A Metric Matter

[Buford T. Justice]

@franzliszt
Thanks for the compliment. I tried to write it in a way that was hopefully fun, informative, and entertaining. The data is easy. The words are the hard part.

With temperature, I was trying to allude to each degree of Fahrenheit is not as meaningful as each degree of Celsius. Living in the USA, I am perfectly use to Fahrenheit. I am understanding more and more about Celsius each day as I use it. I have two weather displays for my Fine Offset weather station. One is set to imperial/Fahrenheit/12-hour and the other is set to metric/Celsius/24-hour. I do use hPa on both for barometric pressure as that was quite easy to grasp over inHg.

We use both rough (meaning something is course coarse) and ruff (the sound a dog makes). We use cough (bodily function), but I have never seen coff.

@sfws
mg = milligrams
mcg = micrograms
mEq = milliequivalents

Looking at a few bottles of prescription medicine, they all use mg.

[bruce45]

just to diverse slightly. what about metric with currency? how many remember lsd money 12 pennies to 1 shilling 20 shillings to the pound. going out with 10 bob for a good drink and still have change for fish and chips.

and then we where metricated or decimalised as the government put it.

yep the good old days

bruce

[beteljuice]

We use both rough (meaning something is course coarse)

[Buford T. Justice]

just to diverse slightly. what about metric with currency? how many remember lsd money 12 pennies to 1 shilling 20 shillings to the pound. going out with 10 bob for a good drink and still have change for fish and chips.

and then we where metricated or decimalised as the government put it.

yep the good old days

bruce

It is mainly an article geared towards the USA where I live. Our money has been "metric" for quite sometime now. Well actually it is decimal money going to the hundredth (penny).

[Buford T. Justice]

We use both rough (meaning something is course coarse)

Oops.

[weatherfrog80]

Growing up with metric all my life, the Fahrenheit scale is rather confusing for me.
Sure i can do a quick conversion by multiplying the temperature in Celsius with 1.8, but it really
doesn't sound right to me when 30 degrees is supposed to be cold or 100 degrees is considered as very hot, though actually i would almost start to burn at 100 degrees outside.

Also the same goes with inches, the first thing it is splitted into 12 parts instead the very comfortable ten parts we have in the metric system.
If you are not used to that it sounds very odd when some says he is e.g. 5 ft and 11 inches (which makes you want to drag a calculator since you don't have quick imagination how tall that is), while if the person says he is 1.80 m it is perfectly clear to me.

On the other hand, there are some things that are given in inches here:
The diameter of car and bicycle tires is given in inches here (we call it Zoll), so when you are buying a new tire for your bike the diameter will be e.g. 26 Zoll and not the equivalent of 66 cm.
Or another example would be the size of a Monitor or a TV which is also mainly given in Zoll with the metric
equivalent in cm added behind it.

Pound (Pfund) is also something which we use in everyday life, but here it is the metric pound (so one pound equals exactly 1/2 kilo or 500 grams). An example of using it would be when you are at the butcher's and order a pound of hackepeter (minced meat). Or the 1 pound loaf of bread you get at a bakery.

I know that the USA tried to switch to metric (in the 70s or so) but it failed, so maybe a second attempt in the future might persuade more people that switching to metric values is actually a big advantage and will in the end make their lifes easier.
We have a german idiom which describes that situation, when people are afraid of radical changes to do something in a new way (don't know if an quivalent exists in englisch as well):
"What the peasant doesn't know he doesn't eat".

Cheers

Georg

[sfws]

(deleted)

[mcrossley]

As far as I know, in pharmaceuticals, mg is always milligram, µg is the preferred abbreviation for micrograms though mcg is sometimes used, as is fully spelling microgram due to possible confusion of with mg.

I just checked our medicine cabinet, all the packets I came across that contained ingredients in microgram quantities used µg - my daughter cannot believe how sad I am

[sfws]

(deleted)

[beteljuice]

Soon I doubt if there will be people left alive who recall using rods and links

But the distance between cricket wickets will still be a chain and horses will still pass the final furlong marker

And your car .... Internal Combustion Engine capacity (volume) in cc. - but don't we all like Horse Power

[RayProudfoot]

For those of you who can't easily convert Fahrenheit to Celsius or vice versa this may help...

