American Reacts to Is The Metric System Actually Better?
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- čas přidán 15. 07. 2023
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In this video I react to is the metric system actually better? As someone who grew up using the imperial system, I never thought of it as difficult. However, after watching this it seems that the metric system just might be easier than the measurement system I'm used to. Even though I've never personally needed to understand metric, I think it would be a great idea to spend some time learning the basics.
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I am English and I am old enough to have used the Imperial & metric systems. Metric is much the easier system to use as everything is divisible by 10. 🏴🏴🏴
I'm an engineer and have always worked in both, but if I had to pick one to use exclusively it would be metric.
You still use the Imperial system. Pretty sure you will have heard of miles or pints.
@@Shoomer1988 in England though we use a mixture of measurements. It's common for people to refer to their height in feet and inches, weight in stones and pounds, distance in miles and milk in pints. Other liquids will usually be litres.
@@Shoomer1988That’s a very fair point. It really is quite strange that we still use both😊
@@Shoomer1988 Yes, we do still use Imperial Units for a few things here in the UK. Like distances between places and liquids like milk* and beer but not much else. We have been using Metric Units for almost everything for about 40 years.
*: Milk is also sold in Metric quantities.
In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade (or kelvin), which is one percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point.
Try using the imperial system to answer the question "How much energy does it take to boil a room temperature gallon of water?"
It takes sixteen nineteenths of a foootpound of pressure at eleventy Fahrenheit obviously.
@@Nevyn515 LoL :)
1 pascal on 1 sqare meter - > 1 Newton.... Next example
One gallon of water takes One BTU to raise it by One Degree Fahrenheit. Take your room temperature off of 212. That many BTU. Easy.
Now name a good song in metric.
@@davegibbs403 Wrong, the BTU is the energy needed to raise by 1 degree Fahrenheit 1 pound (not 1 gallon) of water at sea level. And 1 gallon of water is 8.3333333333 lbs.
I grew up using metric but became an aircraft engineer, where everything is imperial. Going from something that is simple and intuitive to something so random and arbitrary was a bit of a struggle.
Righto, AN hardware is in Imperial, AN4-36 for example. The diameter of '4' is 4/16" or 1/4". Grip length is not as logical, and a reference table is needed to convert the dash number.
yeah as im studying in avionics damn those imperial units are starnge not gonna lie
Russian planes use metric. French planes use Imperial. Funny, huh?
that sentence together with that weird name .....
What is an inch? Is the thumb of a king that died in the 18th century... 😂
fun fact!
the kilogram was first defined as the mass of 1L water, which is why 1L water weighs about 1kg
@@michaeledmunds7056actually the definition was a 1 kg cylinder of platinum-iridium.
More than that: 1 cubic centimeter of water has a volume of 1 milliliter, weights 1gram, and it takes 1 calorie to heat it up in 1°C... We're talking about size, volume, wheight, energy and temperature, all lined up!
TRY DOING THAT WITH IMPERIAL!!!
@@thorbjrnhellehaven5766That came later.
It was introduced in 1795 as the mass of 1 kg of water. In 1799, it was replaced by a platinum prototype. In 1889, it was replaced by the platinum-iridium prototype you're referring to.
@@thorbjrnhellehaven5766 actually it was FIRST defined, in 1795, as the mass of 1 litre of water. The platinum-iridium object based IPK was adopted in 1889. Well done for incorrecting him lol
@@davidlittle3500 my reply was to @michaeledmunds7056 . They claimed it was defined by a 1g weight. But their commet has been removed.
My last physics teacher said once "At home (former english colony around india) I learned the imperial system in months and later the metric system in a week. Then I came to Germany and never used imperial again."
Here in Australia we successfully converted everything from antiquated imperial to metric in 1973. Took a couple of years for everything to fall into place but it was a very easy transition. 🤗👍
In England we were half-assed as usual.
At least we sorted the money out.
In South Africa we also adopted it in 1970, some people still refer to a person's height in feet for some reason but everything else in metric. I do a lot of volume calculation and some of the measurements will be in meters and centimetres and that is easy I think I had feet in inches it would be a pain in the but.
