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Metric system of measurements

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Re: Metric system of measurements
Post by Keith_w   » Mon Jul 19, 2021 9:42 am

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jtg452 wrote:
dragon723 wrote:Well for the merchant it would be a question of which system is more effective and least prone to error. An example could be converting 16435 meters to km vs converting 16435 yards to miles.

It goes 1000 meter om a km. Therefore

16,435 / 1000 -> 16.435 km

It goes 1760 yards on a mile. Therefore

16,435/ 1760 -> 9.338 miles according to my calculator


If the merchant has a good understanding of the metric system he can do most conversion between meters and km in the head without much risk of error. That extends to all measures in the metric system.

Bad comparison.

Meters and yards aren't the same distances- a meter is 3 inches and change longer. You are just moving numbers rather than dealing with the actual distance in question and then pointing and saying, "Aha!" when things don't come out right.

I ran the conversion from metric to Imperial-meters to yards to miles and then kilometers to miles- twice (once with an online conversion program and once with a calculator) and came up with the same answers every time.


There was no suggestion that they are the same distance in meters or yards, just the same number used for both conversions.

And yes, 16435 meters is 17973.5346 yards.
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Re: Metric system of measurements
Post by isaac_newton   » Mon Jul 26, 2021 11:17 am

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jtg452 wrote:
Daryl wrote:I wonder if the same arguments were used against the Arabic system of numbers and in defence of the Roman system?

Ha! Ha!

Odd that you mention Roman numerals since that was the first change Merlin made on Safehold, remember?

You still haven't come up with why the metric system is as superior as you seem to believe. I haven't claimed that it is inferior to Imperial- just different- so changing for changing's sake is more about a need for conformity than actual improvement or necessity.


One area of clear superiority is education for the many [ i.e. not the few ornery obsessives]

I grew up in the UK under the old imperial system.

Utter nightmare when learning this at school in pre calculator days!!!
[BTW i'm in science and software]

It was wonderful when we moved to the metric system for maths, science etc. You could focus on the underlying idea and just not have to worry about stupid conversions, weird remainders or costs including farthings.

Our children never had to suffer that rubbish.


Having said this, I know that I am only semi metric in ordinary life and will happily measure timber in meters and feet [private use only :-)] Though recently that lead to a cake baking disaster - my normally well risen, and tasty Victoria sponge looked rather like a breakfast pancake...


Amazingly, in the UK you get some [a few] Brexiters demanding to go back to Imperial measures, on the basis that metric measure is a vile EU imposition. :roll: :roll:

I've even heard one justifying the extra mystification of strange conversion factors, for the 'reason' that having to use these kept your brains in good shape. :D
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Re: Metric system of measurements
Post by Keith_w   » Sat Jul 31, 2021 8:44 am

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isaac_newton wrote:Amazingly, in the UK you get some [a few] Brexiters demanding to go back to Imperial measures, on the basis that metric measure is a vile EU imposition. :roll: :roll:

I've even heard one justifying the extra mystification of strange conversion factors, for the 'reason' that having to use these kept your brains in good shape. :D

I am surprised that some are not advocating ditching currency decimalization and returning to £/s/d. I recall my mother talking about when she worked in the payroll department at Stevenson's back in the paid in cash days and having to figure out the exact number of halfpennies, pennies, tuppences and three-penny bits to collect from the bank to fill the pay packets with. I wouldn't give a farthing for a return to that environment. :mrgreen:
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A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
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Re: Metric system of measurements
Post by n7axw   » Mon Aug 09, 2021 1:46 pm

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This is not a subject I have a lot of feeling about. It would be nice to do a lot of division moving decimal points rather than to divide the way we do when we convert yards to feet or inches. A cheap calculator takes away a lot of the fuss, but still....

I really only have one pet peeve. I wish that American made cars would not manufacture vehicles mixing both systems together in the same vehicle. Do I need a 5/16th socket or a number 10 here? That can get irritating... one way or the other please!!

I am sure that we would save a lot of money by converting over to metric and standardizing ourselves with the rest of the world.

Don

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Re: Metric system of measurements
Post by Theemile   » Mon Aug 09, 2021 2:30 pm

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n7axw wrote:This is not a subject I have a lot of feeling about. It would be nice to do a lot of division moving decimal points rather than to divide the way we do when we convert yards to feet or inches. A cheap calculator takes away a lot of the fuss, but still....

I really only have one pet peeve. I wish that American made cars would not manufacture vehicles mixing both systems together in the same vehicle. Do I need a 5/16th socket or a number 10 here? That can get irritating... one way or the other please!!

I am sure that we would save a lot of money by converting over to metric and standardizing ourselves with the rest of the world.

Don

-


Yes, but think of all the money the tool manufacturers would lose if you didn't have to buy every tool set in both Metric and SAE to work on projects.

Billions I say, Billions.
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Re: Metric system of measurements
Post by Salisria   » Sat Jun 04, 2022 5:45 pm

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Julia Minor wrote:
Donnachaidh wrote:Back to the original question of the topic, Safehold doesn't have to switch to metric. They don't even have to get rid of the US customary system. They just need to go about expanding it (from their perspective) in a deliberate fashion that avoids the difficulties the the real world system does. Of course, since they're trying to leverage the knowledge of the Federation, it would probably make more sense to adopt to the metric system.


