My company received a complaint from an American customer the other day, saying that we can't expect technicians to understand metric units in our printed maintenance manuals. I see a few possibilities:
- Start entering all tech specs in double units, like "... increase the pressure by 2.5 bar/36 psi and..." which is doubtlessly worsening the readability of the text.
- Creating two sets of printed manuals with one unit system each, creating a whole new hurdle for our Supply Chain department.
- Ignoring the request, disappointing American technicians.
Anyone here run into this kind of problem before?
tl;dr: Is it important to convert metric units to freedom units for American maintenance personnel?
I’m in high school in Canada right now taking a physics class and I’m curious if you guys are taught to use metric units because they all kinda connect and work together or if you convert stuff to imperial units instead?
As an American, people always make fun of Fahrenheit and inches, for no real apparent reason. We get that not everything is a multiple of 10, but that doesn’t make our system any worse. I’m not saying that the Us system is perfect, I’m just saying that it t always seems to be the butt of the joke.
Smaller quantities of pop are measured in customary (like the 20 fl oz bottles or the 12 fl oz cans), so why do they sell the big bottles using metric? Wouldn't it be cheaper to sell it by the gallon half gallon, since a gallon half gallon is slightly less than two liters?
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Maybe this would help people to realize that they already are using the metric system and that there is actually no other real system of measurements anymore.
They are just using it in a really unpractical and cumbersome way.
> The US metric constants are a really stupid way to use the metric system
Woah buddy. I’ll have you know your talking about back to back world war champs here. We saved your metric asses. What’s not to love about our system? We got pounds, ounces, cups, feet, inches, etc. you name it we got it. Don’t get me started on how your write your dates
A recent edition of an American engineering textbook shows that the use of SI is increasing in the US.
Applied Mechanics for Engineering Technology (8th Edition) by Keith M Walker has the majority of its problems for students in SI units. If you click on "About this title" (beside the Synopsis link,) a description appears which includes this paragraph:
>To accommodate the transition years between the U.S. Customary system and the SI metric system, each chapter is a random mix of both systems but predominantly St [sic] metric. There are more than 175 worked examples and 960 graded problems, of which nearly two thirds are in the SI metric system.
Hopefully, this is a sign of increasing acceptance of SI in the American engineering community.
I have recently watched a video comparing the metric system to the imperial system, which gave some explanation of why the imperial system is intuitive. I would estimate that the video was submitted (or reposted) within the last 7 days. I cannot re-find this video to share with friends and colleagues, and so I'd like your help!
I have searched through my YouTube watch history and have not found the video, and I have also searched for a short while using Google / YouTube and have not found the video. Therefore I suspect that it was embedded on reddit (perhaps v.redd.it or something like that).
The video was approxiamtely 5 mins long, perhaps as much as 10 mins, but certainly not longer than 15 mins!
Things I specifically remember from the video:
- short explanations of different lengths like "take your ox and plow a field until it needs a rest, that's a 'chain'... "
- black background with white sketched drawings, of a satellite which exploded due to a unit mix-up between two US firms (NASA and Lockheed Martin, I think)
- an explanation for the number of feet (or perhaps yards) in a mile being increased slightly
I hope that's enough to go by, or at least to start. I'll happily answer and clarifying questions.
Thank you in advance for your help!
This might be /r/ShitAmericansSay-worthy, but whatever. I get incredibly annoyed every time someone goes on and on about how absurd the USA is in terms of our measurement system, and how we should just get on board and switch to metric. Apart from the fact that metric is already the standard in the sciences and other fields where the standardization and accuracy is necessary, so their complaining is rather ridiculous to begin with, I think the metric is overrated and for daily life imperial units are much better.
For one thing, Imperial units are easier to divide. Look into the Dozenal Society. They want to change the international number system to base 12 instead of base 10. While that's separate from measurement systems, I find the same improvements take place anyway. The base 10 system of the metric can only cleanly divide by 1, 2, 5, and 10 itself. Very quickly you'll run into decimals and the math will be more of an issue. Meanwhile in the US customary units a foot (12 inches) can be divided cleanly by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12.