Unfortunately we still need imperial spanners and sockets for a lot of old cars, and we still measure our waves in feet.😄
1972 here in Victoria i remember using the 2 in that year then by years end school was metricated
@@DavidHands I was just thinking if you want to see what mess it really is, look at tyres, width and height in mm then diameter in inches
Hi, we in New Zealand converted to metric in 1972. We’ve grown up having to use both. I do like that 10cm cubed of water equals 1litre. 1litre also weighs 1 kilogram. 1000 litres = 1 ton.. 100centre metres (meters in USA) =1 metre.1000metres = 1kilometre. As you can start to see it’s very regular.
Do you still hand in your mileage expenses as I used to do in Auckland?
In kilometres of course!
heeee, i'd say a 10cm cube (no d) = 1 Litre = 1000cc (cubed centimeters)...
I'm just french, we invented this s... Love you
@@sylviemanson9761 In Australia, mL and L is used on an everyday basis by consumers, for like drinks and other liquid grocery items.
The cc unit is used more commonly in industrial, scientific and medical fields. But, an Australian would know cc is identical to mL.
Also, the heat needed to raise the temperature of that liter/kilogram of water by one degree Celsius or Kelvin is one calorie - although now Joule is the preferred energy unit used in thermodynamics.
The Celsius scale is defined by water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C. Again, decimal.(The Kelvin scale just shifted the origin to absolute zero.)
Centi, not centre.
I'm from Brazil. Of course we use the metric system for everything because of European influence, but since I have a Engineering degree, it's usual to learn how to do engineering-stuff in both systems while at the university because a lot of the textbooks are in English. When you see the professors explaining how to do things in metric, and then switch to the stupidity of the conversions of the Imperial system to do the same thing, it is like: WTF how come they still use this in the US? Things started to get messier right at the beginning of first term with my professor of mass balances explaining what a pound-mole is...
Sou técnico em eletromecânica e tive que aprender a usar o Sistema Imperial. Dá dor de cabeça. Eu consigo ter noção de quanto 3/4" é, mas ainda assim é bizarro.
we use both because we don't have laws requiring us to use only one system. Sometimes one is better than another, they are tools in the tool box.
To be able to use the metric system, you first have to be able to count to ten. That rules out quite a few 😏
@@kasperkjrsgaard1447 true and apparently to not use the metric system, one's math skills need to go beyond moving a decimal point, that rules out quite a few.
When I started school we were taught Imperial measures.
About three years later they had a change of mind and went metric.
So now I can use both systems interchangeably.
I can easily crash a Mars lander. No worries.
lol
@@sirophic The people who crashed it for real didn't lol. 😉🤣
ha ha, thats a good one :)
I have to admit, being raised purely in metric my opportunities to crash a mars lander are somewhat diminished. I am confident I can still make it not work, though.
@@sntxrrr Here are some helpful hints: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_2
Brits put that twisted wreckage on Mars.
It's a bit like chucking rubbish over your neighbour's fence.
@Steve - Here's something that will blow your mind...Metric has been the OFFICIAL units in USA since 1975 when President Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act!
The problem in USA is that while science uses metric, industry insists on sticking with Imperial which causes crazy problems.
To be fair, the UK uses mixed measurements also but in the USA it's a problem of cost. Every vehicle would need speedos changed to km/hr, any street sign with a distance or speed needs replacing, mile markers are defunct, etc.
It can be done but the cost would be insane. It'll only get larger the longer it waits. Unless they silently start manufacturing new infrastructure like street signs, with both measurementd on it. It'll eventually reach critical mass where metric is on more than imperial so the switch is easier
Not as much cost as some would think. Alot of our measuring tools are capable of both to include speedometer, signage would need to change, the next generation taught on the system. The real issue comes with retooling industrial centers from imperial to metric.
@@rickau In the UK, our speedometers have measurements in Miles and Kilometers. So not hard to switch. You just have a long changeover time. Why would it cost (per capita) the US any more to do it, than it cost Ireland, or Australia, or India, or Canada? You have a 25 year transition plan, starting off by replacing signs as they age out.
