Metrology for Americans - or why a pint is not a pound the whole world round

[bilby]

I think people get too worked up over their preferred measurement system. The system used is irrelevant as long as the one someone has chosen is standardized and they are able to convert measurements to those other silly systems that other people prefer. The only real important thing about a measurement system is that everyone know and agree on the value of the standards used.

The value of a measurement system is in its usefulness. The SAE system is useful because it makes everyday estimates of approximate measurement values easy without a ruler because many are based on average body measurements, so it’s handy for an individual’s shopping when exactness and critical measurement are not required. The metric system is useful for people who find it difficult to multiply or divide by anything other than ten or multiples of ten.

SAE? Fucking SAE?? I had to look it up! You know your measurement system has big issues with standardisation when there isn't even agreement on what the system itself is called.

Imperial measures, aka 'English', aka 'American', ak(apparently)a 'SAE' are an abomination and must be eradicated.

There are two systems of measurement. 'SI', and 'doing it wrong'.

And by the way, 'metric' isn't SI. 'Metric' is doing it wrong.

Not that I want to be dogmatic about this, but if I had my way, those who use anything other than SI would be hanged, pour encourager les autres.

I don't think people get worked up enough about their preferred measurement system.

If Jenkins' ear, or some Boston tea smugglers protection of their criminal enterprise, or fictional WMDs, are worth going to war over, then this most certainly is. Fuck the question of which imaginary sky-beast's supporters are in possession of Jerusalem. I am not one for hyperbole, but the use of inches, feet and pounds is worse than anything that has ever happened anywhere.

 

[Jokodo]

I think people get too worked up over their preferred measurement system. The system used is irrelevant as long as the one someone has chosen is standardized and they are able to convert measurements to those other silly systems that other people prefer. The only real important thing about a measurement system is that everyone know and agree on the value of the standards used.

The value of a measurement system is in its usefulness. The SAE system is useful because it makes everyday estimates of approximate measurement values easy without a ruler because many are based on average body measurements, so it’s handy for an individual’s shopping when exactness and critical measurement are not required. The metric system is useful for people who find it difficult to multiply or divide by anything other than ten or multiples of ten.

SAE? Fucking SAE?? I had to look it up! You know your measurement system has big issues with standardisation when there isn't even agreement on what the system itself is called.

Imperial measures, aka 'English', aka 'American', ak(apparently)a 'SAE' are an abomination and must be eradicated.

There are two systems of measurement. 'SI', and 'doing it wrong'.

And by the way, 'metric' isn't SI. 'Metric' is doing it wrong. <snip>

And that's why I celebrated my billionth second but didn't celebrate thirty years.

 

[bilby]

SAE? Fucking SAE?? I had to look it up! You know your measurement system has big issues with standardisation when there isn't even agreement on what the system itself is called.

Imperial measures, aka 'English', aka 'American', ak(apparently)a 'SAE' are an abomination and must be eradicated.

There are two systems of measurement. 'SI', and 'doing it wrong'.

And by the way, 'metric' isn't SI. 'Metric' is doing it wrong. <snip>

And that's why I celebrated my billionth second but didn't celebrate thirty years.

I am very glad to hear it. Well done!

 

[barbos]

What is SAE?

 

[Jokodo]

I think people get too worked up over their preferred measurement system. The system used is irrelevant as long as the one someone has chosen is standardized and they are able to convert measurements to those other silly systems that other people prefer. The only real important thing about a measurement system is that everyone know and agree on the value of the standards used.

The value of a measurement system is in its usefulness. The SAE system is useful because it makes everyday estimates of approximate measurement values easy without a ruler because many are based on average body measurements, so it’s handy for an individual’s shopping when exactness and critical measurement are not required. The metric system is useful for people who find it difficult to multiply or divide by anything other than ten or multiples of ten.

"Based on average body measurements" my ass. The foot is no more based on the average length of a foot (it's no wonder the foot-like measures used in the German speaking countries alone before the introduction of the metric system varied in length from 20 to 48 centimetres) than the metre is based on the average height of a person's waistbone. In fact, the latter may, on average, be closer to true.

 

[skepticalbip]

I think people get too worked up over their preferred measurement system. The system used is irrelevant as long as the one someone has chosen is standardized and they are able to convert measurements to those other silly systems that other people prefer. The only real important thing about a measurement system is that everyone know and agree on the value of the standards used.

