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DOH! Is that inches or centimeters?

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That's just what we need, men counting one way and women counting another. Come to think of it ....
DavidP said:
James Knowles said:
You could argue of course that God must have intended a base 10
system since he gave us 10 fingers (not that I'm suggesting that
ANY of our forum members would ever count using their fingers)
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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
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--
James
 
Never heard of ft-lbs ? ft-lbs / second ? Those units can be (and are) used for energy, if needed.

More often, BTU's are used. Or, God forbid, "tons". Why? Those units make more sense for those applications. Rarely do conversions between these have to be done. When they are done routinely, people KNOW the numbers. Kilowatt-hrs are also used, when appropriate.

BTW, how many joules does it take to heat up one liter of water? ;)
Steven Noyes said:
The point is David, that the English system does not provide for easy
conversion between Energy, work, length, temperature and mass.
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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
 
Steven Noyes said:
It is because of Engineers that are
too stubborn to change that we lost the Mars Global Surveyor.
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In the grand scheme of things, Engineers have little to no push on switching over to a metric system. That being said, a decent engineer can handle the two sets of units without any problems (at least in his field). There are lots of engineers who are idiots however, and one of these is to blame for losing the Surveyor. There's nothing you can do about idiots, they're here to stay.

jason
Steven Noyes said:
It also
this mentality that requires most machine shops to be tooled for both
systems. It would be cheaper to be tooled for only one.
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I'm an engineer. Most engineers I know have no problems with the current system of units. We will also use SI units when it makes more sense.

Just don't ask me to replace my 3-1/2" tubing (with an ID of 2.994 inches) -- yes, I know those numbers by heart -- with anything metric. LOL.

PS -- most of the US oil companies use: (cf = cubic feet of gas)

mcf = thousands of cubic feet
mmcf = millions of cubic feet
bcf = billions of cubic feet

Exxon refuses, and must use (trying to be semi-metric):

kcf = thousands of cubic feet
mcf = millions of cubic feet
mmcf = billions of cubic feet

Go figure.

I'm not sure what they use for TCF (trillions of cubic feet).
Henrik Abelsson said:
Anyway, I guess it depends a lot on what you do for a living and
how much math you need to do on a daily basis. For engineers,
scientists and other people who regularly use math type conversions
are very common. Those are also the groups that almost universally
like the metric system. ;) (The odds are that the pros know what
they're talking about)
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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
 
How about metric users adding "cm" to the end, and otherwise assume it's in inches. ;)
Riaan Jutte said:
It would be of considerable help if the
minority of people who still cling to the old British system of
inches would add a " to indicate it is inches.
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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
 
I probably shouldn't give away "engineering secrets", but I think we all know (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that we engineers use conversions in introductory physics classes to weed out those who just aren't gonna cut it in the engineering world. ;)
Jason Hutchinson said:
In the grand scheme of things, Engineers have little to no push on
switching over to a metric system. That being said, a decent
engineer can handle the two sets of units without any problems (at
least in his field). There are lots of engineers who are idiots
however, and one of these is to blame for losing the Surveyor.
There's nothing you can do about idiots, they're here to stay.
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--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
 
hmm, 270 Million/6 billion = 4.5 %, I'd call this a minority.

Just kiddig guys. but you are the last holdouts on the other side of the pond. All of europe is metric. Even britain is going metric; Inch by Inch. LOL
Ken Phillips said:
Riaan Jutte said:
If somebody claims he gets spectacular 20 x 30 prints from his D30
or D1, I'm not impressed at all. Why? I, like 95% of the rest of
humanity, use the metrical system (centimeters), and 20 x 30 is
just A4 or legal size. It would be of considerable help if the
minority of people who still cling to the old British system of
inches would add a " to indicate it is inches.

End of rant. (For today)
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No 1D, very few lenses, no camera bag or teleconverters thanks to
some thief. Also, NO Canon 1200mm f/5.6.
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In the beginning there was nothing, and then even that exploded.
 
Are you measuring by population, or by the size of the economy?

I doubt many people care how those in impoverished nations wish to measure things.

