I don't get it, why is metric better?

OK, you got me. It's really 7.5 gallons. ;-)

Reply to
krw
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Puckdropper wrote in news:57a573f5$0$51809$c3e8da3 $ snipped-for-privacy@news.astraweb.com:

[,,,]

Well, usually, anyway. Some fractional measurements come out pretty close to exact, e.g. the difference between 5/32" and 4mm is only a bit over a thousandth of an inch.

Reply to
Doug Miller

Puckdropper wrote in news:57a61232$0$31233$c3e8da3 $ snipped-for-privacy@news.astraweb.com:

[...]

It's even faster to multiply by 10, then divide by 3 -- which produces exactly the same result in fewer steps.

Reply to
Doug Miller

Leon wrote in news:MuudnUZzJMY9HTvKnZ2dnUU7- snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Not quite. It's actually a bit under seven and a half.

Reply to
Doug Miller

Afraid? Hardly. Just don't see the point of it.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Doug Miller wrote in news:XnsA65CD88A5AB79dougmilmaccom@213.239.209.88:

Looks like that method's easily reversable, too. Cool!

Puckdropper

Reply to
Puckdropper

Stubborness yes. But people with multiple degrees in the sciences and engineering and decades of engineering experience are not "afraid" of some damned numbers.

Reply to
J. Clarke

How does it make it easier to divide something into thirds?

Reply to
J. Clarke

That's what you _think_ you learned. Majoring in the hard sciences means that you learn to use it. It doesn't mean that you ever _like_ it or prefer it to the English system.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Really? Will your 1.4" film work in my 35mm camera?

Like it or not, metric is here and not going away. Most of us use metric in our daily lives and have no idea that we do. We think nothing of it when we buy a 750 ml bottle of wine or 2 liter bottle of soda. Most of the manufactured products we buy are metric but unless we need a tool or replacement screw we have no idea.

In 1960 many auto shops could not work on imported cars but the guys that bought a set of metric wrenches charged a premium. Smart they were.

I agree there is no reason to change road signs. It does take a couple of days to get used to kilometers.

If you want to do business with the rest of the world you will use metric. Aside from stubbornness, there is no good reason not to.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

That must have been a _long_ time ago.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Still 2 to 3 times more than I would have guesstimated.

Reply to
Leon

The eye deceives. A five gallon pail of paint is roughly 12 x 17. Looking at it and not counting the corners that is more than a cubic foot to the eye, but you still have 2 1/2 gallons to go.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

And a good rough estimate for most purposes...

The deception is at least partially caused by the volume of the "missing" distance being the cube of that linear distance not simply directly proportional nor even squared for the area, which at least is also roughly outlined for a visual clue...

OTOH, the volume of something _under_ 1 of whatever units is normally grossly over-estimated for the same reason excepting that since the number >1 is in the denominator, it reduces the quotient more than is intuitive... 1/2" --> 1/8 cu-in/unit length whereas 1/4 --> 1/64. Just looking doesn't tend to lead to that additional 8X reduction...one "knows" it, yet it isn't always intuitive.

Reply to
dpb

The volume of a cylinder is Pi X the radius Squared X the height.

(12/2)squared*Pi*17= 4.45 square feet

Reply to
Keith Nuttle

The volume of a cylinder is Pi X the radius Squared X the height.

(12/2)squared*Pi*17= 1.1 square feet

Reply to
Keith Nuttle

That's really dumb. 1/4" would be a change. How many times, in my life, am I going to care about the size of 35mm film. It's a name.

Nice strawman. Consider it vanquished.

It takes a lot more than that, even with both scales on the speedometer.

Again, with the strawman.

Reply to
krw

+1
Reply to
dpb

Learning your SS number to get your grades is harder than learning metric, I learned metric in grade school. It is not hard at all. It is more likely that those that learned Imperial and fractions first have a much easier time learning metric than those that learned metric first and later tried to learn the Imperial and working with fractions.

As I have stated earlier, I use both in my shop because my Festool tools use metric and I design for imperial measurements. Can those that learned metric first do that ?

So reading the answers here no one has proven that metric is better so much as simply easier to some degree. Oddly those that think metric is better tend to work with only one resolution vs multiple resolutions on a given project. I suppose that is because working with multiples of 10 is more confusing when you have to start using decimal points and or as I have also stated the sounds of each resolution differ slightly compared to Imperial so to cut down on the possibility of verbal miscommunication only one resolution is commonly used.

Reply to
Leon

On 08/06/2016 4:45 PM, graham wrote: ...

I posit that the stubbornness is an outward symptom of independence in thought/action in resisting externally-imposed mandates seen as nonessential and/or affecting their currently-satisfied status quo negatively.

Reply to
dpb

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