I told myself I would stop after my last posts, but I can't help it.
I do not pretend to know everything, but I am one of the relatively few in my
circle of friends with extensive experience with both systems, and after 26
years here, the imperial system has simply not made a case for itself as far as
I am concerned. It is my opinion, and a fact as far as I am concerned, not that
it makes it a universal truth in any other frame of reference. Your mileage may
vary.
I agree that the decimal system is a big part of what makes me prefer the
metric system. The meter itself is not a superior unit than the inch or the
foot to measure anything. But there are other considerations when using one
"system" versus the other.
Our designers and mechanical engineers here use decimal fractions of an inch in
specifying mechanical drawings, but raw metal stock (and tools) are still only
available in 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 (and so on) of an inch dimensions, so most
dimensions have to be given with 3 or 4 decimals, and even then they are not
always right. When trying to mentally add two, three or four dimensions each
with 4 decimals, and one or two digits to the left of the decimal point, it
stops being fun and its easy to make mistakes.
Somehow, that was never an issue when I was designing back in France. Most
dimensions has 2 or 3 significant digits, making the mental juggling much
easier.
That was the reason for my characterization of the imperial system as being
more error prone. I never said or implied that it was less precise. Precision
is a function of the instrument, not the frame of reference.
In the metric system, screws and wires are referenced by their diameter, not a
reference number that requires a table to figure out how big they are. I
understand these numbers correspond to something, they are not arbitrary, but
while they may simplify "some" calculations, in everyday tasks, these numbers
tend to complicate life instead of simplifying it. Here, every designer has
tables after tables plastered on their walls. In France, I do not remember that
we needed so many.
Another small thing I miss is that a liter of water weighs a kg (under
reference conditions, I forgot what that was :). Then the specific weight of
various materials only has to be known by their "density" (ratio of specific
weight compared to water). It makes all sorts of calculations ( and
guestimations) easy.
But its just my opinion :)
Didier
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...
-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Harris <cfhar...@erols.com>
Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:30:34
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement<time-nuts@febo.com>
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
<time-nuts@febo.com>
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] gravity controlled pendulumn clock?
Hal Murray wrote:
...
>
> If you were an alien landing on Earth for the first time, which system would
> make more sense to you?
Ah! A Godcentric view of the universe. Decimal is an arbitrary
number system that came about purely because we had 10 fingers, and
a brain that could only think of using them to count on.
Your hands are probably right now fondling a model of a life form that
would find the metric system to be quite foreign, and unfriendly...
Surely you should count using a number system based on an even power
of 2?
There was a time when I spent more time doing arithmetic in octal
than in decimal. If humans had been born with 4 fingers on each
hand, we would be talking about how certain we were that an alien
would find an octal centric measurement system made more sense.
Metric is purely arbitrary, as are all of the variants on the
English system. Life would go just as smoothly if we had standardized
on the inch, pound, and gallon, and used decimal fractions and multiples
to represent measurements larger and smaller than the unit.
-Chuck Harris
OBTW, as time nuts, we are steeped in the two units of measure that
are decidedly non-metric: seconds, and Hz. Think about it...
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