Using size of the economy won't put the US over 51% (nobody has that much sway), but it certainly makes them a key player.
Peter (B) said:
hmm, 270 Million/6 billion = 4.5 %, I'd call this a minority.

Just kiddig guys. but you are the last holdouts on the other side
of the pond. All of europe is metric. Even britain is going metric;
Inch by Inch. LOL
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--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
 
Bet you didn't know that methane gas is about 1,000 BTU per SCF.

I bet if we adjusted the pressure/temperature base for SCF just right, we could get it exactly to 1,000. ;)

Yes, every state is different. Some use 14.65 psi, some 14.7 psi, some 15 psi.

--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
 
DavidP #28649 said:
That'd be like us saying we printed a "letter", or "legal", or
"tabloid" print.

I know that A3, A4, A5, etc. are the standard paper sizes in
Europe. But what are the standard PRINT sizes?
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Well it's not Europe only. Japan used to use our measurement and converted to meter measurement in 1958.

I am just wondering how many countries still use inch but US?
 
Any serious person in the scientific field (US or not) uses metric for obvious reasons. Some people are just resist change.
Steven Noyes said:
The point is David, that the English system does not provide for easy
conversion between Energy, work, length, temperature and mass. Having
worked in metrology for 5 years, I understand how nasty the whole
thing
is and how much nicer metric is. Especially temperature. 0 degrees
and 100 degrees. Sure beets the 32 degrees and 212 (half a circle of
180 degrees away) thing. Precision is gained by simply adding a
decimal
like 43.4 degrees.

The other thing is that keeping two systems of measurements costs the
American tax payer lots of money. It is because of Engineers that are
too stubborn to change that we lost the Mars Global Surveyor. It also
this mentality that requires most machine shops to be tooled for both
systems. It would be cheaper to be tooled for only one.

The ONLY advantage the English system has is that it provides a warm
blanket that people are use to (even if most do not understand). In
less than a generation, we could change to the official units
supported
by the US Government (but not used) and be able to join a world
economy
that already uses metric.

Steven

--
---
My really bad Fall Adventures:
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/fall_adventures_2002
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As a unit of permeability, we petroleum engineers use the unit of Darcy. Which, BTW, is one ( cm^2 * centipoise ) / (atm * sec).

Permeability actually has the dimensions of length squared.

It works out that a Darcy is almost exactly 1 micro-meter squared.
DavidP said:
Bet you didn't know that methane gas is about 1,000 BTU per SCF.

I bet if we adjusted the pressure/temperature base for SCF just
right, we could get it exactly to 1,000. ;)

Yes, every state is different. Some use 14.65 psi, some 14.7 psi,
some 15 psi.

--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
Click to expand...
--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
 
DavipP,

I'm an architect and I deal with foot and inches and fractions (fractions!) all the time. To be able to add and subtract dimensions on the field takes me 1/10 of the time to do it in the metric system than it takes the imperial system. Try adding in your head 11.23 m +3.45m + 6.50m. Now try for example 6'-3 1/16" + 2'-8 7/8" + 12'-6 3/4" - LOST? This is an everyday practical problem that creates in the field lots of problems. I would love to have the metric system. Maybe as an engineer it won't make you a difference, but for the general population it would.

Alfred
DavidP said:
Like I said, it's not a simple task to just simply "convert" into
the metric system. There's all sorts of things that have been "set
in stone" with other units. There's no way of avoiding unit
conversions because of this.

The ONLY thing you get by converting over are the costs associated
with it.
Henrik Abelsson said:
I still bet it took you longer than for me to figure out that
there's exactly 100,000 cm's to a km. :-)

When it comes to easy things, technology will always slower than a
human. We should strive to create tools that fit us, and replace
the ones that make our lives needlessly complicated. Why depend on
tools when you don't have to? (i.e. the age old: "what happens when
you run out of batteries?")

So, how many square inches to a square mile? grin (a km^2 is
10^10 cm^2)

It's very easy to demonstrate the objective superiority of the
metric system. Then again, i can understand that people that have
grown upp with the antiquated imperial system and don't know how to
think in metric have trouble seeing the advantages that seem so
obvious to the rest of us.
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--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
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