It can vary between units divided into 16, 12, 8, and 4, so it's not consistent and that can be difficult for an outsider to the system, but we learn it just the same in elementary school anyway so who cares? It has its benefits for daily life applications. I'd much rather do crafts, cooking, and household construction projects in our measurement units.
Another issue is how applicable the measurements are. I know Fahrenheit is much more arbitrary than Celsius, but I also think the scale is just much more fitting to the average person's perception of the weather. It's a straight 0-100 scale. If it's 100°F, it's going to be extremely hot outside. If it's 0, it will be extremely cold outside. That makes a point of reference for anything in between. I know Celsius users will know it intuitively, but 20°C would mean nothing to a person who's new to it when you say "0°C = water freezes, 100°C = water boils".
Let both systems coexist. We already use the metric, and the US customary units are still pretty handy. Complaining about it is as petty as complaining that we say "soccer" instead of "football".
My current electronic workshop scale has given up the ghost and this time I'd prefer to replace it with something mechanical. Ideally, I'd like to get something similar to a triple beam balance like you'd see in a lab/classroom, except able to give readings in decimal lbm or a combination of pounds, ounces, and grains.
I've been looking for years! Does anyone know where I might find some glass measuring beakers in US customary units?
Closest I've found are these at Williams-Sonoma, but the measurements are inaccurate.
Anyone know where I can buy some? Or how to fashion my own?
In my opinion I can't see anything other than metric units being used on Mars but I'd be interested to see if anyone has an opposing view on this. Clearly NASA is likely to be a (if not the) major contributor to colonising Mars and, although they have switched to metric and do all their science in metric units, they still release articles and web pages to the public in US Customary Units.
Would the American public have a strong opinion against a Martian colony using the metric system if the mission was significantly funded by NASA?
If the majority of residents on a new Mars were American would they be willing to use the metric system?
And finally, should we as a sub stick to using the metric in posts/discussions?
To (Canadian) engineers out there, how far are we from being completely metricized? I'm in my first semester in Electrical engineering and I'm disappointed that I'm starting to get problems in pounds, feet, inches, Fahrenheit, and slugs cringe. We never had those in high school.
A few days ago I was introduced to the mil (used for printed circuit boards); I mean, a thousandth of an inch? It's a metricized imperial unit ffs. I presume Australian/European eng's don't have to deal with these, so I'm just feeling a bit annoyed right now.
I recently got a job working for a research lab. I am working as an undergraduate and I do a variety of tasks ranging from running experiments to cleaning dishes. When ever I run experiments the measurements are always in metric. It is not a problem to figure it out but I would like to change my thought process from trying to convert Imperial to metric to just thinking in metric. Any tips would be appreciated.
Every time a question about units comes up on reddit, it seems that everyone hates US Customary, and loves metric. Clearly reddit isn't an accurate measure of the world's or country's opinion, but I'm curious what the scientists and engineers of reddit think.
So, which system do you like, both in everyday use, and in your lab? Let us know whether you consider yourself to be a scientist or engineer. If you're an engineer, what flavor? Maybe mention where you're from too. I imagine almost no one outside of the US uses US Customary.
I'll start. I'm a PhD candidate in aerospace engineering in the US, and I'm a fan of US Customary. I had a professor in undergrad who liked the US system because he said it had character, and I agree. Metric feels very sterile. It's like you could be friends with the US systems, you could hang out with him. But metric is like this obnoxious nerdy guy, the kind with a nasal voice, pocket protector, and loves to say "well, actually..." Metric feels good for very accurate measurements, like in a lab, but you go to that nerdy guy only when you need to.
An old come back to those wanting materials in metric rather than customary units is that miles put men on the moon. Is this historically accurate? Did the Apollo scientists actually use customary units like the average American, or as scientists did they adopt metric units?
one gill of bourbon
improves evenings at my house
subtracts from my hike
I'm working on a sci-fantasy world that uses cows for the base mass unit, whales for distance, and zetta-yotta-planck-time-units for time and my head hurts trying to calculate and convert the planet masses and orbital periods pls don't do this to yourselfs
I always said customary, but I was in my chem class a couple of days ago and I said customary, and everyone was really confused.
You fucking know I’m right, you can’t run from the truth.
Is there any setting to change the game units from metric? I understand metric, and live in germany, but ACUs still come most naturally to me.
