity of allowing conventions of particular industries to become part of the measurement system. They were never intelligently designed but rather evolved into the mish-mash they are.

The fact that so many disparate cultures have adopted the intelligently designed metric system is testimony to the need for simplification. Face it - if you can get the Germans and the Italians to agree to use a system designed by the French, it must be good.

[Bony]

I agree wholeheartedly Marv, so what would it take to introduce the metric system, or does politics prevent any hope of that? I would like to think that common sense would prevail.
We managed it in Australia in 1972, mind you we also had pounds, shillings and pence as currency, and that would have been sufficient catalyst on its own!

[bruce.desertrat]

According to Google, only three countries in the world use the Imperial system of measurement, Liberia, Myanmar and the US. What does that tell you?

That the US is the only country on earth that can successfully wreck a $327 million dollar interplanetary probe mission because...one contractor used Imperial units instead of the Metric ones NASA expected...

[carl blum]

Hello Bony:
My theory is news reporters pick the units to empathize the direction they are taking with the story. If they want BIG, they pick units that express the units with a number from 6 to 9, and with as many zeros as possible. If they want to make sound small, a from 1 to 4. Most folks can't make change for a nickle so they go with their gut feeling about numbers. And to use the Metric system correctly you should never use a numerator over 999, just use the proper prefix: Say megameter, 1 Mm, not 1000 km.
Carl.

[hemmjo]

Then we need to get into language. That is even more crazy;

to, too, two
red, read, read
led, lead, lead, l.e.d.

The list goes on and on.