US switching to metric system?

[niky]

Originally Posted by Xist

Is a parsec distance or time? :P

Han Solo was a braggart and an idiot. The line was meant as a joke, but an overzealous fanbase made it canon, and have spent the last three decades tying themselves into knots trying to justify it. Something they eventually did by clarifying (in the Clone Wars series) that it was a shortcut through a dangerous gas cloud that allowed a Kessel Run in twelve parsecs. (Canon!)

Shame. It made so much more sense to think he was simply talking out of his behind.

[P-hack]

this explains it all
https://youtu.be/dBQaLuqwtl8?t=9

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by P-hack

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian is the metric angle, i.e. centigrade, but the circle is divided by 400... I think I did one problem using gradians in my entire life.

Yeah, I still have an HP scientific calculator that will do angles in grads, though I can't remember ever having used the function.

The Wikipedia link mentions a couple of other metric system sillynesses that I hadn't thought of. First, they define the "gradian" as 1/100th of a quarter circle, thus making it inevitiable to use powers of 2 for half and full circles, while the very common 30 and 60 degree angles become infinitely-repeating decimals. And then they go and change the name of the centigrade temperature scale to avoid conflict with this system that almost nobody uses.

[freebeard]

First, they define the "gradian" as 1/100th of a quarter circle, thus making it inevitiable to use powers of 2 for half and full circles, while the very common 30 and 60 degree angles become infinitely-repeating decimals.

What could possibly go wrong!

Tau

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi#In_popular_culture

In 1958 Albert Eagle proposed replacing π by τ = π/2 to simplify formulas. However, no other authors are known to use τ in this way. Some people use a different value, τ = 6.283185... = 2π, arguing that τ, as the number of radians in one turn or as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius rather than its diameter, is more natural than π and simplifies many formulas... However this use of τ has not made its way into mainstream mathematics.