Metric system of measurements

Any idea when we will be seeing Safehold move to metric? Changing units of measurements and making it world wide would seem to take several years and it would need to be well established and accepted in order to fully become the technological civilization once again.

It won't even start to happen so long as the Writ holds even moderate moral authority.

Holypope0618 wrote:Any idea when we will be seeing Safehold move to metric? Changing units of measurements and making it world wide would seem to take several years and it would need to be well established and accepted in order to fully become the technological civilization once again.

?
Metric holds NO special advantages for a technological civilization (having everything being multiples of 10 rather than several different arbitrary numbers is minor in IMHO)

Speaking as a citizen of a country that moved from imperial to metric in my adult lifetime, I can attest that it does make a big efficiency difference. Every little thing is easier, from cooking to car maintenance to building to science to engineering to finance.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:

Holypope0618 wrote:Any idea when we will be seeing Safehold move to metric? Changing units of measurements and making it world wide would seem to take several years and it would need to be well established and accepted in order to fully become the technological civilization once again.

?
Metric holds NO special advantages for a technological civilization (having everything being multiples of 10 rather than several different arbitrary numbers is minor in IMHO)

Daryl wrote:Speaking as a citizen of a country that moved from imperial to metric in my adult lifetime, I can attest that it does make a big efficiency difference. Every little thing is easier, from cooking to car maintenance to building to science to engineering to finance.

Speaking as a citizen of a country that went through an attempt to introduce the metric system that failed miserably (the only successful hold over from that failed experiment is the 2 liter soft drink bottle), I don't understand the fixation with the system.

The only thing that was accomplished was confusing a whole lot of little kids. Sort of like the whole 'new math' craze of the '70's.

There's nothing that the metric system can do that can't be done using imperial measurements. The issue is that you are comfortable with the metric system and the use of a different system of measure makes you uncomfortable, frustrates and confuses you.

jtg452 wrote:

Daryl wrote:Speaking as a citizen of a country that moved from imperial to metric in my adult lifetime, I can attest that it does make a big efficiency difference. Every little thing is easier, from cooking to car maintenance to building to science to engineering to finance.

Speaking as a citizen of a country that went through an attempt to introduce the metric system that failed miserably (the only successful hold over from that failed experiment is the 2 liter soft drink bottle), I don't understand the fixation with the system.

The only thing that was accomplished was confusing a whole lot of little kids. Sort of like the whole 'new math' craze of the '70's.

There's nothing that the metric system can do that can't be done using imperial measurements. The issue is that you are comfortable with the metric system and the use of a different system of measure makes you uncomfortable, frustrates and confuses you.

This actually highlights one of the issues, you need a STRONG central govt that will mandate and enforce this change with fines and other punishments for non-compliance. This lack of follow through is what doomed metric in the states. Outside of Charis the central govts are far far to week to push this through and the rump church may resist for scriptural reasons.

jtg452 wrote:Speaking as a citizen of a country that went through an attempt to introduce the metric system that failed miserably (the only successful hold over from that failed experiment is the 2 liter soft drink bottle), I don't understand the fixation with the system.

The only thing that was accomplished was confusing a whole lot of little kids. Sort of like the whole 'new math' craze of the '70's.

There's nothing that the metric system can do that can't be done using imperial measurements. The issue is that you are comfortable with the metric system and the use of a different system of measure makes you uncomfortable, frustrates and confuses you.

Metric is only confusing if you present it in a confusing way, so it's actually not a problem with the metric system itself.

The problem with imperial is as soon you need to convert something you have to use memorized constants for a lot of things. For example, how many inches are there in 1.3 miles? Or if you have a cube with 10 inch sides made of a material with the density 41 slugs/ft³, what does it weigh? This problems is everywhere in the imperial system, there are no simple conversions where in metric you often just slide the decimal-comma around.

Personally I'm not confused by the imperial system at all, it's just very antiquated, exceedingly inefficient in all aspects, prone to a host of conversion-errors and loss of precision. I've never had to whip out a cheat-sheet to make conversions in metric, which is what a lot of people using imperial do. And don't get me started on the subject of threads derived from the imperial system, there are actual books that covers that.

Finally, to paraphrase you: The issue is that you are comfortable with the quirky imperial system and the use of a logical metric system of measure makes you uncomfortable, it frustrates and confuses you.

That's why I (somewhat pompously) said "speaking as a citizen".
It was to point out that I had grown up with the imperial system, yet had no choice but to look at the metric one. Having a strong central government that could carry this through meant that we did transition successfully, and have benefited since.
If I say to young adults, cups - pints - quarts - gallons (imperial or metric) - cubic feet - bushels - cubic yards, they laugh and claim I'm making it up. Same with ounces, pounds, stone, and hundred weight. Or with inches - feet - yards - chain - furlong - miles.

jtg452 wrote:

Daryl wrote:Speaking as a citizen of a country that moved from imperial to metric in my adult lifetime, I can attest that it does make a big efficiency difference. Every little thing is easier, from cooking to car maintenance to building to science to engineering to finance.

Speaking as a citizen of a country that went through an attempt to introduce the metric system that failed miserably (the only successful hold over from that failed experiment is the 2 liter soft drink bottle), I don't understand the fixation with the system.

The only thing that was accomplished was confusing a whole lot of little kids. Sort of like the whole 'new math' craze of the '70's.

There's nothing that the metric system can do that can't be done using imperial measurements. The issue is that you are comfortable with the metric system and the use of a different system of measure makes you uncomfortable, frustrates and confuses you.

"... how many inches are there in 1.3 miles?..."

Let us know the first time you encounter this question outside this class of debates, and why it mattered.

"What is the mass of a volume 2.57 x 3.14 x 87.6 meters of liquid mercury?" Without a calculator and a copy of the CRC tables, please.

phillies wrote:"... how many inches are there in 1.3 miles?..."

Let us know the first time you encounter this question outside this class of debates, and why it mattered.

I'll will do that when you let me know that a similar type of conversion have never been done in a real-life situation.

phillies wrote:"What is the mass of a volume 2.57 x 3.14 x 87.6 meters of liquid mercury?" Without a calculator and a copy of the CRC tables, please.

You missed something important, my question contained ALL the relevant information to be easily solved in metric by just multiplying 4 numbers. If you want to refute what I said it's a bad sign that you both remove and "obfuscate" information as a gotcha. For the question to be equal in the context of comparing imperial to metric is should have been: What's the mass of a volume 10x10x10 cm of mercury liquid having a density of 13.534 g/cm³? To get the answer, move the decimal-comma right 3 times and you get 13.534 kg. No conversions, no precision-loss, no tables, no memorized constants.