How many storeys have you skied?

[StanWagon]

Since this site has both Canadian and U.S. readers (and some European?) let me start a discussion of something that might be of interest to some. If not, well, I'll find out.

METRIC SYSTEM vs. ENGLISH SYSTEM

Despite being a scientist of sorts (mathematicians), I am a strong believer in the benefits of the English system of measure. Almost no scientist agrees with me, and the US is often touted as being stupid because it is the only country in the world that has not adopted the wonderful metric system. Here is why the metric system is a disaster.

1. Similar prefixes for very different things: deca and deci meaning "times 100" and "divided by 100".

2. Nice connections with water (but hey, a pint's a pound the world around), but little with humans. Feet, inches, and yards are very meaningful.

3. Ok: 32 degrees may be silly for freezing point of water, but 0 Fahrenheit does have meaning as it is the lowest freezing point one can get by adding salt to water, I believe. But the Celsius/Fahrenheit distinction is pretty minor, I admit.

4. To Canadian readers: If you approach a 10-year-old and ask how tall are you, is the answer in meters? British?

5. I believe Germans still use "funt" (from pound) to refer to half a kilo.

6. The English system tends to have units whenever they are useful; for distances (and volumes) that means new units whenever one divides by 2 or 3. Very useful.

7. And my biggest beef: It is very easy to make big errors in the metric system. In the world champ. long jump once the tape was read as 7.5 meters as opposed to 7.05 which it was. A US carpenter would never make a similar mistake as we have inches and feet. On a N.Z. map I once saw the scale said 90 km when 9 km was meant. I have seen many errors similar to these. One can make mistakes in either system, but the metric system's lack of "human ergonomics" make it a disaster in this regard (in my humble opinion). Of course we still hear people confusing million, billion, trillion.

8. And some skiing relevance: Heli pilots prefer working in units such as 47 degrees 36.5 minutes. That is much less prone to error than the UTM coords, which I admit I use, but are easy to err in: (0408765, 5687451). The former has each digit in its place with a modifying word. The latter has useless digits at the end, leading 0s to complicate things, no separators, no words. Everyone who uses UTM has made errors at some point. But it is elegant since it is actually counting single meters.

9. On the down side, grams seems useful for certain controlled substances, but that just proves the point: many measures are neeed....

So, what would you rather ski in a day: 10000 feet or 3000 meters? (Well, 10000 feet obviously, because it is more, but you know what I mean)

To summarize: Let's keep the US English.

And to end this rant: Have you noticed that the current most popular units (in the press and on TV, say) of size are:

For height: "storey", as in he fell off the cliff dropping the equivalent of five storeys to his death. Skiers seem above all this, miraculously. They never say things like: "I skied the equivalent of 300 stories today!"

For length: football field

For area: state of Rhode Island (or sometimes New Jersey; do Canadians use PEI?)

But this just underscores my point that we desperately need units people can understand -- hence football field has totally replaced "100 yards", and storey has replaced 10 feet. So let's hear it for any of you who have climbed and skied 1000 storeys in a day!

Any other metric horror stories out there? Any English system horror stories? Yes, I know about the rocket that got messed up because of a conversion error; ditto the Canadian plane near-crash in Winnipeg some 20 years ago. But those errors were not the fault of a particular system.

And we need a photo here. It's biking season, but I'm out of luck since the only bike (yes, it is truly a trike) I know how to ride is the following, and roads are hard to come by. Top this, you mountain bike hucksters:

[Phill]

tl;dr


23456

[IridePow]

A scientist who defends the metric system....... oh my God!!!
You must be the only one out there in the whole world, that really should make you think.

Just try the simple task of adding up feet and inches in Excel and you have to jump through hoops to get it done.
---> Metric System all the way IMO

Anyway... they tried it and I guess it cost them just too much money to change the whole steel industry around etc. and gave up.
I think this discussion has been beat to death though in tons of scientist/engineering forums.
So I am not really sure if we have to further discuss it in a ski forum. But I guess it's still better than fight with trolls and other douchebags.

[Mike Pow]

Not a bad argument, but from a Brit the term is 'Imperial' not 'English'.

[iceman]

Kilometers are too short, liters are too small compared with gallons and Celsius degrees are too big. Plus there's no equivalent measure for teaspoon, tablespoon, cup or pint, all of which are useful.

[renoenvy]

pint, useful.

__ayup__

[Mike Pow]

I use both systems.

I'm of the age where I learned 'Imperial' measurements in early schooling in the UK and then had to switch to the metric system around the age of 11 (I think). Same with money. Decimalisation is far easy than 'old money', but that's another story for another time. Or not.

I look at both as 'languages' and use the appropriate 'language' in whichever country I find myself and whichever system predominates.

[jrosendahl]

You forgot the LOC - Libraries of Congress for data storage. The sad thing is I doubt if anyone has any idea how much information that is.

[Tippster]

...pint... useful.

__ayup__

1/2 a liter is better. A full liter (Mass in Germany) is best, but you best be drinkin'... that thang gets warm if you're chatting.

If we grew up w/the metric system you wouldn't mind ordering 400 grams of Roast Beef.

[StanWagon]

It appears that at Wimbledon, speeds of serves are currently recorded, announced, etc., in "miles per hour". I wonder why? Is it different at, say, the French or Australian opens?

