How many storeys have you skied?

[philippeR]

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.

Yes, we use the football field (soccer of course), storeys and 'french department' units in France. That's because we're dumb too.

To use time for distance is not dumb IMO. It is often more pertinent as it takes into account the mean of transportation and the context, because the question is actualy 'how long ?' rather than 'how far ?'
I live 20 minutes from where I work, as I commute by bike. That would be 45 minutes by car, 60 minutes by metro / bus. The 15 kms are mostly irrelevant to me. The hour I save every day with my moto is not.

[Snow Dog]

Canadians have compromised -- on the store shelf the units are (dollars per) pounds and ounces and at the till it's kilograms.

The US has a survey inch which is slightly different than an inch.

Ships and airplanes still use knots.

[Snow Dog]

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..

I think it's a really old measure -- even in Roman times distances were in terms of "days march" since knowing "how long" was more important than knowing "how far".

[hutash]

How many inches in a mile? Teaspoons in a gallon?
How many millimeters in a kilometer? Milliliters in a liter?

Need I say more?

The US system is rote memorization, and therefore very error pron, while the metric system is simply a matter of moving the decimal point. Errors are usually very obvious, at least to intelligent people. As PhilippeR pointed out, if you can't read a tape measure you have some other serious problems.

The system the US uses is just plain stupid. Sure there are a few minor advantages, but the disadvantages are far greater.

[StanWagon]

Ah, the survey inch. I did not know about that, but it comes from the switch when the 39.37-inches-to-a-meter conversion, which used to be ABSOLUTELY EXACT, was switched to 2.54 cm to an inch, which is now exact. Around 1958. In other words, the inch was redefined to make the cm conversion a terminating decimal at 254/100, but messing up the meter/inch conversion.

This had consequences. The survey inch is one of them. If one ran a measured 100-mile course prior to this change then, after the change, one would have run a course short by a visible distance (error within measurement abilities, I know). I guess the official length of the meter has NEVER changed? Or at least, not in recent times.

Another question for Canadians: I know "click" or "klik" is used informally for km/hr up there, as in, "The wind was blowing at 40 clicks". Is it also used for just plain distance, as in: "we skied 10 clicks"? This term appeared, to my intense surprise, in the movie SIDEWAYS, as a unit of distance. I have NEVER heard it in the US and this is a US movie. But someone told me that it is used occasionally in the US military for km, which presumably explains that anomaly.

There are exactly 1,100,000,000 teaspoons in a gallon, writing in base 2 of course -- 3 * 16 * 4 * 4

[FrankZappa]

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

I was talkin to my mom the other week, who can't seem to remember any phone numbers, addresses and the like, but when her old Head Standard skis from the fifties came into the conversation she knew they were "6 foot 9 inches" and even knew the serial number by heart.

She doesn't understand the CM reference of skis and wondered what the hell everybody was doin skiin around on those little bitty beginner skis these days.

[iceman]

I think it's a really old measure -- even in Roman times distances were in terms of "days march" since knowing "how long" was more important than knowing "how far".

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. What made me think of it at all was my English brother-in-law who thinks that using time as a measurement of distance is something that only Americans do.

Obviously he is wrong, but I'm sure that won't stop him from saying "I asked how far it is, not how long it takes to get there," yet again the next time someone gives him the distance in terms of time.

Bit of a wanker, he is.

[nhtele]

This term appeared, to my intense surprise, in the movie SIDEWAYS, as a unit of distance. I have NEVER heard it in the US and this is a US movie. But someone told me that it is used occasionally in the US military for km, which presumably explains that anomaly.

As in "we spotted Charlie about 8 clicks beyond that ridge." Christ, haven't you ever watched any movies about 'Nam?

[Tippster]

There are exactly 1,100,000,000 teaspoons in a gallon, writing in base 2 of course -- 3 * 16 * 4 * 4

Umm... someone help the dumb blonde guy out (me.) I get 768 teaspoons in a gallon.

[StanWagon]

Re time: Signposts on trails in Switzerland have said, for a very long time I think, things like "Hut XXX, 2.5 Stunde" (hrs)

768 is right. It is 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 or 3 2^8. Just like 1000 = 10x10x10 = 10^3, in base 2 it is similar, and 16 = 2^4. Writing in base 2, 16 becomes 10000, meaning one 2^4 and no other lower powers. The 3 is a minor complication and so 768 becomes 1100000000. My point was that there actually is a decent amount of logic at work in the teaspoon, tablespoon, cup, pint, quart, gallon. Metric users are handicapped in the lack of useful names.

I guess the real reason I started this thread is I wanted to learn if there have been any scholarly publications on the two systems or units in general. Yes, there are threads on this subject elsewhere but they rehash familiar points. The subject is an important and rich one and deserves serious thought. For you lovers of the base 10 that so drives the metric system, remember that it introduced the 10-hours-in-a-day idea too, and watches were even made with 10 hours on them instead of 24. If a common base, such as 10, were really important, this would have caught on. But of course that idea just died. The use of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks does seem superior to the metric prefix method....Well, that is what the world has agreed on, anyway.

[FrankZappa]

You shouldn't overlook Joseph Franklin's "10-letter Metric Alphabet" as explained by Chevy Chase on Saturday nite live. (Episode Number: 18 Season Num: 1 First Aired: Saturday April 24, 1976)

as I recall a portion went like "... and the letters L, M, N & O will be combined, as in "will you please L-M-N-Open that door?""

[Crass3000]

Umm... someone help the dumb blonde guy out (me.) I get 768 teaspoons in a gallon.

He said base two number. I'm assuming you're referring to a base 10 number which is how we normally think. There are many different number systems.

[MakersTeleMark]

[insert unit] ... as the crow flies.