Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
The metric system irrationally defines some units in terms of other units to which they are unrelated. As for instance the gram being the mass of one cc of water. Why water rather than mercury or hydrogen? Purely arbitrary.
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Everything about the metric system is beautiful. Water? We're made of water and use it for many things- and its freezing and boiling points are relevant everywhere. A gram of water is a cubic centimeter, tying mass, length and volume together. What's the other system's answer?
The ounce.
Yay, 1/16 of a pound, which is the weight of 7000 grains. It's used for volume too: 1/16 of a pint, which is 1/18 of a gallon, which is 231 cubic inches.
The inch, BTW, is defined as 25.4mm. See, regular measurements tie mass, length and volume together just like metric does!
As to all the prefixes that the metric system uses, I still prefer that to the night last week that I had to teach my daughter to deal with ounces and pounds as separate units in the same math problem. Having a few fussy sounding prefixes is a lot easier than converting units every time you measure things. Sure, it feels silly to say that I just took 1000mg of Tylenol, but at least the amount is clear: my doctor didn't prescribe .035 oz or .0022 lb of the stuff. And while it may be twice as many keystrokes, but mg isn't all
that much harder than g to type.