Comments by "GH1618" (@GH-oi2jf) on "Quest for an International Standard Measure: The History of Metrication" video.

  1. Mark Holm — I’m trained in an engineering discipline and thoroughly familiar with all of thos metric units, but in everyday life it just doesn’t matter. For example, a person who uses power tools knows the difference between motors of 1/2, 3/4, or 1 horsepower, but doesn’t need to calculate anything as a user. An engineer who designs machinery does have to calculate, but engineers can handle it. It does not follow that an engineer wants to force metric units into everyday use where it doesn’t matter.
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  2. FredricF — That’s easy, but it is an example typical of metric advocates — contrived. When one needs a gallon of something, nobody measures it out a fluid ounce at a time. It is sufficient to know that there are four quarts to a gallon. Common units of measure are used in context. We know that a 12 or 14 oz glass is less than a pint (16 oz in the US) but nobody cares, because we don’t usually order beer by the pint.
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  3. By the way, I thought the “grain” was based on the weight of a grain of barley.
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  4. You got to the crux of the matter at the end. We in the U. S. A. use American Customary Units first, because we are a practical people, and second, because we don’t like coercion. The European Union actually tried to force U. K. pubs to give up their pints, but backed off. Here, we don’t care if a beer is measured in fluid ounces or milliliters. It just doesn’t matter. The fact is that Americans are far better at using the metric system than Europeans are at using American Customary Units.
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  5. Kirk Claybrook — I already was an expert in metric measurement. You completely missed my point.
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  6. I think that last point is the main one. In the United States, we don’t like coercion, especially without purpose.
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  7. js4653 — A weak argument, because 1/64 precision is rarely used. When it is used, most people would have the good sense to write down the dimensions on the drawings. And, by the way, high precision work in American Customary Units is done in inches and decimal fractions of an inch.
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  8. I think die-hard metric advocates should try rewriting and playing music with tenth notes.
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  9. Exactly, except I would say “bimetral.”
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  10. Poor QA.
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  11. Peter Timowreef — When one is free to choose units, one will choose that which is most convenient for the purpose at hand. That is the right choice, whichever system it is in.
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  12.  @-oiiio-3993  — Decimal currency is not metric, it’s just decimal. The “metric system” comprises the meter and units of measurment derived from the meter. Decimal numbers are much older than the metric system.
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  13. Money is not metric, it is merely decimal.
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  14. Phish N' Chimps — but are they American “pint’s” [sic] or Imperial pints?
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  15. Jeremy Ardley — I usually write dd Mon yyyy. I haven’t been arrested yet.
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  16. Larry Scott — The New Shorter Oxford gives “metrication.” For “metrification,” the second definition is “metrication.”
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  17. I never had any trouble remembering that ice forms at 32°F, but some people are slow learners, I guess. For that matter, I never had any trouble with fractional wrench sizes. Anyway, automobiles have been using metric hardware for decades now.
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  18. crazy observations — Anybody raised with American units can read and understand a ruler with its successive divisions by two, or else they just never need to measure anything. There are some contexts in which inches are used with decimal fractions, but I have never encountered a situation in which I needed to convert between them. An old friend of mine, who is a defender of the use of metric, asked me by of argument what the area of a rectangle of 1 and 3/16 inch by 2 and 1/32 inch (or something like that) was. Who wants to know the area of a postage stamp? Nobody. Whether ordinary people in everyday situations, or engineers and scientists practicing their professions, we use units which are convenient for our purpose. If they weren’t convenient, we would use something else.
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  19. Coinage is decimal, not metric. And it is interesting that the most widely circulated coin is the quarter.
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  20.  @-oiiio-3993  — Yes, I read it. We agree that coinage is decimal. But it is not “metric” as you stated in your first line. It is not based on le mètre.
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  21. Yes, it was a process error. Poor quality control. Also a rare failure — so rare that this incident is cited over and over. There are no other such failures.
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  22. But that is just machinists making parts. There has been some use of metric units in the interface to the people who fly and maintain the aircraft. Reportedk, the “Gimli Glider” incident was caused in part by the fact that the B767 was Boeing’s first metric aircraft, whatever that means. In part, it meant that the measurement of fuel changed.
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  23. You have an error. A fifth of a US gallon is a little more than 750 ml.
