Our Friend, The Meter

dbirchall writes "Upon hearing that SpaceShipOne reached 100km today, I did some hasty math based on the altitude in feet sttated by Scaled Composites in their press release, and was surprised to come up with a number under 100,000 meters. Fortunately, a friend pointed out that my inches-to-meters conversion was flawed. Some quick Googling determined that lots of people still have no idea how many inches are in a meter, even after some folks have had big problems because of conversion errors."

Comments

meter

[loveandpeace]

you mean it has nothing to do with iambic?

Re:meter

[Mr Guy]

Right. You're thinking of pentameter which, as everyone knows is a military meter as costs much more than a typical meter, to cover "special projects."

Re:meter

[scott_evil]

Yep, meter is a tool for measuring, metre is a measurement.

Re:meter

[pe1rxq]

In dutch 'meter' is used for both the measurement result and the measurement device.

Jeroen

Re:meter

[Brama]

Wouldn't that be true for 'feet' as well? Or are you saying they *don't* actually walk all the way up there to make the measurement? :)

Re:meter

[gnu-generation-one]

"Right. You're thinking of pentameter which, as everyone knows is a military meter as costs much more than a typical meter, to cover "special projects.""

Unrelated to the perimeter which is also a military thing...

Re:meter

[LuxFX]

In dutch 'meter' is used for both the measurement result and the measurement device.

And in Chicago, 'meter' is a device that resulted in me having to pay hundreds dollars to park my car.

At least we know.

[DAldredge]

Well, at least NASA knows what happened to it's probe, unlike some other space agencies. ;->

Re:At least we know.

[xagon7]

"Hey, at lease people in those other space agencies know how to speak English, unlike Americans. ;-)"

1. it is least not lease

Yes, an American has corrected your spelling.

Perhaps you should learn how to check your writing AND math.

Re:At least we know.

[Dashing Leech]

What, they have switched to metric then?

I wish. We've had to deal with everything in inches for years from NASA, now our requirements are a mix. They say we need to detect 1/4" damage from 5 to 7 feet moving at up to 1 meter/min and 1" damage from 7 to 10 feet at up to 3 meters/min. To make matters worse, our scanner measures in millimeters, so we have to convert the spec to mm anyway to know that we can meet the spec. And this is a safety-of-flight program to ensure the shuttle is not damaged.

Re:At least we know.

[azzy]

.. and also, Beagle 2 was not a failure, it actually had a top secret governmental purpose. Beagle 2 carried genetically engineered humans on board, extra ultra small sized to survive on Mars with minimal food/water. Over the next few years they will terraform Mars, and it will becoome the strating point of a new glorious British Empire.

Re:At least we know.

[arose]

Yes, an American has corrected your spelling.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" :-)

Why should I care?

[tangent3]

Why should I care how many inches are there in a metre (meter for some of you people). Everywhere I go today everything I see is in metric. Whoever uses inches anywa.... oh. *those* people. *sigh*

Re:Why should I care?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many stone do you weigh?

Re:Why should I care?

[oleimann]

Just because we don't want to, doesn't mean we can't.

We wouldn't have come this far if we weren't a lazy people - that particular trait is the cause of most of our (household) inventions and technological progress.

Having a single, global frame of reference for technical units, which also happens to calculate easily, makes technical development not only faster, but also improves international cooperation.

Sticking to one's own system is just another extra point for one's will for isolationism.

Re:Why should I care?

[Hansu]

that lots of people still have no idea how many inches are in a meter, even after some folks have had big problems because of conversion errors

Just because we don't want to, doesn't mean we can't.

Um... doesn't the article just state that you can't.

Re:Why should I care?

[Anonymous Coward]

You overlook a significant advantage of metric; weights and measures have a direct relationship. How heavy is a gallon of water in Imperial/English units? Fucked if I know; but I can tell you that a litre of water weighs 1kg.

Re:Why should I care?

[Haeleth]

Funny how everyone took that comment as anti-American. Here I was assuming "*those* people" was meant to be a reference to those "add i-n-c-h-e-s to your manhood" spams...

(Speaking as someone who thinks in inches despite never having set foot on US soil.)

Re:Why should I care?

[Sique]

The first country in which a controlled split of an atom took place was Italy, and it was performed by Enrico Fermi (yes, the same Mr. Fermi) in 1934. Ironically Enrico Fermi at first didn't think about a split, he rather assumed, that the neutrons he was sending to Uranium were added to the Uranium cores, and he were creating Transuranium atoms.

Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann were continuing those experiments in the following years and were proving chemically, that indeed there were new cores produced by shooting neutrons on Uranium. But the physical results (density et.al.) didn't fit the expectations for Transuranium. In 1937 Lise Meitner, who was physicist, found the right explanation and concluded that the neutron had rather split the atom core instead of being added to it.

Mr. Hahn in lieu for the whole group got the Chemistry Nobel prize in 1944 for this achievement. Lise Meitner should have been awarded the Physics Nobel prize though, which never happened.

Enrico Fermi, after being exiled to the U.S. was starting a fission reactor project in 1942 in the basement of a stadium and invented the carbon-water moderated reactor.

I remember to have read in an Otto Hahn biography, that the idea to explain the phenomenom as split of atoms has been suggested before 1937 in a conference, where Otto Hahn was presenting his results as proof for creating Transuranium, but the scientist, being a woman from Yugoslavia, didn't have enough credit with the audience.

(There is another prominent case of mistrusting women in science in the first half of the 20th century: When Lise Meitner was the first woman who got awarded her Doctor's degree from the University of Vienna, it was anounced in the local newspapers as a thesis about "Problems in cosmetic physics". Indeed she wrote her thesis about "Problems in cosmic physics".)

Re:Why should I care?

[benito27uk]

The first country to split the atom was actually Great Britain.

In 1932 John Cockcroft, together with Ernest Walton bombarded Lithium with high energy protons, and succeeded in transmuting it into Helium and other elements.

This was the first occasion on which an atomic nucleus of one element had been successfully changed to a different nucleus by artificial means.

This feat was popularly, if not strictly accurately, known as splitting the atom. Wikipedia.org

Re:Why should I care?

[Toadpipe]

I suppose you are Yet Another one of my countrymen who thinks that Henry Ford invented the automobile and that it's funny our current leader brags about not reading the news. Ever.

It's people like you who make me ashamed to live here. But For however long it takes people like me will continue to try to better your world for you until you wake up and realize there is nothing great about this country.

If it was "the best place" we'd all have free medicine when we need it, a job, food free from chemicals, food period, less violence in the streets, no racism (which is rampant, from all sides), inexpensive quality housing, both parents (if there are two) in any given family wouldn't have to work (if they can find work) to support their children, we'd actually have cars that live up to emissions standards, it would be safe to eat the fish from our waterways, it would be safe to walk through a city (any city) at night, people would be able to hold police accountable to the same laws they supposedly uphold, we'd stop declairing "war" on abstract concepts ("war on terror" is working about as well as "war on drugs" did), we wouldn't have to filter our water to get rid of the poisons our water treatment plants put in it, we'd never have another case of a high school grad who couldn't read (thousands a year), there'd be nearly free quality higher education for average income people, there'd be less homeless...

I'll stop there for now, but if you ever get tired of just saying it a great place and want to actually help make it a great place, help is needed.

Re:Why should I care?

[TroyFoley]

You overlook a significant advantage of metric; weights and measures have a direct relationship.

I can tell you that a litre of water weighs 1kg.

Yes but how long is it?

Re:Why should I care?

[ckaminski]

At what temperature?

Re:Why should I care?

[Anonymous Coward]

No: 1 cubic decimeter (1 dm3) = 1000 cubic centimeters (1000 cm3) = 1 litre

1 litre of pure water (density 1 kg/dm3) = 1 kilogram (1000 grams) of water

1 m = 10 dm = 100 cm = 1000 mm

1 m2 = 100 dm2 = 10000 cm2 = 1e6 mm2

1 m3 = 1e3 dm3 = 1e6 cm3 = 1e9 mm3

God save the metric system!!

Re:Why should I care?

[Spock the Baptist]

There are 231 cubic inches per gallon.

Re:Why should I care?

[uberleet]

A gallon of water is actually ~ 8 pounds. Or 8.345404 to be exact.

Re:Why should I care?

[uberleet]

No, julesh is actually right.

An Imperial gallon is 8 Imperial pints. An Imperial pint is 20 fluid ounces.

This is different than in American Standard units where a gallon is 8 pints, each being 16 fluid ounces.

Just to make things additionally confusing, the fluid ounce is also defined differently in Imperial (1 fluid ounce = 1 weight ounce) -vs- American Standard (1 fluid ounce = 1.04 weight ounce).

So, an Imperial gallon really does weigh (160/16 * 1) 10 pounds while an American gallon weighs (128/16 * 1.04) ~8.33.

Re:Why should I care?

[nebaz]

Actually it does matter. Density changes with temperature. Thus for a fixed volume, so does mass.

Re:Why should I care?

[Sique]

It is technically no splitting of the atom, it's just a changing of the nucleus by adding a proton or a neutron. Even though this is a change of the chemical properties, both the atom cores have nearly the same weight (+1). Same is to be said for the Rutherford experiments, where atom nuclei were bombarded by alpha radiation (Helium nuclei). In this case you even change the mass number of the targeted core (the number of baryons) by four, and you even have at first an addition of mass and then a second reaction to get the new core into a stable state (mostly by sending out beta radiation, sometimes also neutron or proton radiation).

Ernest Rutherford is thus recognized as the person to first demonstrate the change of atom cores. John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton were the first to use protons, which are quite easy to generate (they are basicly positively charged Hydrogenium or Hydrogenium nuclei).

Enrico Fermi got interested in those experiments and was using neutrons because he hoped that neutrons would be easier to add to the core, because they don't get rejected by the positive charge of the atom core. On the other hand you can't get neutron radiation that easily, you need radioactive elements which send out neutrons during their reaction.