For F to C, subtract 30 and divide by 2. So 50F - 30 = 20 / 2 = 10C. It gets a bit less accurate the warmer it gets.

For C to F, double it and add 30. So 20C * 2 = 40 + 30 = 70F. Actual temp is 68F.

Sad person that I am I've been able to mentally convert between the two scales since I was a lad.

[gluepack]

Sad person that I am I've been able to mentally convert between the two scales since I was a lad.

Nothing sad about it except that it demonstrates a mental agility that is sadly lacking in kids nowadays.

Even better is the correct conversion of subtracting 32 from F, multiplying by 5 and dividing by 9 (or, what I do, dividing by 9 and multiplying by 5) to get C (and the reverse process for C to F), which comes as second nature and is something that I have never had a problem with doing.

As suggested, there are some vast benefits from using metric, particularly with volume as (and this could be added to the "Toward a Metric America" document)
e.g. 1 cu m = 1000 litres
So, how much water does a box of 10cm x 15cm x 12cm contain? Easy, 1800cc or 1.8 litre.
Try that with US/UK measurements of 1 cu yd = 201.974/168.178 gallons and,
so, how much water does a box of 4" x 6" x 5" contain?
Well, actually it is 0.5194 US gallons or 0.4326 UK gallons but then I use a Windows calculator that has unit conversion on it for things like that.

[RayProudfoot]

Nothing sad about it except that it demonstrates a mental agility that is sadly lacking in kids nowadays.

Even better is the correct conversion of subtracting 32 from F, multiplying by 5 and dividing by 9 (or, what I do, dividing by 9 and multiplying by 5) to get C (and the reverse process for C to F), which comes as second nature and is something that I have never had a problem with doing.

Kids rely on their iPhones for everything these days including mental arithmetic. I do a mental mind quiz in the newspaper every day to keep me sharp. Well, relatively sharp.

Working out the actual temperature using that formula should be within the grasp of anyone who has passed any mathematical exam but sadly it isn't any more.

Knowing both temperature scales will be useful if you travel the world but I have never found the need for volume conversion. Maybe if your job demands it it would be useful.

[colinpb]

I was educated using the old imperial system, but my career is in the UK construction industry where we use millimetres (mm) and metres (m). We do not use centimetres (cm) due the dangers of confusion with millimetres. However us older guys still think and talk in feet and inches. Over the years I have worked on a lot of refurbishment projects where everything was originally constructed using feet and inches. As a consequence, converting feet to mm and m, and vice versa has become instinctive. In fact a lot of the materials used are still based on imperial sizes converted to mm; an 8 x 4 sheet of ply is 2.44 x 1.22m. At home when doing DIY I use both inches and mm, depending which fits a dimension best. The only time I can get caught out is when looking at dimensions on over seas construction projects or in the UK generally, where cm is used not mm.

I agree that mental agility appears to be lacking theses days, the younger guys in work reach for some form of calculator however easy the arithmetic is. My mental agility was probably helped because when I started my career calculators were a new and very expense toy, and all I had was my mind together with pen and paper or a slide rule.

I notice Ray you use a similar calculation to get C to F as i do, however in your example I would use 20C x 2 = 40+32(not 30) = 72 then deduct the number of 5’s in the C number i.e. 20/5=4, therefore 72-4=68F.

Colin

[RayProudfoot]

You must be an oldie like me Colin. We was educated real proper - not like these kids today who have 15 A-levels but can't add up!

When I was a lad and misbehaved I would often get a good slippering on the backside from my old man. Fully deserved it even if I didn't think so at the time. Never even thought about my human rights!

The most effective punishment you can meet out today is removal of the mobile phone. Imagine the cries of anguish! I wonder if any here have done that. How long did you last before you couldn't stand the pleading any more?

Sorry to drift away from the thread title. My double it and add 30 was a very quick 'n dirty formula. I agree that yours is better Colin. Never seen it that way before.