How to get the metric system reinvented

Castenea wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:The charms of the metric system, beyond irritating fuddy-duddies, are three:

You missed the big reason it was accepted by so much of Europe and a major reason it has never been accepted in the US.

When introduced it was not the other guys standard unit.

Some of the fun can be found in anecdotes written in the book Measuring America.

Shortly after the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson attempted to create a system of longitude that had its prime meridian somewhere in America (I cannot recall exactly where of the top of my head) rather than in England. It never really hit it off, but apparently one can sometimes find old maps with this system.

pokermind wrote:IIRC it was noted in OAR the old English system was used coming directly from Holy Langhorn

The big problem is different bases, in angles 360 degrees weight 16 oz to the pound, 12 inches to one foot yada yada, time 24 hours to a day 60 minuits to one hour etc remain. You will note the metric system did not introduce metric angles thus even the metric system is a mixed bag of bases. Yep a centiday is 14.4 old time minuites.

Poker

The metric system does have a base-10 angle measurement, the gon, sometimes called the grad or gradian, which is equal to one four-hundredth of a circle. It isn't very commonly used, I believe SI uses the radian, which is more convinient mathematically

Castenea wrote:When introduced it was not the other guys standard unit.

Wasn't the Metric System a French Invention imposed by the French Republic and spread by force of arms by Napoleon?

cadastral wrote:

pokermind wrote:IIRC it was noted in OAR the old English system was used coming directly from Holy Langhorn

The big problem is different bases, in angles 360 degrees weight 16 oz to the pound, 12 inches to one foot yada yada, time 24 hours to a day 60 minuits to one hour etc remain. You will note the metric system did not introduce metric angles thus even the metric system is a mixed bag of bases. Yep a centiday is 14.4 old time minuites.

Poker

The metric system does have a base-10 angle measurement, the gon, sometimes called the grad or gradian, which is equal to one four-hundredth of a circle. It isn't very commonly used, I believe SI uses the radian, which is more convinient mathematically

The metric system also has the militarily useful 'mil' for measuring circular motion. For those who know redleg-speak, a mil is one meter deviation at one thousand meters range. For rifled artillery, I calculated as much as 15 mils to adjust for the spin of the shell on long, high-arcing flights.

Yeah, I did fire direction control with 'sticks' (modified slide rules for ballistic tables based on charge and shell combination) and a big piece of graph papter. At one point I was faster than the computer operators - their big advantage was in 'cold stick' fires, which are before the initial ranging that helps adjust for climate, altitude, and winds.

That said, in three shots I could put a 155mm round within 10 meters of the target point if the observer was on his game.

Anyhow, mils are likely to arrive soon, especially with rifled artillery and true howitzers needing a better means to adjust than 'a touch to the right'.

Dave
Oh, almost forgot. There's 6400 mils in a circle.

Weird Harold wrote:

Castenea wrote:When introduced it was not the other guys standard unit.

Wasn't the Metric System a French Invention imposed by the French Republic and spread by force of arms by Napoleon?

The point is that it was a new system at this point and not one of the systems used by any of the principalities of the low countries. Germany or Northern Italy. Every principality had it's own standards which were different from their neighbor's.

captinjoehenry wrote:I am thinking about introducing the earth metric system as is mostly just because i personally greatly prefer the metric system and it makes life easier for measurements so basicly the metric system as it is today

Please don't.

The metric system is yet another of those, superficially appealing, brainstorms that tend to arise in France, Others are V.A.T. and the €uro.

Imperial/U measurement systems have evolved through time and are "Anthropometric", (I.e. related to the human body) and, though arbitrary, have been standardised for some time, including their differences.

The metric system is claimed to be "rational", grew out of the French Revolution and has an incorrect measurement lying at its core.

So, do you prefer something that is merely Arbitrary, or a "Revolting French Cock-up"?

chrisd wrote:

captinjoehenry wrote:I am thinking about introducing the earth metric system as is mostly just because i personally greatly prefer the metric system and it makes life easier for measurements so basicly the metric system as it is today

Please don't.

The metric system is yet another of those, superficially appealing, brainstorms that tend to arise in France, Others are V.A.T. and the €uro.

Imperial/U measurement systems have evolved through time and are "Anthropometric", (I.e. related to the human body) and, though arbitrary, have been standardised for some time, including their differences.

The metric system is claimed to be "rational", grew out of the French Revolution and has an incorrect measurement lying at its core.

So, do you prefer something that is merely Arbitrary, or a "Revolting French Cock-up"?

I prefer the metric rational system rather one that incorporates a a hodge-pod of esoteric rules and constants which requires mathematical operations to convert between different measurements which also means you can lose precision or introduce errors in the conversion.

For example, 1 pound is 7000 grains or 16 oz; try to convert 9.3 oz to pounds or grains without resorting to a calculator or pen and paper. In metric you just move the comma around to convert kilograms to any other metric weight. Even though something has evolved over time doesn't mean it's easy or efficient, it's just that it seems easier to use something you are accustomed to.

And just because the basis for the metric system was an incorrect assumption on the size of the earth doesn't mean the system is bad compared to the Imperial system where almost every unit is an arbitrary measurement of something or derived from such.

Yeap. There's a reason the International System of Units has been so enthusiastically adopted for use in science and medicine everywhere, most industry standards, and all but a few governments. (Only USA, Libia, and Burma have not adopted it as their official measures.)

Of note, the US Customary Units are in fact officially defined in terms of SI Units rather than the Imperial Measures they resemble.

I have to disagree, Joat. The metric system is a convenience for those who can't calculate in their heads and has no other advantages. To the reverse, it encourages people not to bother to learn how to calculate in their heads - a skill that was widespread with the old currencies in earlier years. Do you really want to have Safeholders unable to add, subtract, multiply and divide before they have any calculators to do it for them?
Cheers
John

Thanks for the definition of a 'mil' Dave - I've wondered about that for a long time. They weren't used when I was a Gunner, a long time ago. But wouldn't they work just as well if expressed as deviations of a yard at 1,000 yards?

Cheers

John