On Jul 20, 2020, at 10:22 PM, Jackson, Rob <rwjack...@firsthorizon.com> wrote: > > American standard--Imperial units; they're rubbish. Abject garbage. SI is > not a fad, despite its origins. No fan of the "French;" no fan of "Trump;" > no fan of anything political. But SI, revised a couple times or three, is a > beautiful system of units in which one may compute physics. If you disagree, > then I assert you have a challenge understanding many things about physics. > I'm talking about mechanics and fluid dynamics. I'm too stupid for E&M, > although the same equivalency attempts apply there.
For science and engineering I totally agree: you should never use anything but SI units. They have precise definitions, and being decimal-based make calculations easier. Not to mention being used world-wide. For everyday life, though, I think American/Imperial units (and any other traditional systems that may survive elsewhere) have their advantages. They evolved because people found them useful. For example, when I’m cooking I could say 250 milliliters or one cup (they’re close enough for the precision I need) but one cup is simpler. Or if my pedometer says I’ve walked 2000 steps I know I’ve gone about a mile. (“Mile” comes from “mille passuum” = “a thousand of steps”; my pedometer counts left and right as separate steps but for the Romans you had to move both before they counted it.) > > P.S. Apparently Imperial units have been redefined as relative to SI. > Imagine that. Yep. For precision definitions, always use SI. I think it’s cool that SI units are now defined by specifying exact values for physical constants. > > P.P.S. This reminds me of many conversations with my father. He absolutely > couldn't stand this type of thing, i.e. SI being obviously superior. I don't > get it. It is what it is. > > As a disclaimer, I'm not a complete bigot. I say miles and yards; but I have > this nasty habit of converting them to meters in my mind every time I say > them. The one thing I cannot get used to in every-day life is Celsius > degrees. I think in Fahrenheit degrees. Oddly enough, since they're exactly > the same thing, I find it easier to talk in Kelvins rather than Celsius > degrees. Maybe I just like starting at zero. :) I couldn't tell you what > absolute zero in Fahrenheit is; I guess I never cared. This supports my point about the convenience of traditional units. Fahrenheit is more granular than Celsius, so you can be a bit more precise without having to go to decimals. -- Pew, Curtis G curtis....@austin.utexas.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