The big breakthrough for Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann was to realize that neutrons don't just get added to the atom cores, but they cause the cores to swing and in this process to split into two about equal sized smaller cores. And Otto Hahn got the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for exactly this: To discover the splitting of the atom.

Re:Why should I care?

[Cecil]

This thread is an excellent example of why metric is, in general, easier. Imperial is so loaded with caveats, non-rounded numbers and region-specific changes that no one can remember what the correct conversions are anymore. And even when people do remember, they're only correct to 1 significant digit (8 pounds vs. 8.33...whatever the actual numbers are) whereas metric conversions are very accurate, I'd be surprised if it was less than 6 significant digits in the 1L = 1kg water at standard conditions conversion.

Re:Why should I care?

[OwnedByTwoCats]

A pint's a pound the world around...

Sure, they're both 16 ounces, but are they the same ounces?

And a gallon is 8 pints.

Re:Why should I care?

[jburroug]

Not true. I still buy my beer by the pint and it's easy to find liquor sold by the pint or quart as well.

Also ammunition comes in a mishmash of metric and English units. The caliber (as in 45 caliber) of a round is based on it's size in inches. For example the bore of a 45 caliber handgun is .45" inches wide.

So what was your point again?

On in the US

[gnuman99]

This problem appears to occur only in the US. Even the British adopted the meter, and they invented the imperial units!

Maybe it's the time for the US to join the metric world. At least we wouldn't loose that Mars probe!

Re:On in the US

[LMCBoy]

Yeah, okay. You use meters, congratulations. But can you spell "lose"?

Re:On in the US

[Osty]

Maybe it's the time for the US to join the metric world

Hell no! You'll get my inches, miles, and gallons when you pry them from my cold dead hands!

At least we wouldn't loose that Mars probe!

Loosing the probe was part of the mission design. To bad we lost it afterwards. It really sucks to lose something once you've set it loose.

Re:On in the US

[popeydotcom]

A lot of us brits, even those taught the metric system at work, still talk in feet and inches. Our road signs (like US ones) are all in Miles, and I don't see that changing any time soon. We buy beer and milk in pints and mostly weigh in stones and pounds and not kilos. Speed over water and air is still measured in knots, and our road speed limits are in miles per hour.

So whilst we have "adopted" the metric system we still use the "old" measurements day-to-day.

Re:On in the US

[1u3hr]

Yeah, okay. You use meters, congratulations. But can you spell "lose"?

As he's apparently British, he can't spell "metre" either.

Re:On in the US

[wookyhoo]

The number of people who get that wrong. *sigh*

Next slashdot story:

"English: Lose or Loose? Lose the 'o'! Yes, let it loose!"

erm, or something :|

Re:On in the US

[Max Romantschuk]

You going to pay for us to change all of the road signs all over the country that deal with "XXX tons maximum", "Height: 16'", "45 miles to _______", or "Speed limit: 70"?

Good point, but actually tons are a metric unit. One ton is 1000Kg :)

Re:On in the US

[ArsSineArtificio]

We buy beer and milk in pints and mostly weigh in stones and pounds and not kilos.

The "stone" is totally unknown in the US, by the way. I believe that's the only common Imperial (or, as we say, standard) measurement we don't have.

Re:On in the US

[zoydoid]

you be thinking of a 'tonne' no doubt

Re:On in the US

[1u3hr]

Good point, but actually tons are a metric unit. One ton is 1000Kg

Usually speled "tonne" to make it clear.

It always bothered me in Star Trek when Spock would be reading off sensors of some object and say "5 million metric tons". Unless you go to 3 significant figures, it doesn't matter which kind of ton(ne); and in the 24th century I rather hope the imperial ton has gone the way of the cubit.

Re:On in the US

[mark-t]

It's not nearly that big a deal, you know.

Here in Canada made the switchover... in my lifetime, even.

I had just barely started school when I first heard that that Canada would be moving to the metric system. At the time, there were fewer than 10 countries worldwide that did not yet use the metric system.

Today, the USA alone bears the distinction of being the only nation on the planet that has not yet made any sort of government sponsored effort to switch to the metric system. I find this slightly amusing personally.

The conversion didn't happen overnight in Canada, and in many situations, people still use the imperial measurements. The signage has all been changed, of course... but a lot of people still think in imperial units, so they still get used. I estimate that it will probably take another 40 years before this country really doesn't use imperial units anymore.

Personal anecdote: not that long ago, I was describing something to my kids and mentioned a measurement in yards. My children had no idea how long a "yard" was until I described the length with my hands... to which they said "Oh, you mean a metre!" As the measurement I was citing to them was just an estimate anyways, I told them yes... but I told them that a yard was about 3 and a third inches shorter than a metre. I got another blank stare at the word "inch", at which point I told them there is 36 inches in a yard... Suffice to say I was certainly not winning their approval of my archaic measuring technology.

They just shook their heads and said that the metric system is so much better. Personally, I agree... but it's hard to change what you first learn. That's why I give it another 40 years... there's still too many working class adults that are using the imperial system here.

Re:On in the US

[Waffle Iron]

That was the wise way to go about the conversion. Here in the U.S., they tried to do it ass-backwards. Back in the 70s or 80s, they tacked little "kph" conversions onto speed-limit signs and speedometers to help everyone get "acclimated". This just pissed off and confused everyone with extra tiny numbers, and it was applied to an area of measurement that really isn't very important to metricize. (You can't even do easy physics calculations unless you use m/s anyway.)

The net result was a backlash that delayed adoption of the metric system here by decades. Instead of the in-your-face road signs, they should have just quietly started converting smaller things over and let the old system fade away gradually.

We probably will eventually switch over, but this won't happen until after our capability to design or manufacture anything domestically has totally atrophied, and we rely on 100% metric imported goods.

Re:On in the US

[cperciva]

Our road signs (like US ones) are all in Miles, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Ever noticed that road signs tend to be placed 1/3 or 2/3 of a mile before an exit?

This isn't just because they like confusing people; 1/3 of a mile is about 1/2 of a kilometer, so this will allow them to switch over to metric without having to move any signs.

Re:On in the US

[csmiller]

Err. Milk (unless its in glass bottles) is sold by the (half) litre in the UK. Only loose fruit and veg, (and beer/cider, but not spirits or wine) can legally be sold in imperial units. On a related point is a pint 24 or 20 fl. oz? It all depends on which side of the pond you live.

Re:On in the US

[stevelinton]

Of course there is some contention over the pint (and consequently the gallon).
An imperial pint is 20 fluid ounces (a little over half a litre). A US pint is 16 fluid ounces (under half a litre), leading to the factually incorrect US maxim "a pint's a pound the world around". I think there is a small difference in the fluid ounce as well.

Steve

PS 1 stone is 14 pounds.

Re:On in the US

[Rie Beam]

"The net result was a backlash that delayed adoption of the metric system here by decades. Instead of the in-your-face road signs, they should have just quietly started converting smaller things over and let the old system fade away gradually."

And what makes you think they aren't? Look around the house sometime - you'll notice that a lot of things are slowly being changed peice by peice, and in the very small manner in which you state. It really isn't a pipe dream for the US to switch to the Metric system - more likely, though, we'll end up like Britian, using a combination of our older, more average measurements for everyday uses, while more speciality measurements will be in complete Metrics.

Re:On in the US

[yow2000]

Don't you mean "On top of in the US"?

What's wrong with metric, anyway?

A miss is as good as a kilometer
Give him a centimeter, and he takes a kilometer
millimeter by millimeter
"millimetering towards success"
"I can see for kilometers and kilometers"
"I'll kilogram you!"
"You don't have a milligram of common sense"

Ugh... I see. Metric weirds language.

Re:On in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from the USA, there are only two other countries that don't officially use the metric system: Liberia and Myanmar. Both are dinky little third-world nations that probably have an excuse for not switching.

The USA, on the other hand, is just full of rednecks who want to keep using feet and inches (and getting pennies in their change) 'coz that's how God wants it, dammit!

Re:On in the US

[jrumney]

a pint's a pound the world around

I have seen pubs selling 1 pound pints before. But they're usually Foster's, which you'd have to pay me to drink.

Re:On in the US

[aitsu]

Coming from a metric country (Japan), I can tell you it's damn scary when you're speeding down the motorway and you see the big road sign that tells you your exit is coming up in 5m!

Re:On in the US

[flossie]

Lol. British.. That's a good one! It is spelled meter over here, so guess which country (not US, btw).

If over here is Britain, you are wrong. The unit of measurement is spelt "metre" after the French spelling, in just the same way that we (Brits that can spell) use "centre" instead of the American "center".
A "meter" is a measuring device, such as a "water meter" or a "tachometer".

Re:On in the US

[Bootsy Collins]

Do you ever buy soda in two liter bottles?

Cecil Adams pointed out that it's a lot easier to switch than most people think. The way to do it isn't to label everything in both imperial units and metric units; it's to just do it. Instead of labelling each gallon jug of milk with the fact that one gallon = 3.74 liters, thus making the metric system seem comparatively complicated (when in fact, it's less so), the right thing to do is to get rid of gallon jugs and replace them with four liter containers. We see two liter and half-liter soda bottles running around and everyone's fine with it now. Remember a couple of "temperature calibration points" -- water freezes at 0C, 20C = a nice spring day, 34 = Miami in July -- and dealing with the temperature scale change becomes fairly easy. It's trivial when you just do it.

Oh, and as an aside, while you may be very comfortable with miles and pounds and gallons (and, I'd guess, Fahrenheit degrees), how many other imperial units are you comfortable with? Most people aren't familiar with very many. How many people are comfortable with rods, links, chains, bushels, and pecks? How many people understand fluid ounces and ounces of weight (not understand that there's a difference, but what that difference is, and how they're related)? Can you picture an acre in your head fairly accurately? Most people in the U.S. can't, despite the fact that it's the most commonly used unit of land area. For most of us, for most purposes, imperial units are useless because we don't even understand them. One thing that metric units buys you is that the whole thing hangs together, is internally consistent. If any of it makes sense, it all does. I can't visualize an acre, but I can easily visualize a hectare, the corresponding unit of the metric system -- a square that's 100 meters (a little longer than an American football field) on a side.

