EPTDo you use Imperial or Metric? - Page 34
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ChriS-X
Malaysia1374 Posts
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semantics
10040 Posts
On December 10 2011 10:22 Sadist wrote: Month day year makes far more sense than the little pyramid shows. If you think of it as "day month year" sure that sounds good, but if you think about it that the largest number a month goes up to is 12 its much more logical for month day year. More than half the time the larger number would come second........and the largest number is always last if you use the full year. Im all for metric in other stuff........but leave month day year alone. We have it best. Never thought of it like that, but it's farily arbitrary, i just think the US goes month day year becuase the month was more important when it was being established and there were more farmers then factory workers, also i think it has to do with the way the US condenses the english language. I mean what's faster December 9th or 9th of December. Ionno about queens english but 9th December would mean the 9th December out with 8 Decembers coming before it. | ||
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Alvin853
Germany149 Posts
On December 10 2011 08:50 XsebT wrote: 1 foot = 12 inches = 1/3 yard = the size of a "standard" foot of a human being. I'd be very surprised if your feet were actually 1 foot long... Found this on wikipedia: "An anthropometric study of 1197 North American adult Caucasian males (mean age 35.5 years) found that a man's foot length was 26.3 cm with a standard deviation of 1.2 cm." Which makes me wonder how one would actually obtain the length of one foot without using a ruler for comparison. Say we'd crash on Mars without any equipment, how would we reconstruct one foot? A meter would be "easy", we'd only need to build an atomic clock and use the cesium hyperfine frequency to generate a second, and measure the distance light travels in whatever the definition of a meter is in seconds. On December 10 2011 09:09 DoubleReed wrote: Base 12 isn't better than Base 10. The best way to determine the bases is not just by the factors, but also by the factors of base-1. It makes a lot of divisibility calculation easy. For instance, 3 | 9 which is 10-1, so checking if n is divisible by 3 or 9 in base can be checked easily by hand (adding up the digits and check that number). So rather than 12, which only has 2 and 3 prime factors, and 11 which has one prime factor, a better base would be 16. 16 is 2^4, and 15 is divisible by 3 and 5, so divisibility of 2,3,4,5,6 are all very easy and quick to check, similar to base 10. We need to come up with a new metric system that's in hexadecimal. It's clearly the way of the future! Actually with base 10 you can check for divisibility by 2 or 5 by simply checking the last digit, by 4 you need to check the last 2 digits, by 3 or 9 you need to add up the digits. Now for base 12 a number is divisible by 2, 3, 4 or 6 if the last digit is divisible, by 8 or 9 if the last 2 digits are divisible, by 11 if the sum of digits is divisible by 11, and by 13 if the alternating sum (last digit minus second to last plus third to last minus forth...) is divisible by 13 (this works for 11 in base 10 too). Only division by 5 and 10 is harder to do in base 12, and division by 7 is hard in all of the above. To OPs question: i prefer natural units (which do not make sense in daily use at all, nobody writes speed in fractions of c, so metric in daily life obviously) random fact: in natural units 1 second equals about 3*10^8 meters, so you could refer to time as "the fourth dimension" | ||
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Synapze
Canada563 Posts
Centimetres/millimetres are inconvenient for sizing/building/measuring in construction. | ||
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LanTAs
United States1091 Posts
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c0rn1
Germany146 Posts
On December 10 2011 10:26 Eppa! wrote: Don't all scientist use SI units? They do nowadays in most cases. Well, you gotta differ a little between the units and the system behind it. SI units are something like weight (kg), length (m), time(s), [temperature(Kelvin), etc.]. The bold are the most important! The metric system is the calculation method (metric to the base of 10). 10^0^m=1m => 10^3=1km, etc. In Richard P. Feynman's lectures (early 60's) at the CalTech for example he used the imperial (US-standardized) system most of the time. Pretty interesting read/listen when you study Quantum Mechanics. If my mind serves me right he got the nobel price for adjusting the Maxwell Equations for the use in Quantum Electrodynamics. Just as a pretty common example. Cheers | ||
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JethroTV
United States206 Posts
Probably subsequent of the fact that I study physics. - But its of course better anyway. | ||
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gyth
657 Posts
On December 10 2011 10:26 Eppa! wrote: Don't all scientist use SI units? They use non-SI units too, like energy in electronvolts, speed in fractions of c, mass in tonnes, pressure in atm and data rates in dual-layered DVDs per year. And thats just one page at CERN. | ||
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JethroTV
United States206 Posts
On December 10 2011 10:47 gyth wrote: They use non-SI units too, like energy in electronvolts, speed in fractions of c, mass in tonnes, pressure in atm and data rates in dual-layered DVDs per year. And thats just one page at CERN. Alot of those are sort of special cases, So I dont know If I would say we use any other systems, per-say. For example, the use of C in a problem is usually just to make it easier to work through. At the end, C is strill translated to km/h or m/s or w.e., so we still make use of SI. | ||
