Metric is the Best

[unspeakablehorror]

I have to say, I really love the metric system and prefer it over imperial.  If I didn't have to use imperial units to be understood, I'd just use metric for everything.  I can never remember the conversion values for smaller to larger imperial units.  Like--how many feet in a mile?  Lol, it's five thousand and something-something, right?  Guess I'll use an internet search to figure it out, lol.  At what temperature in Fahrenheit does water boil at sea level?  Beats me.  Is there even a name for those subdivisions of an inch on rulers?  Who can remember any of this stuff? Can you tell me off the top of your head how many feet are in a furlong? I sure can't! It's a mess.  Like sure, I know what it *means* if something weighs 100 lbs or if the temperature is 76 F but I'd know what all the comparable metric units meant if I'd grown up somewhere that used them instead.  And I already know things like 25 C is a reasonable temperature to go outside in. 

Anyway, metric is better than imperial units imo.

Comments

[rugessnome]

I really do like Fahrenheit, because it is a relatively *human* scale (100= pretty hot but doable, 0= pretty *cold* but also doable), and I have a better sense of the other imperial units too.

But yes, metric has far more sensible conversion factors.

[unspeakablehorror]

See, I disagree that metric is a more human scale because there's nothing special to me about the temperatures 0 or 100 in it. Like, 0 is really cold to me (I hate being cold haha), but there's no reason to specifically care that the temperature is 0 fahrenheit and not 10 Fahrenheit or -5 Fahrenheit (also really cold to me). Likewise, 100 F is hot, but there's nothing in my mind special about how hot that temperature is. Whereas, there's something I can do with the information that the temperature is 0 C, because I know water freezes at that temperature. And that's really useful to know! And I know that I can boil water (at sea level) at 100 C. 100 C seems like it should be a really hot temperature, and indeed in Celsius it is really, really hot and a human could not survive for any significant length of time at that temperature. But they can also use it to do something functionally useful to them. So I think Celsius is a human unit because the number choices are exceedingly useful on a human scale. This is opposed to Kelvin, which has absolute zero as 0 K, which I would agree is not a human scale of temperatures in any fashion. But no one uses Kelvin for weather or most daily life applications for precisely that reason.

And yes, conversion factors are a huge reason for why I love metric. Also the fact that the conversion factors are built into the prefix names. I love that too!

[tobermoriansass]

I feel this post in my soul, especially since a bit of the stuff I do involves converting numbers back and forth again and like regardless of calculators...just no. It's so so so confusing.

[unspeakablehorror]

It is confusing! And incredibly error prone! Like I always find it disappointing that NASA (and I'm sure most if not all other US government orgs) uses imperial units, because they are just not good for science or doing math with! And they have caused so many errors! Which are completely unnecessary! Because metric exists! I wish my country wasn't in love with imperial units lol. And I feel bad for you having to convert stuff to imperial units which I suspect is mostly necessary just because the US refuses to change over to the metric system in any capacity and so whenever you present information internationally you end up needing to have those conversions.

I remember when I first started learning metric in grade school for science class and I was just like...but this is so much more humane...why don't we just learn this to begin with?