Re:On in the US

[Linker3000]

Yep, and required to make Sarin

Re:On in the US

[Procrasti]

You'll get my inches, miles, and gallons when you pry them from my cold dead hands!

Shouldn't that be - "You'll get my inches, miles and gallons when you pry them from my cold dead feet!"

Re:On in the US

[dago]

well, according to google, the difference is about 10% ... hardly negligible

Re:On in the US

[zsau]

Actually, the English didn't go about metrication in a good way. The evidence is that they haven't fully metricised. In Australia, we used to use the imperial system, but now, most people my age don't know how much a pint, quart, ounce, pound, mile is...

To metricise speed limits, for instance, pick a long weekend. Over the weekend, replace as many speed signs as you can. (It's a good idea to make sure everyone knows that you're doing this well in advance, of course, and as an interim measure, it's probably a good idea to have 'mph' and 'km/h' on the speed limit signs, but they're long gone by now.)

In general, get everything done as quickly as you can. (Milk bottles were apparently another overnight thing even though at the time you returned them to be refilled.)

Of course, we still have our little remnants. Many people know their height in feet and inches, though the internet seems to exaggerate this. 30 cm rulers are still common, but that's probably more because it's a convenient length, and 40 cm rules exist too. Smallish bottles of drink (fizzy or milk) are 600 mL, the closest round measurement to the imperial pint (but we also have 375 mL cans (of grog or fizzy drinks) and 1.2 L bottles (of fizzy drinks), neither of which are nicely rounded imperial measurements,* so perhaps pre-metrication doesn't hold the answer for that, either).

* A British pint is close enough to 568 mL, which is closer to 600 mL than 500 mL, but two of them is 1.13 L, which is closer to 1.1 L than 2 L, and anyway, 1.1 L is close enough to 1 L that that's probably the better metrication.

Re:On in the US

[ardiri]

Australia follows English spelling (metre, colour, centre, etc) except for some strange reason the news media uses US spelling.

as a tech person, i've always spelled using american spelling. however, my english teacher used to always pick on my use of 'color' instead of 'colour'. he was a typical brit - end of story. not open to accepting the global sense of english.

you can spell it either way, 'color' or 'colour' - and, most people will understand what you mean. its the same with 'ised' vs 'ized' and of course the 're' vs 'er' :)

btw: for the record, everyone knows that 1in = 2.54cm. 1m = 100/2.54 = 39.37 (accurate to 4dp). there is nothing wrong with the metric system, we all know how to count in base 10. imperial is actually more complex to deal with.

Re:On in the US

[Sique]

It is not only factual incorrect for the british pint, it is also incorrect for the Prussian pound, which was created to help the people to mentally convert to the metric system. The american pound is about 455g, which is quite close to half a Kilogram, so the Prussian State created the Tax pound as being 500g or exactly half a Kilogram. Thus the people were able to easily estimate how much a given weight in Kilogram would weigh in their hands, by just doubling the number.

Until now you see the results in Germany: Coffee is sold mostly in 500g packets, the usual size of a piece of butter is commonly referred to as "half a pound", and nearly every baker knows what I am talking of if I ask for a "four pound bread". Interestingly the pound is used only for food, and it is only used verbal, no one would ever write it on a piece of paper.

Re:On in the US

[Barbarian]

On a related point is a pint 24 or 20 fl. oz? It all depends on which side of the pond you live

It all depends on how cheap the bar is.

Re:On in the US

[Raumkraut]

Hands are an imperial measurement also. They're most commonly used these days for measuring the height of horses.

google.com:
1 meter = 9.84251969 hands

Re:On in the US

[RollingThunder]

That's just because the numbers are nice.

If it's something more oddball (like 28 MPG) then it's trickier.

Metric fuel consumption is fuel _consumption_, not _efficiency_, and stated in Liters per 100km.

Thus, it's dead easy to figure out how much you need for a given trip length.

The question of which is more useful would come down to "Do you need to figure out how far you can go on a tank, or how much you need to get there?" I generally know where I'm going, and the distance to that place, so knowing I need X Liters to get there is more useful than "Well, I could manage to go 200 miles."

Re:On in the US

[raindrop#1]

I work for a governmental organisation in the UK. I feel duty bound to assure people that we are by no means as well organised as you suggest.

Re:On in the US

[flossie]

What do you call a device used to measure distance? A metre meter?

We call it a ruler. Do you call it a yard meter?

Re:On in the US

[Peldor]

Ever noticed that road signs tend to be placed 1/3 or 2/3 of a mile before an exit?

This isn't just because they like confusing people; 1/3 of a mile is about 1/2 of a kilometer, so this will allow them to switch over to metric without having to move any signs.

No, but I've noticed them at a 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1 mile. That's why they say pithy things like "Exit 1 mile ahead on right".

Re:On in the US

[Suidae]

We call it a ruler. Do you call it a yard meter?

We call impliments up to about 16 inches a ruler. A 36 inch impliment is usually called a yardstick.

Anything between those ranges is a broken yardstick :)

Of course, there are folding rulers too, those can be any expanded length, as long as they and up in that 16 inch range when folded. I've never seen a folding yardstick.

Re:On in the US

[Politburo]

What highways did you travel on here? On most interstates, there are at least 1 mile and 1/2 mile signs. For highway intersections there are frequently signs 2-5 miles away. It is true that on some denser city highways, and smaller state roads, you may only get 1/4 mile or less notice.

Re:On in the US

[ChristTrekker]

How do you know they weren't speaking Chinese on Star Trek? (Universal Translators.) *grin*

Just Remember 2.54

[SnowZero]

1 inch = 2.54 centimeters

It's fairly easy to remember, and everything else regarding length conversions can be derived from it. It also happens to be the official definition of the inch, since NIST uses metric internally.

Re:Just Remember 2.54

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't agree more, after all, 2.54 is a really easy number to remember and since I'm an American living in Norway, I find that I still convert a great deal. My coversions are generally based on quick conversions.

For example, if there are 2.2lbs in a kg. Then it's easy enough to use the quick multiply by 11 rule and then multiply by two (or reverse order). So for 52kg it's easy to say that 5 + 2 = 7 so 52*11 = 572 or 52 * 1.1 = 57.2 and 57.2 * 2 = 114.4. So 52kg = 114.4lbs.

As for feet to meters. There are a few quick conversion that aren't of great precision, but accurate enough for day to day life. For example, 3m = 10ft, 1 in. = 2.54cm, 1m = 40in. Of course for precision, I would alway use the 2.54 and a calculator to derive that there are 39.37007874015748031496062992126 inches in a meter. But with the engineering work that I do, it's more typical to simply derive directly the units by converting to and from centimeters and not meters.

As for volume. I of course for quick calculation simply relate the liter to the quart since when it comes to serving drinks, there's not a great deal of difference. When I need precision, it's easy to remember the numbers I've seen on American Coca-Cola bottles my entire life. A 2 liter bottle always says 67.6 fluid ounces on it. This is my base point for conversion since I can deduce that 33.8 fl oz is 1 liter. From there it's all easy.

For temperature, that's a no brainer. 0c is freezing, 100c is boiling. 32F is freezing, 212F is boiling. So 212 - 32 = 180 and 100 - 0 = 100. Therefore it's easy to asume that 180/100 is the ration. That easily converts to 9/5. Compensate for the 32 degree shift on the farenheit side.

After living here for 5.5 years and effectively performing as a calculator for everyone that needs conversions. I can convert the systems with utter ease and simplicity. I have multiple reference points which I can use in order to estimate measures within a 5% margin or error for all human weights and heights. I also can convert distances with ease (after all 60miles = 100km. 100miles = 160km, it's all gravy from there).

So what it boils down to is that if you can get through school in any country without understanding that both systems are just REALLY REALLY simple. Then go back to school and work on it. Let's face it, there's too much stupidity on this planet. If you can remember there's 12 inches in a foot and 8 oz in a cup, then you can remember 3 points of conversion reference and derive the rest.

Oops... almost submitted without adding this to make the stinkin brits happy, first of all, ASE measurement is not imperial although it has much in common. The imperial measure has a different size for the volumetric measure. Instead of 33.8140226 U.S. fl. oz. in the imperial system has 35.1950652 fl. oz. in a liter.

Re:Just Remember 2.54

[BorgDrone]

1 inch = 2.54 centimeters

It's fairly easy to remember, and everything else regarding length conversions can be derived from it

So 1 inch is 2.54cm. then 1 foot is 25.4 cm ? 1 yard is 254.0 cm ? etc. ?

You can't derive the rest if you don't know the seemingly randomly chosen number of $units in a $biggerunit.

Google is your metric friend

[Max Romantschuk]

I only recently discovered the Google calculator, so in case it's new to you to:

100Km in feet
20 inches in cm
Instructions for the Google calculator

Re:Google is your metric friend

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus man! That's 19 883.8782 rods!

Google's Calc has it right

[FiggyBottom]

1 meter in inches

2.54 cm per inch

[MillionthMonkey]

1 m * (100 cm/m) * (1 in/2.54 cm) = 39.37007874 in

Look at me, I'm Informative!

easy solution

[Coneasfast]

get a meter-o-meter and inch-o-meter, drive across the US, divide the numbers, BAM there is your answer, ok, move on to next story :)

Quick Estimating

[Rick and Roll]

I could have told that it was correct pretty quickly. A hundred kilometers is roughly sixty miles. I've known that since elementary school.

I also could have carried out the whole conversion, because I know that 1 in = 2.54 cm.