A bit of web searching shows that a burning metrification question is whether a country should adopt the mm or the cm as the basic length unit (this is related to that 7.05 vs 7.5 error I mentioned -- the tape reader must know whether the 5 on the tape means 50 mm or 50 cm).

[iceman]

Not a bad argument, but from a Brit the term is 'Imperial' not 'English'.

From a Brit, yes. But the system in place in the U.S. is not the Imperial system. Gallons, tons and several other measurements differ between the two systems. We call it the "English" system but it's not the one that was in place in England in recent history.

[Ville]

I prefer metric system, it would suck if ski lenghts were in feets.

[Mike Pow]

Thanks. You're right.

A pint in the UK is 20 floz, 16 in the US

[iceman]

It's also weird that pounds are the same but tons are different between the U.S. and Imperial systems.

[deliberate]

lbs are used interchangeably as mass and weight(force) in English and it can make it very confusing.

[b dubya]

1/2 a liter is better. A full liter (Mass in Germany) is best, but you best be drinkin'... that thang gets warm if you're chatting.

If we grew up w/the metric system you wouldn't mind ordering 400 grams of Roast Beef.

bottom line is that you are still getting meat and beer. there is no problem.

[philippeR]

It appears that at Wimbledon, speeds of serves are currently recorded, announced, etc., in "miles per hour". I wonder why? Is it different at, say, the French or Australian opens?

A bit of web searching shows that a burning metrification question is whether a country should adopt the mm or the cm as the basic length unit (this is related to that 7.05 vs 7.5 error I mentioned -- the tape reader must know whether the 5 on the tape means 50 mm or 50 cm).

This tape story does not make sense. Usual tapes are in mm, with figures every 10 mm, for the cm. To read 7.05 instead of 7.5 is simply retarded.



Oh, and the basic unit is the meter. Others units are a fraction or a multiple of the meter.

[CarlE]

Kilometers are too short, liters are too small compared with gallons and Celsius degrees are too big. Plus there's no equivalent measure for teaspoon, tablespoon, cup or pint, all of which are useful.

There are teaspoons and tablespoons in the non-american kitchen... And a cup is 1,5 dl if I'm not mistaken

I have no problem with you guys using your system, but it would be alot easier if guys looking for new skis wrote their height in cm, not in foot and inches... It's alot easier to compare skis and bodyheight if they are both in the same units...

[Crass3000]

Anyone in science likely has found that the metric system is prodominantly taught with even in the US. It just makes sense because it's a big world and using one system makes sense. It's much easier to communicate when your on the same system. The metric system just seems to be more intuitive.

[yabyum]

I hate to get biblical, but I always measure in cubits

[Rydellen]

This is pretty fun. Ofcouse you feel comfortable using your standard measures that you are used to! But since the whole world uses the metric system I guess the americans have to do the changing. But if I know the americans right, they would never follow someone elses footsteps and be seen as "weak". I dont know why the americans are such manly people that cant admitt a misstake etc. I see the most superior people as those who learn from others and are not afraid of change.

I know I always get into this, but there is just something wrong with my impression of americans...Sorry to say it...Seen to much people acting wierd or behaving strange. Lets just compare canadiens to americans. Canadians are more like ous europeans.

I have never heard so much bragging as from americans in the lifts in Whistler We just laugh when we hear grown up talk their trash

Off topic i know ;D

[Crass3000]

Lets just compare canadiens to americans. Canadians are more like ous europeans.

Don't be insulting Canadians like that. I work with a bunch and they'll hunt your pansy euro ass down.

[Wiilbert]

Didn't NASA fire a rocket at Mars and miss because some dipshit couldn't convert the dimensions of some of the metric made components to the Imperial system? Just a thought...

[StanWagon]

Surprise: I am actually a Canadian. First 20 years in Canada, rest in US. There are big differences between the two countries, and big differences across Canada. But that is another subject. Let me return to the point that interests me in a slightly different way, since we have some European readers:

As noted, there is no question in the US that the units of storey, football field, and State of Rhode Island have become de facto units of height (10 ft), length (100 yds or meters), and area. Is this just because:

1. The American public is assumed too stupid to understand 300 feet or 3,000,000 acres.

2. The American public is indeed too stupid to understand big things without such helping units [[This is a problem in evolution and geology -- the numbers are so large that they are indeed difficult to understand. I liked the reminder of the LOC unit, for amt. of info in the Library of Congress.]]

3. The new units are essential to communicate the distances, etc. involved? (Generally my view, much as I hate the choice of units, since buildings and football fields are 3- and 2-dimensional objects, so should not be used for 1-dimensional units as length and height.)

Question: Have such "new" units evolved in Europe as well? Canada?

PS: Yes, there was a rocket error to Mars (or maybe the sun) and the Canadian fuel error, but those were conversion errors, speaking to the problem of having two systems in use, not the question of which system is better. And, yes, the argument that the rest of the world is metric is an argument in favor, just as English use is slowly but inexorably increasing in overall use despite being a more complicated language with silly grammar compared to other languages.

[iceman]

To me the most interesting newish unit of measure is time. When someone asks how far it is from DC to NYC, nobody says "253 miles," they say "About 4 hours". Of course distance and time are two completely different things, but they are very often used interchangeably, at least in the U.S..