@@rickau Canada also uses mixed measurements. The problem is parents. Check out what you use Imperial on, cooking, your height and weight, the water temperature in the pool... The things you use metric on are those that you are taught in school.
@@KurtFrederiksen for the ones with both lines, Yes. For those already metric, the task is done. It is the ones that are imperial only that would run into issues and only if it is nessisary to do so.
I used to imagine height and weight in feet and inches and pounds before. But then, I moved to a country that uses metric. It wasn’t as difficult to adjust as I expected. It went pretty smoothly and before I knew it, I can intuitively imagine 30cm rather than a foot, or a meter rather than a yard as my base measurements. The fact that it’s easier and I don’t need to remember so many numbers for conversion helps make transition so painless. Even if you’re used to imperial.
All the arguments against the metric system were also used when we converted some like 60 years ago. So glad we did. Nothing actually stops you other than what you are used to. Excellent contribution!
And you get used to it in a year. It's not like it takes a lifetime to get used to it, either.
I love the way the humour in the first 3 mins goes straight over Steve's head! 😁 'Alamabama native!!'
love the tintin rocket !
He's very slow
@@sylviemanson9761 I think that's an actual V-2 launch and not a rocket from Tintin
@@rexsceleratorum1632 it sure is a V2 and watching it i realized where Hergé got his design for the Tintin rocket
Nien Nien Nien Nien Nien Nien Nien Nien Nien that's a lot of friends 🤣
I had an American tell me recently on Facebook, that if America wanted to use millimetres, they wouldn't have thrown the tea in the sea. 😂😂😂😂
I didn't have the heart to tell him lol
For the same reason, it always makes me laugh when Americans unironically call Imperial "Freedom units". 😅
You should have asked him what are the American units of resistance as opposed to the SI units of milliohms, ohms, kiloohms, megaohms. . . .They are so blinkered that they don't realise that they are already part SI metric.
@@martinconnelly1473hilarious is that the measurements for bullets is in metric not imperial.
To be honest, you wre more likely to have realised he was too stupid to understand why he was an idiot for saying that.
@@MegaKapo12 🤣🤣🤣 the biggest fans of guns!
I am retired from engineering in the US. I mainly have used imperial units (and really hated using fractional inches). I worked on a project in Scotland, which was in metric. Having learned the system in science class, I liked doing that project a lot.
I remember when I was in 5th grade some law was passed to implement the metric system in the United States. I remember my teacher saying we're switching next week and she began teaching it. We did in fact learn the metric system as it's not really hard, even for a fifth grader, but as far as I could tell no one was using the metric system outside that classroom. 40+ years later we are still using the imperial system. We really should switch, the short term pain would be bad, but the long term benefits would be worth it. We will have to switch eventually, better sooner than later.
As a kid in the UK in the 70's, I was taught at school in metric but worked with my dad in imperial. I can still use both, but metric is a lot simpler.
I was born in 1981 and had the same experience; taught metric at school and worked in both with my step-dad, mainly Imperial though. I quite like our messy way of dealing with measurement units, it's a built-in maths lesson. I do maths in my head far faster than my kids, despite them being more intelligent than I am.
If you can do 10x tables you can use metric. It's literally that simple.
One of the few pairs of metric units that I still need a calculator for is converting between m/s and km/h. Even then, I know that to go from m/s to km/h, you just multiply by 3.6, or (3600 seconds)/(1000m). I can’t do the calculation in my head, but I know what number to multiply or divide by and why.
@@Ben_Kimber Yea, the time units (second, minute & hour) are the last remaining bastion of antique units. And they are OLD. the division in the multiples of 60 was a common, reasonable thing for babylonians some 4000 years ago. Maybe we should change that, too?
@@OldieBugger That sounds like a logistical nightmare.
@@OldieBuggerthe second is metric, at this point. Milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds. All of the others are, of course, holdovers.
@@Ben_Kimber - Funny thing, the metric system was made during french revolution and METRIC TIME was also in the package... weeks with 10 days and only 10 months... 1 day = 10 hours, with 100 minutes per hour and 100 seconds per minute... but time wasnt much of a problem back them and very few people adopted.