There are a lot of math illiterates. The poster is obviously one of them. I don't think the poster should take any comfort in the fact that other people got the wrong answer as well. I think that (s)he should realize that it's time to become educated.

This is just basic common knowledge that everyone should have.

(north) American cousins - get on board

[Timbo55]

The sooner the USofA joins the rest of the world in adopting the logical, easy to use and calculate metric system, the sooner we will all be better off.

Re:(north) American cousins - get on board

[ArsSineArtificio]

The sooner the USofA joins the rest of the world in adopting the logical, easy to use and calculate metric system, the sooner we will all be better off.

How would it make you better off in Australia? Do you have to keep spare sets of measuring spoons or something around for when we come over to visit?

Re:(north) American cousins - get on board

[creamandchives]

How would it make you better off in Australia?

Well it would mean maybe one day once all imperial had dissapeared, we would only have ONE set of socket wrenches...

and plus all the crocodiles would sound shorter, as they would only be 2 metres instead of 6 feet!

Re:(north) American cousins - get on board

[Anonymous Coward]

Because then we wouldn't waste time laughing at how silly Lockheed Martin and NASA were for losing a probe, so we would get more work done, make more profits and thus be better off. Simple.

We are humbled by the mighty Australian Space Agency...

Re:It matters because

[MushMouth]

2.54 cm/inch
1609 m/mile
39.37 in/m

These are off the top of my head. This guy doesn't know what the conversion rates are, I didn't know how many cubic inches are in a liter which I needed today, so I fucking looked them up. Search on your favorite search engine for conversion factors this isn't news.

metric is gud

[Bob Loblaw]

Maybe some are confused between the nautical inch and the statute inch ... oh wait ...

Maybe another reason is that some people are believing the doctored rulers they have laying around ... for ... ummm ... "discrete" measurement verification ...

Ya baby ... my rocket *does* go 100 km up.

Get out of here!

[iLEZ]

"With your centilliters and you milliliters." /Eddie Izzard

Re:It matters because

[1u3hr]

Dude, read the blurb again. It matters because the poster was Dan Birchall. Don't you know who that is? He's the head of NASA's mars probe program...

And it matters because in the linked blog he gives a long list of incorrect conversion factors from supposedly authoritative sources. I doubt he actually submitted the article; the Slashdot summary just makes him out to be an idiot who can't do simple arithmetic.

Re:Why?

[Coneasfast]

haven't you heard the stonecutters song:

Who controls the british crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We dooo! We dooo!

Re:Why?

[ArsSineArtificio]

What is the rational given in the USA for not using metric?

No compelling reason to change. Same reason why we don't use 220 volts as wall current.

Re:Legacy Measurement System

[fucksl4shd0t]

The scale measured in Kg and I was able to say, "whoa! that's X pounds!"

Your kid only weighs X pounds? Sorry to hear that. My 10 month old baby boy is weighing in right about XXX pounds right now. And he's starting to walk!

Hmmmm, am I the only one left using Roman numbers? I guess if I'm gonna use this metric thing I'm going to have to upgrade to Arabic numbers, eh? Nah, it would cost too much.

Rods to the hogshead

[ArsSineArtificio]

To quote grandpa Simpson "My car get 40 hogsheads to the ramrod, and that's the way I like it."

It's "40 rods to the hogshead", actually. A "rod" is 16.5 feet; a "hogshead" is 63 gallons. Consequently, the elder Mr. Simpson's car putatively ran at 0.002 mpg.

Re:Why?

[fucksl4shd0t]

No, it's so that after we conquor you, we can plague you with so many little things you have to learn to adapt to your new overlords that you won't have time to even remember what your nationality was before we took over.

Er, I think, anyway.

Seriously, I think it's just part of good ol' American laze. I worked hard to learn the metric system and to be able to convert imperial units to metric when I was in school under the false belief that we'd be completely switched over by the time I grew up. After I grew up (arguably so, anyway), I forgot all that. Now I can't convert shit even in Imperial. How many cups are in a quart, again? How about teaspoons in a tablespoon? I think it's 3. And no matter how many times I cut up a stick of butter, I still can't remember the tablespoon -> cup conversion. :(

Quick note..

[euxneks]

When, or if, you americans actually do adopt the metric system, it's spelled Metre.. =) Hope that helps... Meter is more commonly known as the measuring device.. heck, from Dictionary.com:

meter
n.
1. The measured arrangement of words in poetry, as by accentual rhythm, syllabic quantity, or the number of syllables in a line.
2. A particular arrangement of words in poetry, such as iambic pentameter, determined by the kind and number of metrical units in a line.
3. The rhythmic pattern of a stanza, determined by the kind and number of lines.
As it pertains to Music:
1. Division into measures or bars.
2. A specific rhythm determined by the number of beats and the time value assigned to each note in a measure.

Of course, this is just me being a nit-picky bastard.

Re:Quick note..

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"When, or if, you americans actually do adopt the metric system, it's spelled Metre.."

Right. I'm going to go to the tyre centre and have them look under the bonnet.

I'll fill my auto with 40 litres of petrol, much less than my neighbour's red-coloured auto which requires 80 litres of petrol. My auto is awful, though, so it's going to the scrapheap. For now, maybe I can bodge something to make my auto look better. At least the two hundred kilogrammes of scrap aluminium are worth something, according to the recycling programme I watched yesterday.

"Of course, this is just me being a nit-picky bastard."

No, it's you not understanding that American English spells things differently from British English.

The accepted American English spellings are "Meter", "Liter", and "Gram".

Re:Quick note..

[MochaMan]

Amazingly, you're speaking and writing English. So use the logically correct spelling, or change the way you pronounce it to match how you spell it. You fucking idiot.

I, for won, am exited tu help yu re-rite Inglish literachure, in yore new language. "The Nites Of The Round Tabel" iz so much better than chainjing the pronunsiashun tu "the kuh-nig-hets of the raund tahbluh"

How 'bout we all just calm down and realise that no matter how much you rant about one retarded system being better than another retarded system, English simply has fucked up spelling and that's that?

If you truly do feel passionately that meter is better than metre, then please "use your fucking brain" and start spelling table in a way that's consistent with label (as English and Americans alike pronounce it).

On the topic of units of measurement, please feel free to explain why this "pint" unit is still spelled like mint, hint, dint, lint, tint, vint, glint and any other word ending in 'int'. Yes indeed, the Americans have certainly got this spelling thing all worked out once and for all. Pity the rest of us haven't picked up the fantastic system work they've done.

Re:Quick note..

[LoocSiMit]

No, it's you not understanding that American English [...]

Would you mind awfully just calling it "American"? I'd rather my beautiful native tongue not be sullied by association with that cacophonous pidgin you colonials "speak". There's a good chap.

And we call them cars over here, dear boy. Do try to keep up.

Re:Quick note..

[donscarletti]

There is a fair bit of arrogance renaming someone else's measurements without using them yourself. What are you going to do next rename Bordeaux into Bordo so you can get your heads around other French concepts?

Re:Quick note..

[Soft]

What are you going to do next rename Bordeaux into Bordo so you can get your heads around other French concepts?

Or Deutschland into Germany? Or España into Spain? And what about la Suisse, I mean Schweiz, I mean Svizzera...

And don't worry, to people in Bordeaux, the capital of l'Angleterre is Londres, not London. <g>

Re:Quick note..

[Bobman1235]

There is a fair bit of arrogance renaming someone else's measurements without using them yourself. What are you going to do next rename Bordeaux into Bordo so you can get your heads around other French concepts?

Yes, it's all about arrogance. It has nothing to do with natural evolution of a language. Those wacky spaniards call the meter a "metro"! They completely CHANGED a letter! What arrogant bastards!!

American English is NOT the same exact language as British English. Languages evolve differently depending on where they're used and who is using them. Someone from Guatemala speaks a whole different Spanish than someone from Madrid. Complete with random "arrogant" spelling changes.

Wrap your head around that.

Re:Quick note..

[quisph]

But if someone in Mexico says, "It's 22 degrees outside," I have no idea what that means to me. I have to sit down, do the math (and I still haven't found a quick way to do 9/5 or 5/9) before I'm even sure if I need a jacket or not.

I've found the following rhyme helpful:

30 degrees is hot
20 degrees is nice
10 degrees is cold
0 degrees is ice

In Fahrenheit, that's 86 (hot), 68 (nice), 50 (cold), and of course 32 (ice).

Re:Why?

[pyrrhonist]

What is the rational given in the USA for not using metric?

This is a popular misconception. The fact is, the U.S. does use the metric system. See here for a list of laws.

Re:Why?

[Tarantolato]

What is the rational given in the USA for not using metric?

Its benefits are over-rated. Is it some badge of honour to continue to use an outdated, more complicated system of measurement?

10 is divisible by 2 and 5. 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. This makes mental division twice as easy with feet than with meters. To my mind that's a good reason to stick with Imperial for all but scientific purposes (where we've already been using metric for decades.)

Also, we've gotten screwed from previous times the government has tried to force it on us. 1.75 liters of whiskey is a nontrivial amount less than a handle of whiskey.

Re:American bashing?

[drag88]

Base 10 system?
Using prefixes to express multiples of base units?
No memorizing antiquated and imprecise ratios?

You have a base unit for every type of measurement; length(m), mass(g), weight(N), pressure(Pa), energy (J), etc. Just add prefixes and numerical values and you're all set! So easy..

Last vestige of colonialism?

[quarkscat]

The USA may not admit it, but it yearns
for royalty, just like what we gave up
with our Revolution. How else to explain:

(1) fastination with Hollywood celebrities
(2) continued re-election of undeserved
politicians (like the House of Lords)
(3) elevation of GW Bush to near-sainthood?

Re:It matters because

[Penguinshit]

Because it takes longer than seven days to reach Mars?

It doesn't matter who you are...

[Anonymous Coward]

or what you manage. You can still be an idiot. Just take a look at the president...