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  24.  @-oiiio-3993  — Posting it twice doesn’t makr it so. Decimal currency has nothing whatever to do with the metric system. “Decimal” does not imply “metric.”
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  25. James Staley — It may have been a joke.
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  26. Precision does not depend on units.
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  27. Darrel Carson — Prefessional mechanics got past this long ago. I’ve never heard anyone complain about this.
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  28. We are makng progress on Covid-19 vaccination, despite it being optional.
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  29. Dan Patterson — That’s correct. Why don’t we hear metric advocates using Newtons more?
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  30. James Horn — Until recent times, great accuracy was not required.
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  31. So would you scrap every machine which used SAE hardware? You would need a large dustbin.
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  32. We didn’t think of the foot and pound first, either, but we use them.
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  33. The US Customary units have been defined relative to metric units for quite a long time, as THG said.
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  34. Steven Homan — Actually, sciene in the USA has been done in SI for a long time. The blame for the failure of the Mars probe belongs on those responsible for enforcing standards and performing QA, not on our use of American Customary Units in ordinary commerce.
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  35. Precision does not depend on units.
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  36. One angle I didn’t find here — AC power. Invented by Nikola Tesla and developed by Westinghouse in the United States, 60 cycles was settled on for practical engineering reasons. I have read that Europe adopted 50 cycle AC for no reason other than 60 offended their metric sensibilities. They couldn’t use 100 cycles because it was too far away from optimal to be practical, but they could get by with 50 cycles which was more metric-like. If true, this illustrates the difference between American and European thinking in a nutshell. I doubt there is any electrical engineering calculation which is more complicated for 60 cycle than for 50.
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  37. Most people use units of measurement because they have a practical problem to solve.
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  38. max Payne — We (Americans) do not use Imperial units.
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  39. Accuracy does not depend on units.
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  40. Jayne Gus — I don’t think it’s a matter of haste in converting, but with insufficient care in making a critical measurement and perhaps inadequate training and procedures.
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  41. There is a small error in that article. In 1959, both the British and the US inch and foot differed from what they are today, and from each other. The British Commonwealth and the United States created the International Foot by agreeing to use the Canadian inch of 2.54 cm, exactly.
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  42. Alistair Winthorpe — Don’t they also use yards for artillery and distance to other ships generally?
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  43.  @-oiiio-3993  — No, money is decimal not metric.
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  44. The United States adopted the metric system in 1866.
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  45. 240pixel — We use both. NASA should be all metric, but it does not follow that we should use metric for everyday measurements.
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  46. No, because we do use the metric system. The question is whether we should stop using Customary units.
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  47. No, they tried to encourage it and facilitate it, not force it.
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  48. But the US didn’t go metric. If it matters to you, you should agree on those details up front. I’m a Usanian. If I received a plan in metric units I would just carry it out using metric measuring tools. This does not seem like a big deal.
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  49. Decimal does not imply metric. US machinists work in inches with decimal fractions. Are they using the metric system? No. “Metric” in this context means derived from le mètre.
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  50. realvanman1 — Actually, engines are almost always expressed in liters nowadays in the U. S. It started with motorcycles when the Honda 50 came to the States in the 1960s. Now car engines commonly are expressed in liters. My engine is advertised as 2.5 liters when 150 ci is more accurate.
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  51. We have a better feeling for time than distance, and time is what we need anyway. when I am heading for the airport, I need to be there in time to make my flight.
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  52. A US mile is 1.6 km, approximately.
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  53. longlakeshore — Speak for yourself. I have a graduate degree in an engineering field and have plenty of training in science. I do not advocate abandoning American Customary Units for everyday use.
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  54. The medical industry has been almost completely metric for a long time.
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  55. You do here what every metric apologist does — present a contrived problem which never comes up in practice. Nobody cares how many inches are in a mile, even though it is easily determined. It isn’t about conversion, it is about convenience of units in a particular context. The inch is a convenient unit, but we don’t care about inches per gallon of gasoline when we drive.
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  56. We still use fractional inch wrenches because we have a lot of machinery with fractional inch hardware to maintain. What would you do with such machinery?
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  57. And if drill sizes were impossible to understand, nobody would use them. I’m sure the people who actually use the letter sizes understand them.
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