The main advantage of the Metric System is that it has exactly one unit for each dimension of measurement. Imperial for instance has inches, feet and miles for length, and you have to remember arbitrary conversion numbers for them (12 and 1760 respective). In Metric, there is only Meter. For convenience, common multiples and fractions are used in daily life (kilometer and millimeter for instance), but they aren't separate units. They are just the meter and a power of ten, which is convenient, but not necessary. All together, there are seven base units in the Metric system: Second for Time, Meter for Distance, Kilogram for Mass, Kelvin for Temperature, Mol for Amount of Substance, Ampere for Current, Candela for Brightness). All other units are combinations of them. And the combinations are given by the scientific formulas which define the physical quantity. Force is mass times acceleration. And thus, the unit of Force (1 Newton) is defined as the unit of mass (1 kg) times the unit of acceleration (1 m/sec²), 1 Newton = 1 kg*m/sec². You can use Newton for convenience, but you can also write 1 kg*m/sec², which is exactly the same. And thus, the Metric system does not have separate units for area and volume, as area is the product of length and width, two distances, and thus the unit of area is m*m = m². The volume is measured in meters cubed, or m³. No need to learn a new unit like a fluid ounce or a gallon and get into dispute if it is a british or an american gallon. It is height times width times depth, or meter times meter times meter.
And now you can pull off the real magic. Wonder what the formula is to calculate the power output of an electric motor, given the current and voltage you power it? Do something called dimensional analysis! Power is Energy or Work per time (Joule per second), so you want a formula that turns the units of voltage (Volt) and current (Ampere) into Joules per second. Ampere is already a base unit, so there is nothing to do here. Voltage is defined as the work to move an electrical charge in an electrical field, thus the unit of Voltage is Joule per Charge, or Joule per Ampereseconds. If you are given Volt as Joule per Amperesecond and Ampere, and you want Joule per second, you have to multiply the Volt and the Ampere, and the result will be Joule per second. Thus, the formula to get the power output of an electrical motor from the voltage and the current you feed is something like Power = Voltage times Current. In Imperial units, you now have to know that magic number 746 for (mechanical) horsepower and write 1 HP = 746 * V * A. In Metric, it's simply 1 Watt (or Joule per second) = 1 V*A.
The Metric system embodies everthing we know about quantites in the physical world and their relationships. This is its real strength. The Imperial system (which is not a system to begin with, but a collection of traditional units to measure different quantities) does not know anything about those relationships. It is fine if you want to talk only about one or two quantities at a given time, and if you don't move too far in magnitudes. But after that, it just can't keep up.
I grew up in Europe with the metric system and then moved to the US and been here 12 years. I've gotten used to the imperial system for distances & temperatures but then for things like cooking I find myself moving back to the metric system, grams and milliliters are just much more accurate than ounces and 'cups'.
As someone who did an engineering apprenticeship in the late 1960's, and thus for several years had to work with both Imperial and Metric measurements as we (the UK) changed over, I have no hesitation in saying Metric is better all the way.
I have just retired as a Civil Engineer in the U.K. after 45 years and have never used imperial units in all that time. So through school and university in the 70’s metric was it.
I would have hated to have been an engineer using imperial before computers or even simple calculators. But I suppose Isambard Kingdom Brunel managed OK.
Even Engineers and Scientists in the US use metric.
I was involved a few years ago with a major American Oil company wanted to build their new U.K. HQ in London. They employed a large and very reputable U.S. firm of Architects and Project Managers to front the project. Very soon problems arose.
All their drawings were in imperial. A simple example, their windows were exactly 3 feet wide. Well we don’t have 3 feet wide in the U.K but they can be manufactured at an additional cost. Project never went ahead.
American-made cars are metric. American cars have metric bolts. So the US is slowly getting there. In the U.K. we do have a weird mix. But in reality it is limited to a few things. Personal- I.e most people over 20 will describe their height and weight in imperial although their doctor will measure them metrically, motoring - road distances and speed limits are imperial, but we buy fuel by the litre, and we still like to buy beer in the pub by the pint (which is a different volume to the US pint).