I highly doubt this webpage.

[Inoshiro]

Do you really think that our mind is naturally suited to 3s and 4s? Are you closed to the idea that it could be a much more complex source of interactions in your life that trained your mind to work that way?

Did you ever think that if you grew up in a metric environment, you'd have as much of a troubled time thinking in imperial? The website you linked to didn't think that. After all, naturally you'd be more adept at doing 3 and 3 times stuff in your head if you'd been doing it for all your unit conversion in your life! I've been doing metric in my head, as Canada is not silly like the brits (a brit whose site you link to) who don't sell things by the litre, or measure by the kilometre, or use kilograms as their unit of mass. British people are metric in name only: underneath, the sickening heart of ugly imperial units beats away.

Converting non-metric units in my head is hard, and I usually end up likening it to the ratio out of 10 because that's how I grew up. 5/16ths? Thas' really close to 4/16ths, which is 1/4th which is a weensy bit more than 0.25, so this must be smaller than the 1/2th one which is really 0.50. I don't convert the 16ths and 2ths to a base denominator, I convert them in terms of a 0 to 1.

The kooky site you link to is all about how counting in base-12 is the way to go. I mean, you can take a step back to the way Germanic tribes did it, but I think base-10 is the way to go. Metric's just an outgrowth of it. Imperial units were an outgrowth of kooky base-12 that was used by Germanic tribes -- it's why English uses eleven and twelve instead of oneteen and twoteen. Japanese people don't have this problem -- the go ju-ich, ju-ni, ju-san. Their problem is about 4s and 7s and 9s. Yon or shi? Shi means death! Shichi or nana? Nana is usually used for numbers only. Ku or kyu? .. etc. It's all socially constructed. Those numbers aren't inherently evil or more useful for one purpose or another, it's totally social pressure. Ditto for your ability to work with 3s and 4s in your head. Good on you, but it's hardly a firm basis for such a wide-ranging generalization.

Re:I highly doubt this webpage.

[misterpies]

"Imperial units were an outgrowth of kooky base-12 that was used by Germanic tribes -- it's why English uses eleven and twelve instead of oneteen and twoteen."

Oh dear, when are we going to get a "-1 complete made-up bullshit" modifier? Here are some facts.

1. In the first place, with 16 ounces to the pound, 14 pounds to the stone and 3 feet to the yard, it's perfectly clear that the imperial system is not a pure base-12 system anyway.

2. The "imperial" system was not Germanic in origin. The metric system was invented in the 18th century. Before that, every country in Europe used a variant of the "imperial" system, which is descended from the Roman system of measurements. They're the folk that came up with 12 inches to the foot, 16 ounces to the pound etc.

3. Given that these units are Roman in origin, note that in latin, 11 is "undecim" (i.e. one-ten) and twelve is "duodecim" (two-ten). So clearly, language has nothing to do with it. And incidently, "eleven" comes from the Old English expression for "one left over (from ten)", so even the Germanic tribes counted in decimal.

4. Use of base-12 systems long predates even the Romans. The 12-hour clock and 360-degree system for angles were developed by the Babylonians several thousand years ago.

5. Then again, if you need to convert 5/16 to decimal to figure out that it's more than a quarter and less than a half, you're probably beyond my ability to help.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody uses 220 Volts as wall current. Volts are a unit of potential, not current.

It's not hard... Use "units"

[vip223]

Need to know the conversion factor? Use the (lesser known?) unix utility, units

[lupin:~] josh$ units
500 units, 54 prefixes
You have: metres
You want: inches
* 39.370079
/ 0.0254
You have: rods/hogshead
You want: kilometres/litre
* 1.5816358e-05
/ 63225.68

Oh, and by the way, in Australia, we spell it Metre, not meter (that's what the gas man checks)
Josh

Re:It matters because

[sholden]

Isn't the point that searching in your favourite search engine may very well turn up a page with the incorrect conversion factor?

Long or Short?

[Hungus]

Remember only a short ton is 2000lbs

1 metric ton (1000 kg)
= 0.9842 tons (long)
1.102311 tons (short)
2204.622 pounds

1 long ton (l t)
= 1.01605 tonne
2240 pounds (lb)

1 short ton (s t)
= 0.90718474 tonne
2000 pounds (lb)

True story..

[James_G]

In England, all construction work has traditionally been done in imperial. At some point, in the last 6 or 7 years, people started moving to metric. Possibly as a result of legislation - I'm not sure.

Anyone with half a brain can realise the the problem with making this change, especially in an environment where you're working with existing materials. The following is a genuine conversation I had while out buying some 4 inch guttering:

Me: Hi, I need some 4 inch guttering.
Plumbing shop: Oh sorry, we don't have any 4 inch guttering.
Me: How can you not have any? This sucks!
Plumbing shop: As luck would have it, we do have some 101.6mm guttering that is exactly the same size.
Me: I'll take it!

Re:It matters because

[mopomi]

Dude, this Dan Birchall is not a NASA administrator of any kind (look at his home page). He's a freelance writer/web page designer/executive director of SpamCon, if I have the right Dan Birchall.

There is, in fact, no Birchall in administration at NASA, and as far as I can find, there is no Birchall associated with NASA.

The program director of NASA's Mars program is Scott Hubbard. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/00 -10-26.html (search for mars program director)

At first i thought this post was stupid

[jdigital]

READ - Click on posters link

This evening, I learned that one meter equals 39.3700787 inches. While this may come as no surprise to some people, it was one to me - for years, I had mistakenly believed a meter was 39.77 inches, and now I know it's basically 39.37.

Of course, I'm not alone in my confusion. A bit of research on Google revealed quite a few different conversions from meters to inches. Here are some of them:

* 38 inches according to a page at Arkansas State University and another at Microflex Technologies.
* 38.16 inches according to a rounding-happy math teacher at Norfolk Collegiate School in Virginia.
* 38.37 inches according to Honeywell's Sensotec folks.
* 38.8 inches according to some numerological babble
* 39 inches according to Fife Products and some folks who sell quilting products.
* 39.14 inches according to the specifications on a measuring wheel for engineers. (uh-oh!)
* 39.15 inches according to an October 30 2002 entry in a blog.
* 39.21 inches according to Richard Bowles.
* 39.27 inches according to pages at University of Wisconsin Stevens Point and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.
* 39.28 inches according to Jonathan Brooks at Penn State University.
* 39.3 inches according to some laser folks.
* 39.34 inches according to a page about photography, and another about a role-playing game. Hey, it's only a game, their meters can be whatever length they want.
* 39.36 inches according to some ham radio sorts and some NASA folks among others. Pretty close... but... shouldn't NASA know better by now?
* 39.38 inches according to people who race 1-meter model yachts, talk about prehistory in California, and, um, other NASA folks. Again, pretty close!
* 39.39 inches according to someone ranting against metric (how ironic), as well as a page about UFOs.
* 39.4 inches according to a list of conversions from a company that makes electric motors and such things, and the Secretary of the Navy.
* 39.45 inches according to a set of math problems from a university in the Philippines.
* 39.5 inches according to a space.com article on liquid lenses.
* 39.54 inches according to Mark Moburg in this mailing list archive.
* 39.6 inches according to a page about magnetic therapy.
* 39.7 inches according to pages from Des Moines Area Community College and some rounding-happy laser people.
* 39.77 inches according to a page about carpet-weaving in Turkey and another site that sells S-Video Cables and lots of other cables. (See, I wasn't alone!)
* 39.79 inches according to InterlinkBT (now Turck)'s information on DeviceNet Pre-molded Fieldbus cables (below table).
* 39.87 inches, according to a textfile compiling handy (if wrong) conversions for common weights and measures, from O'Reilly.
* 39.97 inches, according to the Science Glossary developed by teachers in the Poughkeepsie (New York) City School District for the 2001-2002 school year, and according to the zoning laws on satellite dishes in Springfield Township, Ohio.
* 40 inches, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Once again, the correct answer is right around 39.37 inches. Remember that - it'll be on the quiz!

Re:At first i thought this post was stupid

[dbirchall]

2.54 is not rounded, inches cm is where a "precise" conversion is available.

And that looks like a relatively good division, yeah. I tried to get an answer out of Perl using:

prinft("%.70f\n",100/2.54);

which returned: 39.37007874015748143392556812614202499389648437500 0000000000000000000000

But Jeff "Bud" Fields did it by hand (which may or may not give better results than asking Perl for lots of precision) and got (quoting him):

39.37007874015748031456 and then a repeating pattern of 65354330708661417322834645

I had hoped it'd resolve nicely as it did in Perl, since 2.54 ends with a "4," but unfortunately the factors of 254 are 2 and 127 and 127 had to go be prime on me. Bleah.

Re:At first i thought this post was stupid

[RedWizzard]

I tried to get an answer out of Perl using: prinft("%.70f\n",100/2.54);

Use:

use Math::BigFloat;
$x = Math::BigFloat->new(100);
$x->precision(-100);
$y = $x->copy()->bdiv(2.54);
print $y->bstr(),"\n";

The output is: 39.370078740157480314960629921259842519685039... the whole part right of the decimal repeats ad infinitum.

But Jeff "Bud" Fields did it by hand (which may or may not give better results than asking Perl for lots of precision) and got (quoting him):

39.37007874015748031456 and then a repeating pattern of 65354330708661417322834645

I think Jeff made a mistake.

Re:At first i thought this post was stupid

[Zzeep]

....
> * 40 inches, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

and 120 inches according to all the viagra spam I get!

Re:At first i thought this post was stupid

[Alsee]

Well I get 31.337, but I'm using an old CPU with the Pentium bug.

-

Re:It's not just that the poster is a moron

[Eivind]

Silly. One minor point is true; all other being equal, it's an advantage to work with numbers that have many small factors. "12" for example is nice in being dividible by 2,3,4 and 6 where our familiar 10 is only dividible by 2 and 5.

