The Gun Counter

I was born in Canada in 1992 making me one of the first in my generation to experience the metric system from start to finish in its purity. What I have to imagine people on this topic was, "Finally the future kids will live with a superior system of base 10 and everything makes more sense and everything is far more efficient."

Well after living with the metric system and being educated strictly on the metric system, unfortunately to those members in parliament who thought it would make our lives easier, sorry to say but I still use the Imperial system even as a metric kid.

What? That shouldn't make any sense. The imperial system is "an idiotic system that we Americans use to measure things. It works by making ambiguous associations with tangible objects, much like a child would" -The Oatmeal

I'll tell you why, it's because the imperial system is "more human."

I don't exactly know how to explain this, but I think it's because the imperial system base number has it's measurements that are often much more practical in day to day transactions. There might be a bias in me being a car, gun, and knife guy because everything is built in Imperial standards of measurements, but often I can visualize what a 4 inch blade looks like, much more easily than a 10 cm blade.

Like wise when someone say it's a 20 inch barrel it's much easier to visualize than 508mm/50cm barrel.

Same story goes for weight of an object, when I go shopping a pound of beef is easier to visualize than a kilo of beef.

There are tons of examples of this and it's difficult to explain why, but as an assessment of my own personal experiences, the Metric system is not the end all be all for measurements, even for someone who grew up with an education system that tossed out the imperial system in its entirety.

I believe it's because the actual measurements of the imperial system are much larger on an individual units, where the metric systems common measurements are often too small. For example 1 inch is much larger and easier to show than 1 cm, 1 mm, and 1m tends to be too big to be useful. Now there are other measurements like decimeter but are too rarely used.

This goes across for much of the other measurements like weight. No one ever really buys a gram of something so you end up saying 100 200 grams of deli-meat making it harder to visualize, where in the imperial system you could very well purchase an ounce of something or 4 ounces of it which is a quarter of a pound.

Some of the metric system measurements do make sense, I think the liter measurement is a fine metric measurement and is used in the United States to describe engine displacement size, and fluid volume like soda because liter has similar properties to other measurements in the metric system. You would more often encounter a situation where you want 1 liter of something than you would 1 fluid oz or Cubic inch of something. I think that is why that system of measurement is ok.

Ultimately imperial is taboo in the science and engineering world and I think that is where it ultimately makes sense, because for that role, calculations, conversions, and exact measurements of small measurements such as mm, or ml, are much more frequent enough to demand a specific system of measurement.

I might be having a hard time expressing my thoughts on this but ultimately the point is that as someone who was never pushed and never educated on the imperial system, I end up using it on a day to day basis and find it more useful in everyday transactions and descriptions than the metric system.


Where I use imperial:
- Inches (rather than mm or cm)
- Ounces, and pounds (rather than grams and kilos)
- Temperature (specifically for cooking and baking)
- Gallons (MPG is an easier measurement than that Liters per 100km)
- Speed in cars (You use 0-60 and quarter mile)

Where I use Metric:
- Meters (Not exactly fair when meters and yards are literally 90% interchangable, but that's why)
- Grams (Specifically for bullet weights, I find it irritating to deal with grains)
- Temperature for weather and cold (Fahrenheit just doesn't make any sense for current climate conditions)
- Liters


Just some thoughts I had of those of you living in the US who might be interested.

I have worked with both Metric and Imperial units in machine shops.

METRIC SUCKS DONKEY BALLS. The units are either too big or too small. Meanwhile Thousandths(.00x) and "Tenths"(.000x) are perfect, small enough to make tight precision parts, but not so small as to outstrip machine accuracy.

The metwic system is a Fwench pwot.

We've had this discussion several times before. The strongest advocates of the metric system have almost to the man, never had to build anything using it. The creators of the metric system, in their effort to simplify converting between units, lost sight of the fact that the English system uses the units that it does, because they are conveniently suited for use by human beings.

I've had the same argument many times over the years, with a friend here locally. Once he was going off about how stupid the English system was for having been based off something as arbitrary as the length of some ruler's foot. As opposed to the meter, which is a fraction of the circumference of the earth. Ignoring the inherent arbitrariness of THAT for the sake of argument, I responded that yes, and now that we can make that measurement more accurately, we know that the standard for one meter is actually wrong. Which makes the entire system based on an error, i.e. something that is an arbitrary figure with no basis in reality anyway. His response was an indignant "well at least they TRIED to base it off something." And he hasn't tried that argument since.

Darrell wrote:The metwic system is a Fwench pwot.

You joke, but you know that behind the facade of trying to create an "easier" system of measurement, the real reason was because it chapped their froggy little asses to be using the ENGLISH system of measurement.

We've had this discussion several times before. The strongest advocates of the metric system have almost to the man, never had to build anything using it.

This. Proponents of the Metric system, at least in my experience, have been lab workers very nearly every damned time. They've never built anything more complicated than a solution in some glassware.

bubblewhip wrote:the imperial system is "more human."

One of the more plausible theories on the origin of "rule of thumb" is that the average mans thumb is about 1" wide, 1/12(in width) the length of his foot which is 1/3 the length of his walking gate. So when you need to take 1" off of a piece of wood/cloth/what ever you can estimate with a thumb, or 1' with...a foot or walk off 50 paces to estimate 50 yards.

One of the things that Imperial has over Metric is that it divides neatly, try dividing a meter into thirds, and you wind up with decimal places, a foot on the other hand..

Netpackrat wrote:

Darrell wrote:The metwic system is a Fwench pwot.

You joke, but you know that behind the facade of trying to create an "easier" system of measurement, the real reason was because it chapped their froggy little asses to be using the ENGLISH system of measurement.

Yes, I know that. I think the Fwench were pissed that the English set the 0 hr meridian running right through Greenwich, England, so they declared the kilometer to be 1/10,000th of the distance from the equator to the north pole, as measured through Pawis, Fwance.

I was taught both at school due to the UK joining the Common Market part way through my schooling.

For machining purposes I can switch between decimal inches and metric without any problems. I usually work in metric, but that's a function of buying metric sized stock and fasteners.
For distances, speeds etc I can't visualise any metric quantity directly in my head. I have to mentally convert to imperial.

One of my pet hates though are engineering drawings in fractional inches. My micrometers, verniers, machine dials etc are all graduated in decimal inches (or metric) Fractional inches are suitable only if you are using a ruler and calipers - I'm old school, but not THAT old school.