Metric should makes life just so much easy, just moving the decimal point around when doing sums, rather than in imperial needing to remember that there are 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 1760 yards to a mile. Water freezes at 32 Fahrenheit, why not 30, 40, 103. All fairly arbitrary. This a beautiful logic behind the metric system, imperial is completely illogical.
All metric units are interrelated, e.g if I had a container of 5 litres of water and wanted to do its weight I don’t need a scale it is 5 kg, because that is the definition of a kilogram. OK before you engineers and scientists out there criticise, I know that is not strictly the full definition but as good as. I ignored the weight of the container.
Don't have three feet windows? What nonsense! Window manufacturers will happily make them any size you wish. No extra cost.
As the son of a Canadian engineer who lives on the border and can calculate where gas is cheaper to buy in my head (roughly), I feel heartedly agree .
I think he was about ten years ahead of you.. "Calculators are not an option," Gene Kranz 😂
@@RobinLoxley-fn8exthats the point, they will make an order for you. Metric frames are off the shelf and as a consequence cheaper.
@@valeriedavidson2785yet you accept the slip road count down in meters?
@@valeriedavidson2785ok boomer
I agree with everything in that video. I use the metric system daily and never had to learn imperial (Thank God) But I think this video and others like it focus very much on the historical and scientific background and not enough on daily use and practice. I ‘ve used metric all my life and never had to know how every unit is defined. I think Americans would be more interested in examples in daily life. Like measuring wood, fabric, walking or driving distance, weighing food items in the grocery store and so on. The metric system is really the more logical. In reaction videos I often hear Americans say: “I would have to learn the metric system” . But I think they have no idea how easy it is compared to imperial.
For everyday use, it is just a question of habit and community. If you know how much a pound of apples is, you will be comfortable buying a pound of apples at the grocery store because you know how much you are getting. The same works for someone who is used to buying apples in kilograms. As an engineer in Canada I was taught to do complex engineering calculations in both metric and imperial. As long as you stick to one system and keep it decimal ( ie 0.125 feet rather that 1/8 feet), it is just an exercise in plugging the right values for the constants (ie g= 9.81 m/s2 or g= 32.2 ft/s2). It is all about consistency. If you cannot be consistent between the systems than you have to do conversions and start introducing errors. .
@@przemekkozlowski7835 still, the inherent (and inconsistent) conversion factors increase the likelihood for errors when working with the imperial system.
There have been estimates that a conversion to metric in the US - while expensive initially - would literally pay for itself within a couple of years, simply due to the reduction of errors (and therefore waste of working hours and materials). Some studies estimate the damage to the US economy at several hundred million $ every year.
@@przemekkozlowski7835 "For everyday use, it is just a question of habit and community."
It will take a very long time. In the UK we switched in the early 70s, but a lot of people still talk about "a pound of apples". More and you, "metric natives" (those born after the switch) use metric colloquially, but babies' weights are still talked about in pounds and ounces.
@@simhedgesrex7097 That stubborn habit of weighting in pounds and ounces is due to the fact that old people,like myself, refuse to die, though I'm 75 and been raised metric all my life in a "disadvantaged" South American country.
@@JorgePetraglia2009 If you have been raised metric all your life, then what does age have to do with it?
just quoting from wikipedia here:
"The metric system has been the "preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce" since 1975 according to United States law. However, conversion was not mandatory and many industries chose not to convert, and U.S. customary units remain in common use in many industries as well as in governmental use (for example, speed limits are still posted in miles per hour). Unlike other countries, there is no governmental or major social desire to implement further metrication."
"Although customary units are used more often than metric units in the U.S., the metric system is used extensively in some fields such as science, medicine, electronics, the military, automobile production and repair, and international affairs. Post-1994 federal law also mandates most packaged consumer goods be labeled in both customary and metric units."
I am from Austria, we use the metric system since 1876 from law! Hearing and "learning" in school in the english lesson about the imperial system we were all laughing and wondering how someone can use a foot to measure one size as feet come in so many different sizes, incomprehensible and ridiculous for us students!