This advantage is real, but it's in no way enough to even begin to compensate for all the other advantages of metric.

I could give a long list of advantages, but instead I'll say this;

To accelerate 1kg by 1m/s you need a force of 1N. If you push with a force of 1N over a distance of 1m you've used 1joule. If you did this in 1s then your power is 1watt. If you prefer to have an electric motor doing this work for you, it can produce this 1watt by drawing, for example, 1A at 1V. For 1A to flow at a volate of 1V, this means your motor will have an internal resistance equal to 1ohm

Now you repeat that, in imperial units.

Re:It matters because

[dbirchall]

Actually, I did submit it... I should probably have just included all the HTML of the linked page instead. :)

Forget Metric, Modern Physics!

[levin]

We need to just forego metric altogether in the US and skip straight to Modern Physics units!

My car tops out at about 0.000000231 c
It can travel about 5000000000000 nanometers per tank of gas
and it's engine produces around 937500000000000000000000 electron volts per second at the crank.

It's the wave of the future!

Re:Forget Metric, Modern Physics!

[stevelinton]

No, no no!

Firstly the c is redundant. In proper post-Einstein physics, distance and time are the same, so a speed is simply a pure number, so:

My car tops out at about 0.000000231 (or 2.31 x 10^-7)

Now for distance, or time, we need to fix a unit of distance OR time. The most obvious fundamental unit of distance is the Planck length

It can travel about 3 x 10^38 Planck lengths on a tank of gas [ remark -- your car may need maintenance, that's not very far]

Power is energy (aka mass) per unit time, so again, we appeal to Planck and find that your car produces about 4 * 10^-48 Planck masses per Planck time.

Now we've got rid of all the silly arbitrary unit standards and defined everything in terms of the fundamental properties of the universe. Most physical constants are 1 in this model, which is a handy side benefit.

Re:Forget Metric, Modern Physics!

[Ziviyr]

If we ever learn Planck units are slightly different than our beliefs now, we'd end up in quite a mess.

Re:It's not just that the poster is a moron

[Tarantolato]

To accelerate 1kg by 1m/s you need a force of 1N. If you push with a force of 1N over a distance of 1m you've used 1joule. If you did this in 1s then your power is 1watt. If you prefer to have an electric motor doing this work for you, it can produce this 1watt by drawing, for example, 1A at 1V. For 1A to flow at a volate of 1V, this means your motor will have an internal resistance equal to 1ohm

Right. Which shows that for science and engineering, metric is the way to go. Jumping from that to saying we need to fuck up our road system and grocery stores is a bit of a leap, though.

Re:Legacy Measurement System

[1u3hr]

A bit offtopic... I know a lot of folks here will go on about "what is wrong with the US that they won't go metric?" and it comes down to "everything is English, it'll cost too much to convert." Especially heavy manufacturing machinery.

We did that in Australia in the 1970s. Costs very little if you phase it in over a couple of years, natural maintenance and replacement takes care of most of it, then you get strict to force the last holdouts over (eg the weights and measures refuse to certify shop balances if they're calibrated in Imperial; weather reports stop giving Fahrenheit, car speedos are only in KPH). A couple of years later, you're living in a metric country. Kids only learn imperial units in passing, as a curiosity, or by osmosis from old books or American movies. Heavy machinery, screw threads and a few other things that you really do need to keep backwardly compatible take longer, but as old machinery eventually is replaced it slowly moves over. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find that most heavy machinery was originally designed to metric specs and just needs some gauges and labels replaced to be fully compliant. Consider the auto industry uses components from all over the world, and the rest of the world is metric.

Re:It matters because

[1u3hr]

Actually, I did submit it... I should probably have just included all the HTML of the linked page instead. :)

Well, I hope your boss doesn't read Slashdot...

We already have

[mlg9000]

The metric system (SI now) is the only official unit of measurement the US government has ever adopted. It did so way back in 1893. (1866 it became a legal unit of measure). What they didn't do though, was require it's use. So since the older imperial system was still widely in use it lived on. (Some of it anyway.. nobody knows what a stone is for example) Congress went back and required the metric system's use for all goverment purposes in 1988 (unless the infomation is for public use where it can be either).

So really we use a mix of both here. In school they teach almost entirely in metric... makes the math easier to deal with when to have to convert to smaller/larger units. Common stuff like speed limits, weight, tempature, and long distances are measured in mph/pounds/fahrenheit/miles. If you go to the store, or use any tools though it's 50/50.. so smaller units like liters/grams/centimeters I think most people know pretty well.

Re:Legacy Measurement System

[biovoid]

"whoa! that's X pounds!" I might be impressed if you actually worked out what X was. :)

It's rather funny that America is still Imperial.

[grinchmaster]

After all, they did have the worlds first Decimal Currency, introduced in 1792. (100 cents equals 1 dollar) Thomas Jefferson proposed that America go to a Decimal system in 1790. Why is it that America refuses to change to a simpler system when they've had the opportunity to do it and participate in it for over a Century? You're all just super proud of your English heritage traditions! And as we all know it, tradition is a method of doing something stupid for no real reason, for a long time.. Have a look at some of the dates involved with the metric system. If you're American, do you feel like you live in a country which adopts technology now? http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/dates.htm

Re:It matters because

[dbirchall]

Aaaaaand... here's the full content with all the links, for those who prefer to only click on links that go to Slashdot.

Re:It matters because

[dbirchall]

I'm still being astounded that amidst the expected discussion of metric, there's this fervent metadiscussion of whether I did in fact post it. Of course, even though I'm making it clear that I did post it, there's the possibility that I am not who I say I am. Although, why I would choose to impersonate me is beyond the reach of my imagination. And of course there's the possibility that I am who I say, but not who others say. Which is, in fact, more than a possibility -- at least one poster has attributed to me a status which I haven't held for quite some time. Or... maybe I'm me, but only in Imperial/SAE, and in Metric I'm something ever so slightly different than me, due to the inevitable conversion/rounding errors.

Altitude for plane is usually in feet

[hughk]

Apart from a few of the CIS countries (former Soviet Union), altitude on aircraft is measured in feet. International flight levels are always expressed in feet which has lead to one or two problems in the past on CIS airliners but they now carry imperial altimeters as well to prevent confusion. Even the French, the inventors of the metric system use imperial altimetres.

Re:Altitude for plane is usually in feet

[hughk]

In a German Piper, the altitude is shown in feet. The altimeters in the few commercial aircraft that I have been in are in feet and so usually is the autopilot (unless there is a flight director, see below). The radar altimetre and ground proximity system also normally work in feet.

The flight director system can work in both feet and metres but that isn't a primary instrument. Distances are usually expressed in nautical miles rather than kilometres just as speed is expressed in knots.

Re:Just Remember 0.3937

[kiwaiti]

no, you should really remember 2.54, since it's defined that way, so your calculation won't start with a built-in rounding error

Kiwaiti

Re:It matters because

[sfe_software]

Isn't the point that searching in your favourite search engine may very well turn up a page with the incorrect conversion factor?

Well, if your favorite search engine happens to be Google, the search engine itself will do the math for you.

But that's just Google... ;)

Re:It matters because

[dbirchall]

I'm sure there are people on Slashdot for whom I might someday do some work.

I think I can put a spin on this, though, like so:

"Why yes, I did learn in 2004 that I had been operating with an incorrect conversion factor for going from inches to meters. At that time I researched the extent of use of such incorrect factors, made public my findings, and of course corrected my own notes so as to avoid error in any further calculations.

"By the way, Mr. $BOSSNAME, I notice that $COMPANY's web site currently states that a meter is $INCORRECTNUM inches..."

Shouldn't be a problem at all, you see? And if that doesn't work, I can always say, "Look, at least I've realized I was wrong and found the right answer, unlike these teachers, professors, rocket scientists, engineers..." :)

Re:It matters because

[dbirchall]

I am not, at present, a freelance writer, nor am I, at present, executive director of anything, or anything beyond a member of SpamCon Foundation.

This may, or may not, prove or disprove that I am the "right" Dan Birchall.

Metadiscussion is great.

Re:It matters because

[1u3hr]

I think I can put a spin on this, though, like so:

Good for you. (No sarcasm intended.) But in my personal experience, admitting errors never evokes respect (no matter what your Sunday School teacher might have told you) and pointing out mistakes your boss has made is a mark against you, the more so if it's of the "potatoe" style obvious-to-a-schoolchild one.

Futurama quote

[mohr]

Female Robot: It fits, then you must know that I'm...

Calculon: Metric? I've always known, but for you my darling, I'm willing to convert.

Re:Why?

[Tarantolato]

To me, metric is much, much easier to work with since everything is in powers of 10. And it's a lot easier to keep track of what a milli-, centi-, deca- and kilometre is, compared to 1/32s, inches, yards and miles.

Metric is better for large-magnitude and small-magnitude measurements, also for converting between magnitudes (lop off or add 0's). Imperial, however, is better for medium-magnitude measurements and conversions that stay within one level of magnitude. Which is why I used meters and liters for physics homework, but I will always use miles on the highway and gallons in the kitchen.

This has nothing to do with culture. Mathematically, the funny multiples that Imperial measures work in makes it easy to divide without remainders. Likewise, using base-10 for number and measures makes it easy to scale up and down. The idea that the government should force us to choose one or the other for all uses is insane and illiberal.

Re:Reason for Imperial units

[rooijan]

You seem to assume that everyone else's windows come in imperial measurements and we all spend our time converting to metric to do difficult sums just for the hell of it. In a metric country, like South Africa, our windows come in nice round metric numbers (138cm is a common one), like all our other measurements.

Obviously you would find it difficult to use metric if all the products you are using are made with imperial measurements that are "nice" numbers. Just bear in mind that other peoples products come with "nice" metric measurements.

Also, I prefer metric becasue I was born after it was adopted and it's all I know, certainly. But it does seem that if everything is ten more than the previous level it's a lot more consistent than imperial where the number of x's in y differs depending on what type of measurement you're talking about.

