Imperial or Metric system ?

Codemonger · Post by **Codemonger** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:16 pm

What measurement system do you use ? In Canada we use the Metric system... but once you cross the border to the U.S. it's a different story. I wonder if they will ever upgrade ?

El_Choni · Post by **El_Choni** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:26 pm

Here we use the DMS since long ago... but I hadn't heard of the "Imperial" system, lol (not with that name)... Almost everywhere you'll find that people used, till not long ago, hexadecimal or octal systems mostly, and still conserve words for these old units of measure.

But I agree that it's not worth using them anymore... remember why the Mars Climate Orbiter crashed?

Like two people coding and app, one using bytes and the other, nibbles.

Regards,

tinman · Post by **tinman** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:35 pm

The UK uses both, although only really the major imperial units (miles, stones/pounds) and there is a shift towards metric stuff (everything in shops are now metric weights).

nhokem · Post by **nhokem** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:33 pm

i remember back in the 70s there was a push in the US schools to learn the metric system, but other than a few experiments in classrooms, that never caught on. i wouldn't mind changing over (since its become pretty generic the world over), but it would definitely take a while for my "imperial system" trained senses to adjust ...

Num3 · Post by **Num3** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:58 pm

That's the reason why a plane crashed...

Co-pilot calculated needed fuel in liters and the airport fuelled the plane with gallons...

1 gallon = +/- 5 liters, so they had 1/5 of the needed fuel...

It crashed over the atlantic ... LOL

freedimension · Post by **freedimension** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:38 pm

Num3 wrote:That's the reason why a plane crashed...

Co-pilot calculated needed fuel in liters and the airport fuelled the plane with gallons...

1 gallon = +/- 5 liters, so they had 1/5 of the needed fuel...

It crashed over the atlantic ... LOL

That makes no sense. They would have had 5 times more fuel on board then needed, not less!

Another story:
Between Germany and Switzerland they build a bridge over the Rhein. The german team began building on the german side and the swiss team on the swiss one. As they were to meat in the middle they had a difference of up 54 centimetres.
The reason: in Germany and Switzerland they have different sea levels. While in Germany the level of the northsea is taken, the swiss take the level of the mediterranean that is 27cm lower *g*
The engineer knew about it, but instead of raising the bridge on the swiss side, he lowered it, thus resulting in a double failure of 54cm.

the.weavster · Post by **the.weavster** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 9:25 pm

Metrication gets on my thrupenny-bits

PB · Post by PB » Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:39 am

> What measurement system do you use ?

In Australia it's metric. Quite frankly, I think it makes more sense because
it's decimal-based (everything's a multiple of 10). Such as:

10 mm = 1 cm.
100 cm = 1 m.
1000 m = 1 km.

And so on.

Doobrey · Post by **Doobrey** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:52 am

I just use whatever is easiest to read on the tape measure.. :roll:
Well, it`s easier to say 4 feet instead of 1.22m , or 1m instead of 39 and 3/8ths inches..

It doesn`t help when one person I work for gives me instructions in imperial then someone else asks for things in metric..

syntax error · Post by **syntax error** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 3:24 pm

Metric here as well. As PB says, easier to work with.

Compare

What is (25cm + 72cm) / 16cm?

with

What is (2' 3" + 5' 9") / 2' 1" ?

MadMax · Post by **MadMax** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 4:04 pm

Depends on what you are doing, for carpentry inches are better than centimetres.

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