The metric system boils down to multiplying or dividing by factors or multiples of 10 and, to my mind at least, no number is easier than 10 to divide or multiply. Meters to kilometers, 1 kilometer is 1000 meters (10x10x10), pence to pounds, 100 pence is 1 pound (10x10), it really is that easy 🙂 Edit: I was born in 1971, just as metric was brought in so that's all I've ever known. Just lucky I guess.
Of course multiplying and dividing by factors of 10 is easy in a decimal (base 10) number system
Sadely the base 10 have been chosen during the French revolution. But the base 12 is far better for science@@quakxy_dukx
The other day I was baking with an American friend and she was complaining about having to do math and i got so confused, pulled out a recipe with the international system and showed her how precise and simple it is and she was just... Stunned. Frankly, i think even for everyday life once you're used to it, it's better.
I love your openess to any topic! Cudos to you!
I saw an American news article once, it described the size of a sink hole that opened up as "the size of several washing machines"
ridiculous. obviously bananas, mini coopers, elephants and Big Ben are the only real measures of size
Domestic or commercial washing machine ?
@@russcattell955i 😂
"the size of several washing machines" is a very accurate description for Americans. 😉😄
only the ones that launder money.
how many football fields deep?
Hello from (metric) Switzerland, I basically agree with you that in everyday use for home users (to put it that way) it doesn't matter which system you use, until where it comes down to the next larger/ to convert smaller units, with the metric system you only move the decimal place, while with the Imperial you need a piece of paper and a pen (or just the calculator).
When it comes to school lessons, you start exactly where I think it would be important; ask yourself how many students have lost the fun of arithmetic just because there is such an illogical, inconsistent system of measurement. All I can say is what a waste of resources.
Why the USA didn't really switch to the metric system is probably due to the cost, which would actually be limited with a transition period, because as far as I know there is a regulation (or even law) that would establish the metric system , but there is a word there, "voluntarily", which ultimately was never implemented.
The fact that practically all digital devices (scales, machines) were developed in the metric system and only the display is then converted is also interesting here. This is particularly true for precision machines (of which there are a number of well-known manufacturers in Europe). Ultimately, the USA is maneuvering itself more and more into the sidelines, which the industry has probably long since recognized and has switched to metric on its own (I could imagine this in the car industry).
Last but not least, one point I find brilliant about the metric system is the fact that 10 cm³ corresponds to the volume of 1 liter, this liter of water corresponds to 1 kg (at 4° C temperature). The Celsius scale also has distinctive points, water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C (normal body temperature is around 38°C).
Fahrenheit chose fixed points for his scale, 0°F was the lowest temperature he could reach with a chemical reaction and 100°F was supposed to be human body temperature but he messed that up slightly. However SI is a system, it's in the name. The units used in the USA are a mish-mash of cobbled together units collected from various aspects of pre-industrial Britain and Europe. That's why you need to remember a lot of multiplication factors and conversion factors that seem illogical.
29(f)?
Tiny correction: 1 litre is 1000cm³. If you were converting from 1dm³, you have to cube the dm/cm conversion factor as well
@@adituv8565 Right, a cube with an edge length of 10 cm (which is what I originally wanted to write), well, everything to the power of ³ equals 1000 cm³, thx
Sorry, but 10 cm³ is a small glass of wine, but a 10 cm cube = 1 litre = 1000 cm³....love from France
Body temperature differs depending on where it's measured; in my country it's 36.6-37.0 if measured in armpits, which is common practice.
To give you a nice example for easy conversion in everyday life between different metric units (it’s for everyday life, so it’s not really accurate, but works well and shows how easy metric can be to work with): 1 liter of water (ignoring that it changes density by temperature) weighs around 1 kg. So you can easily estimate that 10l of water would weigh 10 kg or a 330ml can of soda would weigh around 330 grams plus the weight of the can. If you want to bake something, and for some reason the recipe talks about 200g of milk, you can by the same logic estimate around 200ml (though milk has slightly higher density so it’s really a bit less, it is still accurate enough).