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Vorenius
Denmark1979 Posts
On December 10 2011 08:47 Fontong wrote: That would be irrational as fuck, not going to lie I don't know if that was intended or not but it made me laugh. Hard!  | ||
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fuzzy_panda
New Zealand1681 Posts
Also I just found the OP's points on the advantages of Standard/Imperial rather amusing: Advantages of Standard 1. Standard goes more naturally with fractions - quarter of a pint, half foot, etc. Technically, you don't say half meter but rather 50 centimeters or 500 millimeters. Lolwut???? We say things like half a meter all the time! Please actually consult some people who actually use the metric system before making random comments like that. And just in case you don't realise this, maths, science, physics etc all base around metric, which means fractions is a natural fit for base10. 2. Standard units are more practical and convenient. No one goes to the grocery to buy 400ml drink, instead, they buy it in 12 ounces. No one buys 5 meters of wood, instead, they buy it is 1x1x12, all in feet. It's only practical and convenient in america. In every other country it is perfectly practical and convenient. In fact don't you see the MAIN ISSUE with standard is that it is so inconvenient when it comes to practicality? The fact that it's not based on a base10 counting system and is instead an accumulation of different standards? What do you use? What do you think are the pros and cons of both system of measurement? Do you have specific examples in your country or personally where one is better than the other? I can't think of a single really good example of standard being better than metric. It's why most of the world uses it, and it's why all the scientists in US has to use it as well. The only advantage, i guess, is maybe you can describe someone's height a little bit faster, e.g. saying six foot instead of one meter eighty (or one eighty for short). | ||
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Sverigevader
Sweden388 Posts
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gyth
657 Posts
On December 10 2011 10:51 SCJethro wrote: Alot of those are sort of special cases, So I dont know If I would say we use any other systems, per-say. For example, the use of C in a problem is usually just to make it easier to work through. At the end, C is strill translated to km/h or m/s or w.e., so we still make use of SI. No, if you are making relativistic corrections v is a fraction of c, not m/s. Scientists use SI units, unless it is convenient not to. Strictly metric would be too limiting, but it is a better starting point than "imperial". | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
Actually with base 10 you can check for divisibility by 2 or 5 by simply checking the last digit, by 4 you need to check the last 2 digits, by 3 or 9 you need to add up the digits. Now for base 12 a number is divisible by 2, 3, 4 or 6 if the last digit is divisible, by 8 or 9 if the last 2 digits are divisible, by 11 if the sum of digits is divisible by 11, and by 13 if the alternating sum (last digit minus second to last plus third to last minus forth...) is divisible by 13 (this works for 11 in base 10 too). Only division by 5 and 10 is harder to do in base 12, and division by 7 is hard in all of the above. Obviously, I didn't think this needed to be said. With Decimal and Hexademical, it is easy to check divisibility for 2,3, and 5 (and all therefore all combinations thereof). But with base 12 you no longer get 5, so it's not as ideal. You get 11, and that's just weird. Of course, in base 15, Pentadecimal, you have easy checks for 2,3,5,7, but I think it's a little weird for the base to not be even. | ||
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JethroTV
United States206 Posts
On December 10 2011 11:10 gyth wrote: No, if you are making relativistic corrections v is a fraction of c, not m/s. Scientists use SI units, unless it is convenient not to. Strictly metric would be too limiting, but it is a better starting point than "imperial". C is just a constant used to express a certain V... which holds the units m/s... I dont see what there is to disagree about, but okay. | ||
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JinDesu
United States3990 Posts
I always hated dealing with physics questions that used miles instead of meters. | ||
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gyth
657 Posts
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JinDesu
United States3990 Posts
On December 10 2011 11:17 gyth wrote: Using c like this IS a unit. Saying something is 14 solar masses is using solar masses as a unit. Solar mass is defined in kg. | ||
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choe
Germany86 Posts
the pros for the standard are not just for standard, they are also viable for the metric system. for example: we say in germany "ein halber meter" which means half a meter in a straight translation. no one here would say 500mm (not talkin about engineers and other professionals) the biggest advantage of the metric system is, that it is a part of the SI unit system. makes it rly useful in science. | ||
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gyth
657 Posts
On December 10 2011 11:18 JinDesu wrote: Solar mass is defined in kg. What does that matter? You could define it in slugs as well. I don't think you understand what a unit is. | ||
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