The value of a measurement system is in its usefulness. The SAE system is useful because it makes everyday estimates of approximate measurement values easy without a ruler because many are based on average body measurements, so it’s handy for an individual’s shopping when exactness and critical measurement are not required. The metric system is useful for people who find it difficult to multiply or divide by anything other than ten or multiples of ten.

"Based on average body measurements" my ass. The foot is no more based on the average length of a foot (it's no wonder the foot-like measures used in the German speaking countries alone before the introduction of the metric system varied in length from 20 to 48 centimetres) than the metre is based on the average height of a person's waistbone. In fact, the latter may, on average, be closer to true.

Note the highlighted section.

I hate to go to Wiki but:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_%28unit%29

Historically the human body has been used to provide the basis for units of length.[36] The foot of a white male is typically about 15.3% of his height,[37] giving a person of 160 cm (5 ft 3 in) a foot of 245 mm and one of 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) a foot of 275 mm. These figures are less than the foot used in most cities over time, suggesting that the "foot" was actually a synonym for a "shoe".

The yard was the distance from the king's nose to the fingers of an outstretched arm.

The inch was originally the length of three barleycorns laid end to end but that length is close enough to the distance between the first two joints of the index finger for the finger to be used as an approximation.

However all these are ancient and the English system of measurements now has as precise definitions as the metric system. But still, when someone is only interested in a reasonably close approximation like buying a yard of cloth, it works.

Personally, I have no real preference for any particular measurement system. The system I use depends on what I am doing and how a product I am buying is packaged. I am just as happy if I order a pint of ale and the bartender gives me a pint or gives me 0.473176 Liters. Or if I order a pint in England and either get an imperial pint or 0.568261 Liters.

 

[Jokodo]

Personally, I have no real preference for any particular measurement system. The system I use depends on what I am doing and how a product I am buying is packaged. I am just as happy if I order a pint of ale and the bartender gives me a pint or gives me 0.473176 Liters.

If I order a pint and the bartender gives me 0.47 litres, I'll raise hell. In the places where I've ordered pints (England, Ireland, Irish pubs on the mainland), a pint is 0.568 litres.

If you people can't even agree on the size of a pint, it really shows that your system doesn't work.

 

[skepticalbip]

Personally, I have no real preference for any particular measurement system. The system I use depends on what I am doing and how a product I am buying is packaged. I am just as happy if I order a pint of ale and the bartender gives me a pint or gives me 0.473176 Liters.

If I order a pint and the bartender gives me 0.47 litres, I'll raise hell. In the places where I've ordered pints (England, Ireland, Irish pubs on the mainland), a pint is 0.568 litres.

Cross posting. I happened to think of pints in England as was adding the revision while you posted. However, since I generally order beer and ale in the US, I wasn't thinking of England.

 

[bilby]

"Based on average body measurements" my ass. The foot is no more based on the average length of a foot (it's no wonder the foot-like measures used in the German speaking countries alone before the introduction of the metric system varied in length from 20 to 48 centimetres) than the metre is based on the average height of a person's waistbone. In fact, the latter may, on average, be closer to true.

Note the highlighted section.

I hate to go to Wiki but:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_%28unit%29

Historically the human body has been used to provide the basis for units of length.[36] The foot of a white male is typically about 15.3% of his height,[37] giving a person of 160 cm (5 ft 3 in) a foot of 245 mm and one of 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) a foot of 275 mm. These figures are less than the foot used in most cities over time, suggesting that the "foot" was actually a synonym for a "shoe".

The yard was the distance from the king's nose to the fingers of an outstretched arm.

The inch was originally the length of three barleycorns laid end to end but that length is close enough to the distance between the first two joints of the index finger for the finger to be used as an approximation.

However all these are ancient and the English system of measurements now has as precise definitions as the metric system. But still, when someone is only interested in a reasonably close approximation like buying a yard of cloth, it works.

Personally, I have no real preference for any particular measurement system. The system I use depends on what I am doing and how a product I am buying is packaged. I am just as happy if I order a pint of ale and the bartender gives me a pint or gives me 0.473176 Liters. Or if I order a pint in England and either get an imperial pint or 0.568261 Liters.

It is hardly convenient to have to have the king present every time cloth is traded; nor for the length of a yard to change every time there is a coronation, nor indeed to have a measure that increases over time in those cases where the king is still a child when he ascends to the throne.

As to what happens when there are two or more claimants to the throne simultaneously, I shudder to think. The king is hardly in a position to go around measuring cloth for people while also fighting for his kingdom against a pretender.