And building something from wood? You constantly have to handle strange fractions of inches like 3/16 while in metric you just either work with a convenient unit (meter, centimetre, millimeter for instance) and quickly switch between them by just pushing the decimal back and forth (m -> cm: decimal point goes 2 spaces to the right, for instance - centi means 1/100th). My example of 3/16th of an inch? It’s just .29 cm or 2.9 mm or 289 μm (micrometers) or .0029 meters (1 inch is 2.5 cm, so 3/16th is more precisely 0.28875 cm). It’s just like in the bridge example: You can very well work with imperial in everyday life, but the second you have to convert, change, calculate or adjust the unit to either the next smaller or larger increment, it becomes absurdly hard. And in metric, you don’t easily reach a smallest usable increment. You just either keep working with the standard unit and work with powers of 10 (so 5 km = 5 x 10^3 m, 15 cm = 15 x 10^-2 m) or add the according prefixes (like kilo for 1000 and milli for 1/1000th). You probably know several of those for the larger units: Mega, Giga, Terra, Peta, Exa and so on, from digital storage (the largest I know about would be Quetta, equaling 10^30). And smaller? Milli, micro, nano, Pino, femto, down to quekto (again, equaling 10^-30).
So basically, after a bit of adjusting to thinking in metric it becomes much easier in everyday life as well.
They made tests in the US, with lumber constructing. In general the metric system produced lass waste and was more precise, without conversion errors
I was once in a technical meeting in New Jersey, and there was an argument about what temperature a chemical reaction was carried out at. Having grown up in the UK when Fahrenheit temperatures were used for weather, after some minutes it occurred to me that the people from the plant were talking in Fahrenheit and the lab chemists were talking in Celsius, and both were talking about exactly the same temperature!
Do you use the Kelvin scale or is that for something else?
@@dominicreid4gg.90
Kelvin is the SI unit of temperature, and must be used for, for instance, thermodynamic calculations.
But Celsius temperatures are used more generally for measurements, because they're more convenient. Freezing point of water being zero and normal boiling point being one hundred makes Celsius temperatures easy to visualise. And it's easy to convert Celsius temperatures to Kelvin when needed, by adding 273.15.
@@jerry2357Kelvin is just based on Celsius anyway
@@Kamonohashiii Kelvin uses the same graduation as Celsius but a different starting point for 0 degrees.
@@przemekkozlowski7835 Exactly. And, technically, Kelvin is the one that makes sense in science, because it actually begins at absolute zero - the lowest possible temperature. Celsius and Fahrenheit are both a bit weird, because their "zeros" are really at some arbitrary temperatures. It would be like defining the distance between the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and St. Paul's Cathedral to be zero miles. Any shorter distances would be written as negative distances. Absurd, right?
The only difference is that an accurate absolute zero wasn't known when Celsius and Fahrenheit were invented, and absolute zero isn't something we come across on a daily basis.
1 litre of water is also equal to 1kg it makes alot of sense
And 1000 liters is 1 cubic meter. It's all very well thought.
I've always loved the irony of America continuing to use the British Imperial system even though they fought a war to gain indpendence from them...
It would be good to see a follow up video on how you go with using the metric system.
In Australia we converted to metric in the 1960s. We also went from imperial to metric currency. The US already has a metric currency, so it would be even easier for you. Within 2 generations the transition will be complete. For those two generations the transition is hard. When you learn one method at school it is very hard to learn a different one later. You will always think in terms of your original and “convert” in your head.
I was taught both systems in school and metric is so much easier to follow. I just hope we start using metric on our road signs soon, for some reason we're stuck with yards and miles for road signs.
Road signs are actually the only place I enjoy imperial (as a Canadian). Because the clock is in 12s (60m in an hour), it's easier to use miles/hour to know how long the road trip will take. Of course, the alternative would be to change the clock to be some sort of metric variation....
@@macgyveriii2818 I guess metric time would be possible in the digital age, but the current time we use works because (if i'm remembering from school correctly) quartz vibrates at 60Hz when it has an electrical current pass thorugh it, which is why analogue time pieces generally use quartz.
Also, the earth rotating at 15 degrees per hour helps with the time keeping using our current time measurements.