Once Safehold can go full Federation, we'll probably see a switch to metric simply because it would be faster than asking Owl to convert all his stored texts. But until that day, Merlin and the Inner Circle have already done everything necessary by setting up uniform measurements and spreading that idea as widely as possible. They don't need metric when they've got everyone using the same size inch for the first time in Safehold's history -- and even the most reactionary Inquistor can't complain about it, because the Writ requires that measurements be "fair" and what's more fair than everyone on the same yardstick?


Why go metric at all?

It's entirely possible to go decimal without going full on metric. Assuming Safeholdians want to go decimal, they can start using decifeet instead of inches, etc.

Plus, they'll have absolutely zero reason to switch from Fahrenheit to Centigrade. Unless by some odd coincidence the standard atmospheric pressure is the same on Safehold as it is on Terra, 100°C won't be the boiling point of water, whereas the setpoints of the Fahrenheit scale, 0°F and 32°F, the freezing points of a particular brine mixture and of water, are largely independent from atmospheric pressure. Centigrade got attached to the metric system solely because it seemed more decimal than Fahrenheit because of its setpoints despite the fact that at the time it was easier to calibrate a Fahrenheit thermometer than a Centigrade thermometer natively. Indeed, given the difficulties, Centigrade was in practical terms calibrated using Fahrenheit as the reference.

Furthermore, it will be a lot easier to get OWL to convert his stored texts than to get Safehold to convert from one universal set of units to another.

The sole area where a conversion to SI might be helpful would be once the prescriptions and the rakurai have been overcome and Safehold can openly use electricity as the naive definition of the ampere used the meter. While it would make conversion of the archives easier, Safeholdian equivalents of the ampere, mole, and candela can certainly be developed as needed.
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Re: Metric system of measurements
Post by isaac_newton   » Mon Jun 06, 2022 9:16 am

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isaac_newton wrote:SNIP...

One area of clear superiority is education for the many [ i.e. not the few ornery obsessives]

I grew up in the UK under the old imperial system.

Utter nightmare when learning this at school in pre calculator days!!!
[BTW i'm in science and software]

It was wonderful when we moved to the metric system for maths, science etc. You could focus on the underlying idea and just not have to worry about stupid conversions, weird remainders or costs including farthings.

Our children never had to suffer that rubbish.


Having said this, I know that I am only semi metric in ordinary life and will happily measure timber in meters and feet [private use only :-)] Though recently that lead to a cake baking disaster - my normally well risen, and tasty Victoria sponge looked rather like a breakfast pancake...


Amazingly, in the UK you get some [a few] Brexiters demanding to go back to Imperial measures, on the basis that metric measure is a vile EU imposition. :roll: :roll:

I've even heard one justifying the extra mystification of strange conversion factors, for the 'reason' that having to use these kept your brains in good shape. :D


could you even begin to make it up?

Our corrupt lying dollup of a Prime Minister [Bozo Johnson in case of any doupt] is seriously proposing some sort of return imperial measurements - conducting a serious review, via a completely rigged document on the gov. website.

My one hope is that this is just some sort of make work to placate his faithfull elderly loyalists - and that nothing will come of it.
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Re: Metric system of measurements
Post by Guillaume   » Mon Jun 06, 2022 5:09 pm

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isaac_newton wrote:could you even begin to make it up?

Our corrupt lying dollup of a Prime Minister [Bozo Johnson in case of any doupt] is seriously proposing some sort of return imperial measurements - conducting a serious review, via a completely rigged document on the gov. website.

My one hope is that this is just some sort of make work to placate his faithfull elderly loyalists - and that nothing will come of it.


Obviously my statement is going to be biased, being French...

But one of the best and most important outcome of the French Revolution was and is the Metric System.

It has evolved, and is now based on various constants instead of being based of iridium-platinium alloy templates... but it's what allowed science to develop to the point it is nowadays.

Going back to the Imperial System is just shooting yourself in the foot, and I guess nobody in the industry will follow... and just keep using metric values.
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Re: Metric system of measurements
Post by Daryl   » Tue Jun 07, 2022 6:08 am

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I too grew up in the imperial system, and occasionally am guilty of saying things like "A hundred yards, or about a foot".
However when things get serious, it's metric all the way. Not even sure as to what a chain, furlong, or a quart is any more.
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Re: Metric system of measurements
Post by isaac_newton   » Tue Jun 07, 2022 10:09 am

isaac_newton
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Location: Brighton, UK

Guillaume wrote:
isaac_newton wrote:could you even begin to make it up?

Our corrupt lying dollup of a Prime Minister [Bozo Johnson in case of any doupt] is seriously proposing some sort of return imperial measurements - conducting a serious review, via a completely rigged document on the gov. website.

My one hope is that this is just some sort of make work to placate his faithfull elderly loyalists - and that nothing will come of it.


Obviously my statement is going to be biased, being French...

But one of the best and most important outcome of the French Revolution was and is the Metric System.

It has evolved, and is now based on various constants instead of being based of iridium-platinium alloy templates... but it's what allowed science to develop to the point it is nowadays.

Going back to the Imperial System is just shooting yourself in the foot, and I guess nobody in the industry will follow... and just keep using metric values.



Something that I had not realised until recently was that one of the main motivations behind the metric system was to make it much more difficult for dodgy traders to bamboozle the ordinary folk with all the weird units/currencies, and also to help maintain uniform standards for the scales and measurements...

By contrast, a number of the people behind the calls to revive imperial units had some quite weird views - e.g. the inch being encoded somehow in the great pyramid dimensions!
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