Arguments against the metric system

[marinebane]

every time somebody makes an argument against the metric system, they are essentially also making that same argument agaisnt the arabic (our) number system. to use a number system with a base of 10 and not use units with a base of 10 is illogical, and impractical where units with a base of 10 are much easier to manipulate using a number system with a base of 10.

Re:Arguments against the metric system

[SailorBob]

every time somebody makes an argument against the metric system, they are essentially also making that same argument agaisnt the arabic (our) number system. to use a number system with a base of 10 and not use units with a base of 10 is illogical, and impractical where units with a base of 10 are much easier to manipulate using a number system with a base of 10.

The number system is not Arabic. It is Hindu and was transmitted to the west by the Arabs. Please see Hindu-Arabic Numerals

Re:It matters because--"right" Dan Birchall

[dbirchall]

Erm, well, NASA is actually where I'm planning to work next*, now that I've learned how many inches are in a meter, and can thus be trusted not to cause "problems."

*No, really, honest.

Re:American bashing?

[fluce]

Official SI mass unit is kilogram (kg), not gram (g).

NASA

[schnitzi]

9.36 inches according to some ham radio sorts and some NASA folks among others. Pretty close... but... shouldn't NASA know better by now?

I worked at NASA back in the early 90s. They had a big campaign to push the metric system, including posters which read "Metric is a Perfect 10!". So I got out my ruler and measured the posters, and found them to be exactly 2 feet by 3 feet...

Re:Legacy Measurement System

[sfe_software]

...my Honda is metric, and I have a set of metric tools to deal with that.

I personally grew up working on American cars (GM, Ford, Dodge) and using the "standard" measurement system exclusively. As I got into engineering-related areas, I've found it necessary to learn the Metric system, and the appropriate conversions.

As well, I've gotten to like foreign cars (Toyota specifically -- you can't kill them!), and I think you'll find most auto mechanics -- and I am not one -- easily capable of converting millimeters to fractions of an inch. Regardless of their normal mathematical skills, by association and eventual familiarity, these things are easily picked up. Not to mention, most American cars I've worked on recently seem to use either all metric or -- worse -- a combination of standards (too often the engine is Japanese while the rest is American...)

But the point of that was that the conversions aren't difficult, and (despite what many non-US people tend to imply) Americans are perfectly capable of learning to convert, or learning a new system of measurement.

It's not lack of intelligence or lack of will, but lack of necessity, that keeps most US citizens from converting. We all realize that 100 km == 60 miles, if only because of the jokes commedians make about driving into Canada and seeing a speed limit sign of 100. Plus most cars sold here display speed in both measurements, though admittedly the km portion is usually much less prominant... ...but again, it's lack of necessity. Lumber here is generally sold in "standard" units: an 8-foot 2x4 for example. It's an unnecessary difficulty to just decide to use metric units, when much of what you work with is non-metric. At that point it just adds an unnecessary (and potentially inaccurate or error-prone) conversion.

Granted, if the US government mandates the use of metric units, we'd have the necessary push. However, I suspect many would oppose a conversion being required by law in this country if it isn't shown to be absolutely necessary.

In the public (non-government) area, it becomes a "chicken vs egg" scenerio. No lumber yard is going to sell lumber measured exclusively in metric units, and no building contractor is going to ask for several 79mm X 157mm X 244cm boards to build a wall when 2x4x8' is the standard of measurement here in the US for such materials (I'm not sure my conversions were correct there btw).

Anyway, it's not a stupidity or laziness factor as many non-US people assume, rather it's that our current system is very much established and ingrained into our society that it's difficult to change without making laws to require the change, which most citizens would disagree is all that necessary. In engineering fields, it's a different story, and if you're an engineer you likely should know both systems (since you will likely deal with both). Even in electronics, some standard measurements are in "mils" (thousandths of an inch) while others are in millimeters...

Anyway I'm just ranting because I'm still awake for some odd reason.

BTW, this was not directed at the parent; the Honda/metric comment just inspired me to rant for a bit :)

Re:It matters because

[Anonymous Coward]

because it is Google.

Re:American bashing?

[JRIsidore]

the ten base system of our numerical system has no real place in the natural world

You mean besides the 10 fingers you mentioned? Anyway, please tell us where the base 12 can be found in nature.

Re:Legacy Measurement System

[1u3hr]

In the UK they're still forcing shops to measure in metric, and all sorts of things like that. Road signs, on the other hand, they've made no real effort to change. I can only imagine it's partly expense, and partly safety... although I can only imagine people slowing down with metric signs really, as the numbers would seem bigger in the short term.

That's why you have to bite the bullet and make the conversion complete. When you have nothing to remind you of the old units, you soon start thinking metric (as ungrammatic as "think differetn", but that's slogans for you).

Road signs were one of the easiest conversions. Either just unscrew and replace, or respray and/or sticker in situ. At least initially, all the new signs have a prominent "km" or "kph" to make it clear. For car speedos you could go to a garage and have a gearwheel changed so it clocked up in km, should be a setup option for digital ones I expect.

Re:It matters because

[aonifer]

You know, this thread is about 10 times more confusing than the whole meters-to-inches thing.

Hey, 10 times, that's metric!

Re:American bashing?

[The Cookie Monster]

The only appropriate base system for units of measure is that of the number system they will be used in.

We work in decimal - base 10.

You arguments are a red herring, they are arguments for us adopt a number system that is base 12 system (which incidently, imperial is not) over the base 10 one we use at the moment, not arguments to have your metrics in a different base to the one they are used in.

In the computer world we work in binary instead of decimal, and relevent computer metrics are base 2 rather than base 10 because of this. Having 12 bits in a byte, 3 bytes in a word and 1760 words in a kb (or whatever) would just be daft, exactly as daft as the imperial system infact.

Also, using an imperial measure of angles to justify the imperial system is a bit circular.

Another: True story - Irish

[alephnull42]

Similar story, over 10 years ago when Ireland went metric (apologies if my attemps at written brogue sound like talk-like-a-pirate-day):

My dad: Good morning, I'd like some quarter inch pipe please
Hardware guy: Ah no surrr, we have the metric system now surr, it's all in millimeters.
My dad: Ok fine, I need some 8mm pipe
Hardware guy: Foine, foine! How many feet would you like?

Yup ...

[taniwha]

My Dad wrote a gardening book, when NZ went metric they 'translated it to metric' ... converted all the places where he said "plant the seeds an inch apart" to "plant the seeds about 2.54cm apart" .... silly of course and people quickly learned to do the everyday approximations we mostly use for day to day usage. 50mph is the speedlimit because it's a ound number in the right range, so is 80kph. Buying a pound of meat for dinner is about the same as buying 1/2 a kilo - both will get you fed about right. Half a litre is about a pint, a metre is about a yard. A 2x4 is about a 10x20 etc etc ... honestly I don't understand why americans are so scared about changing

Promoting base 12

[jesterzog]

Clearly the solution is to convert to a base 12 counting system. Then we can have the advantages of metric, and rarely have to use the dodecimal point.

Interestingly, there are at least a couple of groups that are trying to promote the use of base 12 over base 10 for exactly this reason.

Re:It's not just that the poster is a moron

[garethwi]

I have many times been amazed at the calculating skills that imperial cooks must have.

You should see the calculating skills of the rebel cooks.

Re:It's not just that the poster is a moron

[zhenlin]

The Oracle said:

Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today to determine the United States measurement challenge once and for all.

In the blue corner we have our current US champion for many years, weighing in at 220.4623 pounds, our hero: Igor Imperial.

In the red corner we have, weighing in at 100kg all the way from France, and currently storming the world wherever he goes, our challenger: Mean Mr Metric.

It will be a great fight today and one that may change the course of history. Can Mean Mr Metric defeat Igor Imperial and change US life forever, or will Igor outwit the classy opponent and maintain his place in history.

We are about to find out.

Gentlemen, I want a clean fight. Shake hands and come out fighting on the bell.

Round 1: "DONG"

They both approach each other and meet in the middle of the ring. Metric has trained well and opens with the first punch: How many feet in a mile?

Imperial answers after a moments hesitation with: 5280

"Good exchange there Bob, hasn't worried either of them."

"No Bill, it's still neck and neck, although Imperial took a fraction of a second to divert that question."

Imperial decides to attack with a similar strategy: How many metres in a kilometre?

Instantly, Metric flashes back with: 1000

"Wasn't that a great counter by Metric eh Bob - so quick. He's looking good tonight"

"Sure is Bill"

Imperial goes on the attack again with a curly one: How much does a litre of water weigh?

Metric comes back quickly with: 1 kilogram

"Great offense from Imperial there Bob. Combining both measurement of mass and volume - well thought out." ......

Most poeple...

[Nice2Cats]

Some quick Googling determined that lots of people still have no idea how many inches are in a meter, even after some folks have had big problems because of conversion errors.

Not to put too much of a point on it, but the rest of the planet doesn't have to give a damn about how many inches there are in a meter, because they don't have inches anymore. Or stones. Or bushles. Or cubits. Or zentner. Or... This is a Yanks-only problem: even the Brits can think in meters, their problem is that they can't spell the word right.

You have two choices, my fellow American friend: Either convert to metric like the rest of the world in the 21th Century, or stop complaining.

As great as Slashdot is, this U.S. bias is getting to be a pain in the ass. It is beyond me why a simple complaint about the known problems of math education in the U.S. makes the front page.

Obligatory Granpa Simpson quote

[stud9920]

My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!

Re:Poster

[Adhemar]

So I got out my ruler and measured the posters, and found them to be exactly 2 feet by 3 feet...

Here in (metric) Europe, the commonly used paper/poster size that comes closest is 59.4 cm by 84.1 cm.

Those numbers don't sound like round numbers in metric, do they?

