Yes I`m a European
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7x-RGfd0Yk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7x-RGfd0Yk
Yes I`m a European
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7x-RGfd0Yk
He doesn't know what he's talking about, though. The meter was supposed to be related to the size of the Earth...and the measurement was actually off, so the meter is at least as arbitrary as the inch.
The nautical mile IS related to the size of the Earth (or at least it was before SI nuts defined it in terms of meters and rounded it off) and has nothing to do with traditional imperial measure. It's used for naval and aircraft navigation because it's incredibly convenient.
The meter is now precisely defined in terms of the speed of light, and the inch is now precisely defined as 25.4mm. Sooooo, the inch is precisely defined in terms of the speed of light.
And this is just covering the distances.
There are more measures in the imperial system with e.g. weight systems. While I was actively boxing in England as a student, I totally lost ground as my opponents were weight in pounds, stones and ounces. ... and the poor Germans like me just had kilos.
It still amazes me, how someone can keep up with all this fractions and factors.
... and I will go and do something serious now - like fishing ...
Gerhard
You can't use decimal with Imperial measure? You can't use fractions with metric? You never say, "It's about 1/2 a meter wide?". It's a choice to mix units, such as lbs and ounces, or inches and miles. You can say, "It weighs 25.7 lbs."
I've studied this a great deal. There is very, very little advantage to the metric system outside of engineering, and even the engineering advantages are somewhat dubious.
You can't use decimal with Imperial measure? You can't use fractions with metric? You never say, "It's about 1/2 a meter wide?". It's a choice to mix units, such as lbs and ounces, or inches and miles. You can say, "It weighs 25.7 lbs."
I've studied this a great deal. There is very, very little advantage to the metric system outside of engineering, and even the engineering advantages are somewhat dubious.
The reason why the metric system is "better" is that it all units relate to one another in multiples of 10. Thus, when converting a 3.654 kilometers into meters you just have to move the decimal point whereas converting 2.284 miles into feet you have to do actual math. The less complicated your conversions the less potential for mistakes when doing the calculations.
This is very helpful when dealing with very large or very small numbers.
Huge advantage in the medical field. Drug calculations and unit conversions for example are much simpler.
Also in the biological and physical sciences it has a great advantage.
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Who uses furlongs? Amish farmers?
I'm not doubting you, but could you explain this? I've tried very hard to understand the inherent advantages of the metric system and the only one I see is that you traditionally use 10x prefixes in front of the basic units so you don't have to use scientific notation. There's no reason that couldn't be done with imperial units. Believe me, I'm an engineer with a pretty solid background in math and physics. I do know some of the advantages of metric, but I think it's way overblown and has nothing really to do with the metric system itself, but rather with the notation.
While there IS something of an advantage that the cc, for example, is neatly defined in terms of a cubic meter, and the fluid once is a screwy if you define it in terms of a cubic inch, I honestly can't remember that ever being particularly helpful.
A great deal of engineering is still done with imperial units, and it's not an impediment because people don't mix all these strange units with each other. They use inches, just like someone else would use meters. Who uses furlongs? Amish farmers?
Perfectly sums it up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWKTkOWC2K8
......
The reason metric rose to prominence was that Napoleon wanted a more consistent unit of measure for things such as commerce. Change was in the air, as they say, so instead of simply standardizing the system that was already there, a completely different system was adopted, by Imperial fiat no less, and there was literally a day in France and her territories when Imperial became outlawed, and Imperial Metric p) became the standard.
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hi John,
sorry, but the metric system was decided & defined during the french revolution , became official/universal in France in 1795 and not by Napoleon who was was crowned emperor in 1804...