Metric is great for scientists in a lab with equipment to measure things.
Metric is just as great for everyday life as imperial units.
Also, a foot can be divided equally into 2, 3, 4, or 6 equally-sized pieces without resorting to estimation or irrational numbers; a meter cannot.
While I agree in principle, I also enjoy the chaos that imperial system causes when you try adding up 1 1/8 inches + 5 27/32 inches + 7 3/16 inches instead of just using decimal numbers.
If someone were adding those figures they would switch to decimal. I built furniture for 2 years, 64ths are almost never used over thousands of an inch. If you need to be finer than 32nds you use thou. And that pretty much only for wood. Machine shop I worked in used thou exclusively.
Is it really? That’s really interesting, and would cause a lot of confusion in metric-English countries where ‘mil’ is pejoratively used in speech to either mean ‘millimetre’ or ‘millilitre’ depending on context.
But after multiplying, 8 + 54 + 3 over 64 is just clean fun, you end up with 14 1/64 inches and wanna die because you accidentally cut the material at 14 inches and now your whole day is ruined.
I’m using some pvc to build a prototype and the percentage of it that turns to microplastic so I can get precise sizing is terrifying. But I’ma use the chop saw we got instead of buying new, larger pvc scissors
In practice you would just use decimal inches. Doesn’t really make it better but you can machine something without ever seeing a fraction if you want to since everything will be in thousandths of an inch.
most electronics breadboards and the pins from (non-tiny) microchips / ICs are spaced at 2.54mm apart, which i eventually realised is a tenth of an inch.
Maybe in your particular industry, but I reckon most people using imperial units aren’t using measuring devices with decimal inches or needing the precision of .0001"
Having done my share of automotive and carpentry work, I’ve never in my life had to go down to 64ths. 32nds is the smallest fraction I’ve ever had to use and the amount of times I’ve had to get that small could probably be counted on one hand.
I’m saying that if you knew what you were talking about you wouldn’t be working in 64ths in the first place. You picked 64ths because “hurr sure Americans dumb” and you know it.
You come to a thread where people throw light hearted banter about each others’ measuring systems and you feel attacked by arrogant europeans. Sounds a lot like paranoia. Chill.
Metric is just as great for everyday life as imperial units.
While I agree in principle, I also enjoy the chaos that imperial system causes when you try adding up 1 1/8 inches + 5 27/32 inches + 7 3/16 inches instead of just using decimal numbers.
Edited for clarity
That’s easy, 14 5/32
(Yes, I did it in my head. Yes, I am chaos)
Thank you, Chaos :)
Chaos? Just normalize to a denominator of 32 and it’s simple
A denominator of 1 makes it even simpler
Or normalize to something sane and use mm
This is what the metricians say to feel better about themselves, but they never mean it.
“Oh yes, I’ll have a 236.588 milliliters of tea, thank you for offering”
“The kids are out playing in the back 0.914 meters”
“Doctor, I think I broke my left 30.48 centimeters”
Do you see how silly you would sound if you didn’t use imperial?
I was co confused until I got the joke lol
If someone were adding those figures they would switch to decimal. I built furniture for 2 years, 64ths are almost never used over thousands of an inch. If you need to be finer than 32nds you use thou. And that pretty much only for wood. Machine shop I worked in used thou exclusively.
Which is called a “mil”, a name that has never caused confusion
Is it really? That’s really interesting, and would cause a lot of confusion in metric-English countries where ‘mil’ is pejoratively used in speech to either mean ‘millimetre’ or ‘millilitre’ depending on context.
pejoratively ≠ casually
It causes confusion in the US too, because, despite popular misconceptions, we do in fact use both systems.
While in theory it is like that, I as a non english speaker have come across people trying to add up inch fractions more time than I remember.
Wheeeeeeee fractions!
But after multiplying, 8 + 54 + 3 over 64 is just clean fun, you end up with 14 1/64 inches and wanna die because you accidentally cut the material at 14 inches and now your whole day is ruined.
I’m using some pvc to build a prototype and the percentage of it that turns to microplastic so I can get precise sizing is terrifying. But I’ma use the chop saw we got instead of buying new, larger pvc scissors
1/8 = 4/32 3/16 = 6/32 4 + 6 + 27 = 37 37/32 = 1 5/32 1 + 5 + 7 + 1 = 14 Total: 14 5/32I wouldn’t call it chaos, it’s a straightforward algorithm:
This works for every measurement because the denominator is always a power of 2.
With that said I absolutely prefer metric.
In practice you would just use decimal inches. Doesn’t really make it better but you can machine something without ever seeing a fraction if you want to since everything will be in thousandths of an inch.
Decimal inches?
most electronics breadboards and the pins from (non-tiny) microchips / ICs are spaced at 2.54mm apart, which i eventually realised is a tenth of an inch.
Maybe in your particular industry, but I reckon most people using imperial units aren’t using measuring devices with decimal inches or needing the precision of .0001"
Having done my share of automotive and carpentry work, I’ve never in my life had to go down to 64ths. 32nds is the smallest fraction I’ve ever had to use and the amount of times I’ve had to get that small could probably be counted on one hand.
In US machine shops if they’re getting down to that level of measurement, they’ll switch over to milli-inches.
Yes, milli-inches are an actual unit in use.
Yes, machine shop use thousandths, but 99.9% of the population will never do that.
Why don’t they use 1024ths? Gotta commit to the bit if you wanna be taken seriously.
Are you saying adding 8ths, 16ths and 32nds is trivial and having 64th in my example made it unrealistic?
I’m saying that if you knew what you were talking about you wouldn’t be working in 64ths in the first place. You picked 64ths because “hurr sure Americans dumb” and you know it.
I picked 64 because I don’t use imperial and I have no sense of scalw what makes sense as a fraction unit. A bit paranoid, aren’t you?
Exactly
Nope, just sick of arrogant Europeans acting like they’re experts on shit they don’t have the first clue about.
You come to a thread where people throw light hearted banter about each others’ measuring systems and you feel attacked by arrogant europeans. Sounds a lot like paranoia. Chill.