But it makes sense. The format is known as A1. Its surface area is about 5000 square cm, or half a square meter. A0 is twice as big: a square meter (84.1 cm by 118.9 cm). The ratio of all An formats is sqrt(2), so that the width of An equals the length of A(n+1).

Hence: A4, the standard lettre size, measures 21.0 cm by 29.7 cm; its surface area is 1/16 square meter.

Stupid '12 is divisible by more numbers argument'

[JiffyJeff]

Without trying to bemoan the poster's inclusion,
Why does everyone need to mention that 12 is divisible by more real numbers?

12/1, 12/2, 12/3, 12/4, 12/6
10/1, 10/2, 10/5

It seems the only application this would have is for measurement of materials when building something by hand. I've helped frame several homes and spent many hours in a woodshop -- It is exceedingly rare than numbers fall into exact inches. In my experience, I have found myself doing calculations like dividing 31 3/16" by two and adding half the width of a stud (~1 1/2") to it.

Perhaps I'm just bitter, but using Imperial isn't really helping anyone in America... It's just that we're too lazy to change.

the conversion ins an EXACT one...

[smartfart]

I can't find a reference for this (google gives lots of links, but nothing authoritative), but there are exactly 2.54 centimeters in an inch. If you do the calculation (I ran it on my HP 48SX), you get 39.3700787402 inches per meter. I don't have anything that lets me do greater precision. Anyone care to calculate it?

I remember seeing this in a conversion table given out by some TA while I was at LSU. It specifically stated that the figure was exact.

Pentameter

[runlvl0]

Then how much does a pentagram weigh?

Re:Pentameter

[Mr Guy]

You've made a common rounding error that shows up often in this sort of thing, similiar to the one that caused the Pentium II problem. A pentagram is actually 6.66 grams.

Re:Pentameter

[Citizen of Earth]

A pentagram is actually 6.66 grams.

That's the Imperial measurement. The American Pentagram is defined by military specification, so its mass is 666 tonnes.

Declaring War On...

[ansak]

Toadpipe wrote:

... we'd stop declairing "war" on abstract concepts ("war on terror" is working about as well as "war on drugs" did) ...

I had a sound-byte moment the other day:

Lyndon Johnston declared War on Poverty in America. The problems of poverty in America have only gotten worse.
Richard Nixon declared War on Drugs in America. The drug problem in America has only gotten worse.
Did America really want George W. Bush to declare War on Terror?

"Send in the troops" isn't always the best metaphor for throwing lots of resources at solving an endemic, annoying and debilitating problem. Somehow that seems to be harder to see from inside the beltway than from outside or even outside the borders entirely (me; Canada). <sigh>

cheers...ank

Re:Declaring War On...

[Toadpipe]

Yes, it's sad, but that's the reason that, much to chagrin of those who feel I should blindly love everything about this nation and never pay attention to the for the people by the people stuff, I feel the need to stick around and at least try to make a difference.

It's even sadder to realize that to find someone aware of american politics, for the most part, you have to look outside of america.

Salute.

Re:THIS IS NOT FUNNY 1.0 inch = 2.540000cm

[thedillybar]

Actually 1 inch exactly equals 2.54 cm.

The US Metric Law of 1866 said that one meter was equal to 39.37 inches, exactly. In 1959, the relationship between inches and centimeters was redefined to be that one inch is equal to 2.54 centimeters, exactly. Maps produced by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey continued to use the old standard. To clarify which foot you are talking about, the old foot, derived from 1 meter = 39.37 inches (exactly), is referred to as the "US survey foot". The new foot, derived from 1 inch = 2.54 cm (exactly), is referred to as the "international foot".

Re:I really don't understand this.

[lightsaber1]

There is, however, trouble in that there are two completely different definitions of the inch. The standard international definition, previously known as the Canadian inch until the U.S. and Britain agreed to use it as their standard in 1958, (according to wikipedia.org) is based on 1 inch = 2.54cm

The other, known as the U.S. survey inch gives 39.37 inches per metre, which gives 1 inch = 2.540000508cm

Both are only really used in the U.S. now (except for, among a small handful of other places, certain industries in Canada who have to trade with the U.S., as well as the old farts who are too stubborn to give it up). However, if you can't even agree on a single definition of the thing, no wonder there are so many conversion errors.

Nooo...

[MenTaLguY]

Change Month/Day/Year to Day/Month/Year on all forms and databases.

Noooo! Year-Month-Day, you insensitive clod!

It's ISO standard and collates properly if zero-padded.

Oh yea?

[lockefire]

Mass doesn't ever change because of temperature or pressure or stuff like that. The only way to change mass is to convert energy to mass or mass to energy. (ie. fission or fusion)

Re:Oh yea?

[nebaz]

Mass doesn't ever change because of temperature or pressure or stuff like that

This is a true statement. However, what I wrote was
Thus for a fixed volume, so does mass.

As heat is applied (generally) the mass will expand, so if you are looking in a fixed volume container, there will be less of the substance in that original volume (original container, if you will) thus the amount of "stuff" in that container changes, thus does it's mass.

Re:THIS IS NOT FUNNY 1.0 inch = 2.540000cm

[dnahelix]

"This is pure americanizum[sic] at work."

If, by that, you mean Slashdot, Space Travel, The Internet, and Computers in general, then yes, it is Americanism at work. Hard at work.

Rye

[AgentGibbled]

Interesting story about this sort of thing that came up in the local liquor store the other day:

I live in Western Canada, and am accustomed to finding bottles of hard liquor in 750mL (roughly 26oz.) and 1.14L (rougly 40oz.) -- in fact in causal conversation, they're often referred to as a "2-6" or a "40". So imagine our surprise when we found a bottle of Crown Royal (good stuff, btw) in a 1L bottle, which was right next to the 1.14L bottles, and you'd have to look pretty close to tell the difference. They also happened to be a really awesome deal as compared to the other two (only a couple dollars more than the 750) so we got one.

Upon closer inspection, it was labelled for sale in the US (listed the US importer, and the location of manufacture was "Toronto" instead of wherever they're actually made... Kitchener, I think.) So basically, this case of bottles must've ended up on the wrong truck or something and landed at this liquor store (who was apparently trying to sell them as fast as they could, at that price).

Since Crown Royal markets itself as "Canadian Whisky", do they actually sell it in a 1L size in the states? If so, I find it fairly funny that they would offer a nicely-metricized size in the states to look "all Canadian and novel", but sell it in sizes based on Standard/Imperial measure in Canada.

[sic] (offtopic)

[_anomaly_]

Latin: thus; so (not a mistake and is to be read as it stands)

in other words, it's used in a quotation that contains something that may be considered a mistake (misspell or using a non-existant word) and is included so the reader know it was intended (or explicitly stating that it is taken as a direct quote).

Re:THIS IS NOT FUNNY 1.0 inch = 2.540000cm

[endoboy]

nice try, but somehow I doubt that any of the semiconductor manufacturers are working in survey feet....

Re:That discrepancy

[lightsaber1]

The 39.77 is perplexing, but some people just don't bother to remember things correctly and once it's been memorized incorrectly, it's tough to beat out.

What I don't get is if Canada and other countries can work in imperial units for certain things which have to deal with the U.S., why can't, say, NASA, just bite the bullet and use metric like everybody else when precision is absolutely critical??? If you're using SI units internally, why not work in SI units externally?

Or better yet, the U.S. could join the community of the rest of the world and use metric...that would save a lot of headaches.

Of course, that's probably a long way off. Some people are just determined to use inferior products.

Re:THIS IS NOT FUNNY 1.0 inch = 2.540000cm

[forii]

Pass a "law" and redefine reality. We tried it with pi, too.
Pi is a natural constant, defined as the ratio between a circle's circumference and its diameter.
A "meter" is an artificial definition. And, in particular, the "definition" of a meter has changed many times over the year, starting with the first adoption in 1791, being re-defined many times over the years, and only ending (for the moment) with the current definition in terms of c, the speed of light, in 1983. This article gives a history
Nobody was trying to legislate reality, just clarify definitions.

Re:First it is officially metre not meter

[corngrower]

Suppose I do want to know how heavy a liter of petrol is. I look up the density of petrol in a book someplace, low and behold it's given in gm/cc. Now
gm/cc is the same as kg/liter. I've got my answer.

Now how much would a gallon of the stuff weigh. Being that the density is given in reference using the metric units (gm/cc) I'll have do do a conversion. After about 10 minutes of thinking, and knowing a gallon of water (density 1 gm/cc) weighs about 8.3 pounds, I multiply the density by 8.3 to get the weight of a gallon of the substance. Not too bad, I guess, but not as straightforward as the metric system.

Ever heard of The Gimli Goose?

[drwho]

NASA has nothing on airline oopses: Gilmi I wonder how many other disasters of this type don't end up with enough survivors to tell how it happened.

Decimal vs fractions

[Solilok]

Metric is more than just units and a self consistent system. It is also consistent with the fact that our numeral system is base 10.

Until the american stock exchanges converted to decimal, it was not immediate how $8 37/256 was comparable to $8 9/64.

So things are improving

Significant Digits

[crashnbur]

The correct measure of a meter in inches has many more than four digits, but 39.37 is correct when rounding to four significant digits. Likewise, 39.4 is correct when rounding to three, and 40 is correct when rounding to two or one.

And although it has nothing to do with rounding, 42 is also correct when you're a karma whore who thinks /.'ers will mod up any reference to Douglas Adams.

It turned out that 39.37 was an approximation

[mulp]

The 39.37 conversion factor was based on comparing the measurements of two yard standards with meter standards. What they discovered was that the two meter standards disagreed. One worked out to slightly under 2.54 cm per inch and the other slightly more.

They eliminated the two yard standards and redefined the "English" system based on the metric system.

In other words, there is only one system of standards, the metric system.

The conventional units might be in meters, kilograms, feet, pounds, yards, etc., but for the industrial world, all are based on the metric system BY DEFINITION.