No wonder the rest of the world dropped this insane standard.

 

[fast]

But I like horsepower. And inches too, but not too many of them.

 

[barbos]

Personally, I have no real preference for any particular measurement system. The system I use depends on what I am doing and how a product I am buying is packaged. I am just as happy if I order a pint of ale and the bartender gives me a pint or gives me 0.473176 Liters. Or if I order a pint in England and either get an imperial pint or 0.568261 Liters.

Did you by any chance work on Mars Climate Orbiter software?

 

[Bomb#20]

By the way, is this about your visceral reaction against a gold standard?

To the contrary, it's all about your desperate attempts to make out gold as somehow objectively special when it clearly isn't.

Ah, so it's about your visceral reaction against me. Can't help you with that. But I was suggesting gold was special only in the negative sense that when I investigated the problem of how to define mass in terms of a chosen number of atoms it turned out there are a variety of idiosyncratic problems that afflict various candidate materials, and it amused me that the only familiar substance that appeared to lack all of them was gold. If niobium also lacks these deficiencies, so much the better.

In any event, "desperate" is a strange thing for you to accuse someone else of, when you're the guy who proposed to make a standard mass reference out of this:

 

[Bomb#20]

There are two systems of measurement. 'SI', and 'doing it wrong'.

And by the way, 'metric' isn't SI. 'Metric' is doing it wrong.

Not that I want to be dogmatic about this, but if I had my way, those who use anything other than SI would be hanged, pour encourager les autres.

That's an odd thing to say about an arbitrary snapshot of an evolving arbitrary convention. If the criterion for "wrong" is that we're overriding nature with units chosen for the sake of tradition and human convenience, surely a system like Hartree units has better claim to be "doing it right". Alternately, if the criterion for "wrong" is imprecision, then SI has already been superseded by "conventional electrical units".

Conversely, if the SI Coulomb being off by 3 parts in a billion doesn't make it "wrong", because it's what's traditional and generally accepted as the coulomb, and that's enough to make it "right" by definition, because the criterion for "wrong" is simply potential for communication breakdown, due to nonconformity to whichever convention is in most widespread use among the people with whom you intend to communicate, then the inescapable conclusion is that anybody who proposes to hang non-SI-users "pour encourager les autres" must be hanged, to encourage the others.

 

[TV and credit cards]

What is SAE?

Having to own two sets of tools.

 

[Togo]

The yard was the distance from the king's nose to the fingers of an outstretched arm.

The original measure, a cloth yard was literally an arm's length. You buy cloth from a merchant off of big rolls, and he measures the amount you're getting by holding roll in front of him, grabbing the end, and then pulling his arm out from his body as far as it would go. That's a cloth yard, which was later standardised to a yard by measuring a well-known public figure (the king).

That, incidentally, is why rich merchants, particularly silk merchants, are traditionally portrayed as being very short. Because that literally means that when you buy from them you're getting short measure, because their arms are shorter, so their cloth yards are shorter. You get less cloth and they get more profit.

The term survived for longest in archery, where a cloth yard arrow was the longest you could draw (the distance between your nose and your outstretched arm).

 

[fromderinside]

But I like horsepower. And inches too, but not too many of them.

Clark Hull (look him up) would have measure horse power by the amount of shit horses left when working. As for inches I'm never going to index finger knuckle under.

 

[Peez]

Nobody has mentioned the slug, so I will:

The slug.

Carry on.

Peez

 

[Loren Pechtel]

 

[beero1000]

Another (dumb) American convention is paper size. Letter? Legal? Seriously?

Meet the A standard. Start with A0, which is a 1 square meter sheet of paper with the special property that if it is cut in half, the two resulting A1 sheets have the same aspect ratio as the original (The necessary aspect ratio turns out to be \(\sqrt{2}:1\)). Continue to define A2, A3, A4, ... etc. Welcome to the sane world of non-distorted aspect ratio scaling and conversion.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Imperial measures, aka 'English', aka 'American', ak(apparently)a 'SAE' are an abomination and must be eradicated.

Oddly enough, that isn't completely true. I work in a field, geotech, that is based heavily on English units... ie drive a hammer that weighs x pounds a distance of y inches into the ground until your sampler penetrates z inches. There was an attempt to shift to metric, but it didn't work well because the science is wrapped around correlations from field testing done in English units and it'd be impossible to shift it to metric without fucking up the entire system.

Otherwise, I'm quite good with shifting to a measuring system that has more logic.