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How to get the metric system reinvented

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Re: How to get the metric system reinvented
Post by cadastral   » Sat Mar 14, 2015 9:27 pm

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Aegis99 wrote:There is a reason our time is in base 12, and it is the same reason there are 12 inches in a foot. The five fractions a person uses most in everyday life are 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, and 3/4. All of these fraction are whole rational numbers in base 12. In base 10 only 1/2 is a whole number, all the others are fractions (with the thirds being irrational.


Minor nit, all of those fractions are rational (a ratio of two integers). 1/3 and 2/3 do not have terminating representation in decimal (i.e. the decimal forms of the fraction have an infinite number of 3's and 6's, respectively).

And since we are talking about math, here, I will wish everyone a Happy Pi Day.
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Re: How to get the metric system reinvented
Post by AirTech   » Sun Mar 15, 2015 1:07 am

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Michael Everett wrote:
JeffEngel wrote:Well, the Delthak inch is one standard that they've done a lot of work to keep consistent and in spreading use. They could go from there in a metric-inspired fashion, with measures of volume, mass, force, etc. all based on there, and larger and smaller units of any of them in standardized prefixes and along base 10 or base 12 (for instance) increments.


The Delthak inch has been helpful in that it's just taking the standard Safehold inch (may Langhorne burn in eternal torment at some high temperature Kelvin) and standardizing it. You wouldn't remain in close equivalents to Safehold's conventional measurements and have metric's interrelatedness across different measured properties and consistent base [insert favorite] structure, so it would have to run on the charm of utility from there rather than on the strength of familiarity.


Exactly. You don't need a new measurement, just a way of logically implementing what you already have. Trying to re-establish the meter would be incredibly difficult, especially since you couldn't explain to anyone on Safehold who wasn't already in the know where the darned thing came from!

No, using a regular progression from the Inch makes far more sense given the current religious/societal setup. Once you have the inch standardized, you can then re-standardize all the derivative measurements. For instance, inspired by original Imperial measurements, we could have...
12 inches = 1 foot (already existing, no problems there).
3 feet (36 inches) = 1 yard
12 feet (4 yards) = 1 cord (measurement invented for Safehold)
12 cords (144 feet) = 1 rope
12 ropes(1,728 feet) = 1 cable
3 cables (5,184 feet, 12x12x12x3) = 1 Delthak Mile (1 Earth Imperial mile = 5,280 feet)
12 cables (4 Delthak Miles) = 1 Delthak League
12 Delthak Leagues (48DMile/144 cables) = 1 Delthak Grand League

From the way that many different countries use different inches, they probably have mildly divergent definitions of what a mile actually is. This would allow for "adjustments" to be made, hence the whole simplification without needing new basic measurements thing.


Base 12 measurements make sense if you do math in base 12 (or base 60) like the Babylonians did. Unless you have 12 fingers this is hard. If a computer was developing a measuring system they would probably work on Base 2,8 or 16 (assuming you use binary, some computers have been built using trinary (base 3) code). (RS485 uses trinary coding for data transfer for example (with binary coded data)(high, low, zero)).

The simple fact you are using the number 12 and not 10 (with numbers running 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,X,E) indicates how bad a fit this is to the English (and most other) languages that don't use duodecimal notation.

So to rationalize measurements (and to easily translate the stored drawings in OWL's databases) a base 10 system is most rational. Tooling up with a 25mm inches means that a simple conversion is possible without using 127 tooth gears later (ask any machinist how much fun that is). You then start using units like hands(4").
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Re: How to get the metric system reinvented
Post by chrisd   » Sun Mar 15, 2015 3:50 am

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x
Last edited by chrisd on Sun Mar 15, 2015 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How to get the metric system reinvented
Post by looksbeforeheleaps   » Sun Mar 15, 2015 1:03 pm

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chrisd wrote:
cadastral wrote:And since we are talking about math, here, I will wish everyone a Happy Pi Day.


That's only "American Pi", so Bye, Bye, Miss until 31/4/15.

(Or even until next year , if you round up to "Four figures")

There are only 30 days in April, so your date is meaningless.
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Re: How to get the metric system reinvented
Post by anwi   » Sun Mar 15, 2015 3:13 pm

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If you write the date in a logical order (i.e. you disregard Anglo-American confusions), then the next pi day should be some years away:
3/1/41 some of us might still be around.
3/1/4159 is out of reach.

It only gets marginally better by inverting date notation like good programmers do:
31/4/15 is some years away (and incidentally justifies chrisd) but open to the next millenium bug - and we might live to see it.
3141/5/9 is equally out of reach.

Pi can be hard on you...
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Re: How to get the metric system reinvented
Post by AirTech   » Mon Mar 16, 2015 7:29 am

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anwi wrote:If you write the date in a logical order (i.e. you disregard Anglo-American confusions), then the next pi day should be some years away:
3/1/41 some of us might still be around.
3/1/4159 is out of reach.

It only gets marginally better by inverting date notation like good programmers do:
31/4/15 is some years away (and incidentally justifies chrisd) but open to the next millenium bug - and we might live to see it.
3141/5/9 is equally out of reach.

Pi can be hard on you...


Japanese go yy/mm/dd
BTW it is now Heisei year 27 in Japan so pi day in Japan is four years away.
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Re: How to get the metric system reinvented
Post by Joat42   » Mon Mar 16, 2015 8:17 am

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AirTech wrote:
anwi wrote:If you write the date in a logical order (i.e. you disregard Anglo-American confusions), then the next pi day should be some years away:
3/1/41 some of us might still be around.
3/1/4159 is out of reach.

It only gets marginally better by inverting date notation like good programmers do:
31/4/15 is some years away (and incidentally justifies chrisd) but open to the next millenium bug - and we might live to see it.
3141/5/9 is equally out of reach.

Pi can be hard on you...


Japanese go yy/mm/dd
BTW it is now Heisei year 27 in Japan so pi day in Japan is four years away.

I just wish everyone could switch to ISO-8601 and be done with it.
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Re: How to get the metric system reinvented
Post by chrisd   » Mon Mar 16, 2015 11:42 am

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Joat42 wrote:I just wish everyone could switch to ISO-8601 and be done with it.
Image


Can we be rid of all the "ISO-" numbers, especially ISO-9000 series and the ISO-14000.

get rid of the "dates" confusion by using an alphanumeric form, spell out the month that there's no confusion e.g. 6th January 1947.
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Re: How to get the metric system reinvented
Post by SWM   » Mon Mar 16, 2015 1:12 pm

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chrisd wrote:Can we be rid of all the "ISO-" numbers, especially ISO-9000 series and the ISO-14000.

get rid of the "dates" confusion by using an alphanumeric form, spell out the month that there's no confusion e.g. 6th January 1947.

That means that it will be different in every language. The ISO standard is intended for use internationally.
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Re: How to get the metric system reinvented
Post by anwi   » Mon Mar 16, 2015 2:05 pm

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Joat42 wrote:I just wish everyone could switch to ISO-8601 and be done with it.
Image


There's one drawback to ISO-8601: Next pi day wouldn't happen while Earth exists (assuming that Earth wouldn't survive contact with the outer layers of a Helium-burning Sun).
So, better call off pi day...
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