US switching to metric system? - Page 11 - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

fidalgoman · 04-04-2011, 02:28 PM

For anything technical, period, the metric system has been the defacto standard for quite some time. That whole ratchet drive size thing is interesting.

Sometimes we simply keep things around like gallons, miles, yards, pounds, etc because of our familiarity. I wonder though, in US football would the announcer have to say something like "the ball is first and 09.137061 meters to go"?

orange4boy · 04-04-2011, 02:46 PM

I use both. For cabinet work where you are dealing with multiple thicknesses of material and clearances for drawers etc. metric is the way to go. Just add and subtract. Simpler stuff and construction I use Imperial.

Conversion is a snap with a converting calculator or convertbot

euromodder · 04-04-2011, 03:27 PM

The funny part is that even Europe isn't fully converted to metric

And it goes well beyond the ratchets.
We still use inches for plumbing and the like.

jamesqf · 04-04-2011, 05:25 PM

You also need to remember that some things don't work all that well in the decimal system, and are much better handled by sixes and dozens. Suppose for instance we had to convert to five-packs of beer :-)

Frank Lee · 04-04-2011, 05:41 PM

10 packs!

Thymeclock · 04-04-2011, 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...pretty soon, it won't METRIC verus SAE, but rather CHINESE wrenching.

Oh, I've seen that before, but it used to be called sloppy foreign machining.

OK, I'm not politically correct, nor will I ever be. But if any nation is to compete in a global marketplace they will need to meet a standard of excellence, not churn out inferior products.

Piwoslaw · 04-23-2011, 03:58 PM

jamesqf · 04-23-2011, 08:22 PM

Though if you want to be picky, a mile is a metric/decimal distance. 1000 paces (mille passum), so defined by the Romans. And a handy size, since you can with a little counting pace off a mile...

gone-ot · 04-23-2011, 10:24 PM

...which begs the question, where the Roman numbers METRIC or SAE?

Piwoslaw · 04-24-2011, 12:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Though if you want to be picky, a mile is a metric/decimal distance. 1000 paces (mille passum), so defined by the Romans. And a handy size, since you can with a little counting pace off a mile...

So 1000 paces = 1 mile = 5280 feet --> 1 pace = 5.28 feet
That's quite a stride, especially if we take into account that a few hundred years ago people were smaller than today (they didn't play basketball in the 15th century).
Unless we assume that a pace is two steps, but then we get into binary systems