Kilometres and kg

[Graetzbridge]

No, you haven't, actually. Not once.
You have stated which system you have encountered most frequently in your particular experiences, and that you believe in your particular experience that system is simple... but that does nothing to objectively demonstrate why it is the best.
If that, even objectively, were the criteria for what makes something the best, we'd not be speaking English.

What it makes it the best is that is MUCH simpler. - and objectively and demonstrably so. I did already made that point. Several times.

Just to be clear, I am perfectly comfortable with Imperial, CGS, MKS and SI.

 

[ttaskmaster]

What it makes it the best is that is MUCH simpler. - and objectively and demonstrably so. I did already made that point. Several times.

No, that just means it's simpler to calculate with... and then only if everything you do is in base 10 with easily memorised round numbers - 228.6mm, or even the more common 225mm, is harder for the average person to remember than "Nine-inch".

If metric really was better, everyone would have universally adopted it decades ago.
Imperial has remained in use because it is effective, which trumps simplicity - The US signed the Metric Conversion Act on 23rd December 1975, was one of the original countries to sign the Treaty of the Meter in 1875, and metric even became their preferred system of weights and measures for U.S. trade and commerce in 1988... but they stayed using imperial (unofficially or otherwise) because it suited them better.

If metric is so much better, why are the exact same items of clothing sized according to completely different scales (none of which are in metric, by the way) in Australia, the UK, the USA, Japan, France, Germany and Italy, for example? Seriously, when was the last time you bought a pair of shoes in size 288/112?

Just to be clear, I am perfectly comfortable with Imperial, CGS, MKS and SI.

So am I.
My point is that imperial often fits better than metric when you get your nose out of a spreadsheet of calculations and instead into the real world... which is why the UK still uses both.

 

[M1k3H]

If metric really was better, everyone would have universally adopted it decades ago.

They have. The ones that haven't still report metric anyway.

Source: Per previous post work in aerospace and also worked in automotive industry, working with major manufacturers. Even US standards are being updated to include metric for the past 5 years.

 

[Graetzbridge]

No, that just means it's simpler to calculate with... and then only if everything you do is in base 10 with easily memorised round numbers - 228.6mm, or even the more common 225mm, is harder for the average person to remember than "Nine-inch".

If metric really was better, everyone would have universally adopted it decades ago.
Imperial has remained in use because it is effective, which trumps simplicity - The US signed the Metric Conversion Act on 23rd December 1975, was one of the original countries to sign the Treaty of the Meter in 1875, and metric even became their preferred system of weights and measures for U.S. trade and commerce in 1988... but they stayed using imperial (unofficially or otherwise) because it suited them better.

If metric is so much better, why are the exact same items of clothing sized according to completely different scales (none of which are in metric, by the way) in Australia, the UK, the USA, Japan, France, Germany and Italy, for example? Seriously, when was the last time you bought a pair of shoes in size 288/112?


So am I.
My point is that imperial often fits better than metric when you get your nose out of a spreadsheet of calculations and instead into the real world... which is why the UK still uses both.

Several points,
Metric HAS been used for about a century.
My clothing is metric
My electricity meter is in kW - as is yours.
Water supplies are in litres or multiplies there off - as are yours.
Light bulbs etc.....

As it happens I am a member of a US electrical forum and they are the only three countries in the world that don't use SI (metric). They frequently complain about their archaic units when the rest of the world has to use them.

 

[ttaskmaster]

They have. The ones that haven't still report metric anyway.
Source: Per previous post work in aerospace and also worked in automotive industry, working with major manufacturers. Even US standards are being updated to include metric for the past 5 years.

If everyone had universally adopted metric, most of the people in this thread wouldn't even know what imperial was...
My point again is that, yes "officially", everything has to be stated in metric, bar* a few oddball legal specifications... but outside of that, actual human beings still use imperial as and when they feel like it.

My clothing is metric

Come again? In the UK my shoe size is 11. In Metric-Heaven Europe, it's 46. Neither of those are in centimetres. Clothing is sized by the range of inch-measurements that a particular garment is intended to fit (ie 28-30" waist, 42-44" chest), even a lot of the stuff I buy from Metric-Europe.
Also, water is metered by litres, but supplied and sewered in imperial PSI.
My point stands.

*Pun intended.

 

[Graetzbridge]

If everyone had universally adopted metric, most of the people in this thread wouldn't even know what imperial was...
My point again is that, yes "officially", everything has to be stated in metric, bar* a few oddball legal specifications... but outside of that, actual human beings still use imperial as and when they feel like it.


Come again? In the UK my shoe size is 11. In Metric-Heaven Europe, it's 46. Neither of those are in centimetres. Clothing is sized by the range of inch-measurements that a particular garment is intended to fit (ie 28-30" waist, 42-44" chest), even a lot of the stuff I buy from Metric-Europe.
Also, water is metered by litres, but supplied and sewered in imperial PSI.
My point stands.

*Pun intended.

The water meter records how much water you use in cubic metres (m3).

 

[ttaskmaster]

The water meter records how much water you use in cubic metres (m3).

But it is still delivered in PSI. Usually between 40 and 60psi.

 

[Graetzbridge]

But it is still delivered in PSI. Usually between 40 and 60psi.

Water suppliers' statutory service standard level of mains water pressure is 10 metres/head

Nice try.

 

[M1k3H]

Is that perhaps due to equipment being in psi? When we do testing, a lot of our equipment is marked in lbs/in/etc, but we still convert to metric in reports, and also calibration is done to metric standards anyway. I wouldn't necessarily throw what is relatively expensive equipment out because it was made using imperial measurements.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Water suppliers' statutory service standard level of mains water pressure is 10 metres/head
Nice try.

I work for a water services supplier. We supply it at 40-60psi. 10m/head would only be 14psi, which is pitiful.
So nice try yourself, but that ain't how it's done in the real world regardless of what your official pieces of paper say.

Also, your piece of paper (GSS) only gives the minimum pressure an undertaker is required to supply, and both the GSS and the Water Supply and Sewerage Services Regulations 2008 specify seven m/head, not ten.
Try harder.

Is that perhaps due to equipment being in psi? When we do testing, a lot of our equipment is marked in lbs/in/etc, but we still convert to metric in reports, and also calibration is done to metric standards anyway. I wouldn't necessarily throw what is relatively expensive equipment out because it was made using imperial measurements.

Perhaps.
We do get new kit in fairly often, but even the new stuff tends to be either in imperial or both.

 

[Graetzbridge]

Is that perhaps due to equipment being in psi? When we do testing, a lot of our equipment is marked in lbs/in/etc, but we still convert to metric in reports, and also calibration is done to metric standards anyway. I wouldn't necessarily throw what is relatively expensive equipment out because it was made using imperial measurements.

Yes, that's a good point. I'm fairly practical with my hands and I have done a few plumbing jobs in my house. I seem to recollect there an Imperial mains lead pipe from my earlier house.The other fittings in the rest of the house were all metric.