Imperial units are stupid

[unbeliever]

Have a look at the dimensions used.

 

mpg or l/100km the units are in area.... interesting when you think about how it works

 

mpg is inverse area surely. 1mile=1600m divided by 1gallon=0.0045m^3 or thereabouts. Gives m^-2.

 

Quite correct on l/100km though.

1l =10^-3 m^3 and 100 km=10^5m, so l/100km = 10^-8m^2 or 10^-4 cm^2 (or 10^20 barn [0.1Zb])

I suggest we refer to it as such. All fuel efficiency henceforth to be stated in Zetabarn (Zb), Zb=0.1 x l/100km

Edited September 7, 2016 by unbeliever

[Nagel]

I'll get to that. For now I want the road signs fixed and such.

 

Hang on. What aspect of computer construction and/or operation are you referring to? My mind went to standard logic board sizes, but you could have been referring to all manner of things.

 

Computers are programmed in hexadecimal, which is base 16. Ultimately the machines work in binary, base 2.

 

Our brains definitely don't work by any decimal system, but we use it because we can use our fingers to count to 10.

[flamingjimmy]

Stage 2 of my plan would be to use cubic decimetres instead of litres and square hectometres instead of hectares. Just tidying up around the edges of the French standard.

After that I shall be decimalising time based around the day.

 

Decimalising time!

 

Pah! I say we go the other way, dozenalise space and then we can divide everything nicely!

 

http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/

 

Also, more on topic,

Edited September 8, 2016 by flamingjimmy

[Obelix]

mpg is inverse area surely. 1mile=1600m divided by 1gallon=0.0045m^3 or thereabouts. Gives m^-2.

 

Quite correct on l/100km though.

1l =10^-3 m^3 and 100 km=10^5m, so l/100km = 10^-8m^2 or 10^-4 cm^2 (or 10^20 barn [0.1Zb])

I suggest we refer to it as such. All fuel efficiency henceforth to be stated in Zetabarn (Zb), Zb=0.1 x l/100km

 

It can be written as an area though with a bit of rearrangement...

 

If you were to drive a distance then if you made a long very thin cylinder of length of your journey and area of the l/100km (or gallons/mile) then the volume of that cylinder is of course the total amount of fuel used.

 

Interesting. Never realised that one before.

 

---------- Post added 08-09-2016 at 01:18 ----------

 

Computers are programmed in hexadecimal, which is base 16. Ultimately the machines work in binary, base 2.

 

Our brains definitely don't work by any decimal system, but we use it because we can use our fingers to count to 10.

 

Hex is ok, but lets have base 32.

 

We can then have eleven months of 32 days, and we dont have to have weeks as each day of the month has its own unique numbername.

 

Those eleven months are 352 days so we can assign an extra day from the remaining pool to an end of month special day.

 

That leaves us with 2 which I propose we have as Solstice days.

[tinfoilhat]

The BBC doesn't use imperial or metric, they have their own measurements.

We have a months rain in a day,no we don't otherwise it wouldn't rain again that month, areas are measured in football pitches and height in double decker buses etc.

 

No, they're very much imperial - checked yesterday. They're building a 13ft wall in Calais and somebody knocked down an 800ft chimney. Both on the news on radio 2 yesterday.

[DnAuK]

It can be written as an area though with a bit of rearrangement...

 

If you were to drive a distance then if you made a long very thin cylinder of length of your journey and area of the l/100km (or gallons/mile) then the volume of that cylinder is of course the total amount of fuel used.

 

Interesting. Never realised that one before.

 

---------- Post added 08-09-2016 at 01:18 ----------

 

 

Hex is ok, but lets have base 32.

 

We can then have eleven months of 32 days, and we dont have to have weeks as each day of the month has its own unique numbername.

 

Those eleven months are 352 days so we can assign an extra day from the remaining pool to an end of month special day.

 

That leaves us with 2 which I propose we have as Solstice days.

 

In reality the best system would be Base 12 as its equally divisible by both 2 and 3 and already fits in with our 12 month / 24 hour / 60 min / sec system.

 

As for imperial, I never got it. My old mum always used to say stuff like 'a pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter' or some such. But I had no idea whether this was even true.

[TimmyR]

Anyone who has studied engineering in imperial must surely be a person of great calm for having to compute engineering units must be hellish in imperial. How many Nm in a KN mm ? easy 1. how many inch stones in a foot pound? I'm going home.

 

Imperial was invented when we really didn't understand much about metrology. For buying food by weight you can get away with it. For any modern scientific or engineering application it is ludicrous.

Edited September 8, 2016 by TimmyR

[davyboy]

From the time I started science at school to the the time I left work I used metric measurements.

At home for recipes I use metric but for years I couldn't visulise 100g sweets but 4ozs, easy.

My wife uses imperial .

If you want quaint/stupid try the american system: cups.

And didn't they mess up the space telescope mirror cos they didn't realise the measurements were metric not imperial?

[unbeliever]

And didn't they mess up the space telescope mirror cos they didn't realise the measurements were metric not imperial?

 

No they most certainly did not.

The space telescope was messed up for completely different reasons.

 

Now the Mars Climate Orbiter however was lost for exactly that reason.

 

---------- Post added 08-09-2016 at 10:56 ----------

 

Computers are programmed in hexadecimal, which is base 16. Ultimately the machines work in binary, base 2.

 

Our brains definitely don't work by any decimal system, but we use it because we can use our fingers to count to 10.

 

We have a base 10 numerical system. But imperial units are in multiples of 3, 12, 14, 16, 20, 60 and all manner of ridiculous nonsense.

The virtue of metric units is that the units, and the counting system, are both multiples of 10.

 

Now if you want to create a new unit system, based on multiples of 12, and change the numerical system to base 12 as well, that's fine. Do you want to do that?

Edited September 8, 2016 by unbeliever

[spilldig]

Imperial units are stupid. Ask somebody how many yards in a mile (1760 wtf?). How many pounds or stones in a ton. Oh is that a short ton (2000 lb) or a long ton (2240 lb) by the way. Mad as a box of ferrets.

If the remainers had promised full metrification I might well have voted for them.

The French do units far better than the Romans did. It's a no-brainer.

What on earth are we waiting for?

 

I suppose it would cost a fortune to change all road signs to kilometres so that's probably why they decide to stick with miles.