@@jollybodger not realy. In nearly all quartz watches, the frequency is 32768 Hz. What you probably mean are the electric clocks that are operated directly from mains voltage (if you can put it that way). They use the mains frequency of 60 Hz.
@@desatkorun8488 Ah, I'm no expert, hell I don't even own a watch, but at school it was definitely wristwatches they used when explaining this.
I guess I misheard, misunderstood or just plain didn't pay attention. But since my school years were 23-34 years ago and we were also taught about the different areas of the tongue tasting different things, which turned out to be scientifically inaccurate, it wouldn't surprise if my school just got it wrong.
I can use both Imperial and Metric but Metric is so much easier. When you see the Imperial fractions of an inch compared to the Decimals of Metric.
Try adding 1/2 3/4 +25/32 inch.
Now try 13 + 19 + 20 mm
They are effectively the same equivalent sizes.
In Imperial you have very odd drill sizes in fractions where you realky have to think which is bigger due to different denominators.
I do admit that imperial feet and inches are more relatable to me but when things get small and you talk tiny fractions of an inch I cant visualise it like I can in metric .
When using a tape measure i will use metric for accuracy but as a double check also see where it is on the imperial so you dont end up 100mm out accidentally.
Remember DIY SOS Mark 100 Millar as he was known for that reason.
It makes a lot more sense to use metric. I remember having a conversation (I'm English) with some old railway guys once where they were all telling me that the imperial system was better. I asked them how many chains were in a mile and they were thrown; our railways use chains.
So I told them it was easy, there's 22 yards in a chain, so if you know how many yards are in a mile you can work it out. So 1760/22=80 Chains. Simple right? They couldn't do it.
And these were the guys who told me it was a better system. Once they strayed from yards, feet, miles then they had no idea.
As a Brit, when it comes to design we use metric, but as you say, in everyday life we tend to use both metric and imperial.
That’s just because you are used to it. If you learn metric from start any arbitrary measurement like foot or inches would sound alien to you 😉
It gets worse because if you are reading an American recipe fir example the imperial measurements are different from British imperial. I cup of flour is 8oz in UK but 10 oz in USA, liquid is also different. There are 128 fl oz to the gallon in USA but 160 fl oz to the gallon in UK so if you are having to convert from imperial to metric, you really really need to know which countries imperial rules you are converting especially for baking. Baking is such a precise art of getting all your measurements exact.
And don’t even start on ‘cup’ measurements, whether there are 16 or 20 ounces to a pint, grams and millilitres are the same everywhere.
@@Canalcoholic A fluid ounce in the imperial system is not the same value as the fluid ounce in the USA System.
@@michael-vl1mn I realise that, which only complicates the issue even further.
that is becouse the underpinnings of American mersures are in fact Metric. So 128 fl oz is 3 liters, a mile or 1.6 KM =5280 feet (an American mile, or staute mile.)
Just a simple question … Which is heavier, an ounce of gold or an ounce of feathers?
If your answer is something like „that’s the same“ you’re thinking metric not imperial.
Every imperial thinking person should know, that one ounce gold is heavier.
Just like they know that a pound of feathers is heavier than a pound of silver.
Just stick to mm and avoid fractions and shifting decimal points.
In the UK we still use both, but it tends to be like this.
Anything modern, precise we tend to use metric. 25g of sugar, 15ml of medicine, 3000 watt kettle etc.
Anything that has become part of the language we tend to use casually, then imperial. A pint of beer, a mile down the road. I'm about 6ft etc. As a scientist, I would always use metric. As a cook, I despise cups and fl oz.
However I love a pint in the pub 1/2 a mile away. (p.s. a proper UK Pint 568ml, not the smaller US Pint 473ml - see we all have to go back to metric eventually)
I learned metric units at school. In my first job as an engineer on a building site, I had to measure the volume of concrete needed for pours. However, at that time, concrete was still being delivered in cubic yards. So, being a Muppet, the first time I stupidly measured the dimensions of the pour in feet and inches. I then had to convert the lengths to inches. I then calculated the volume in cubic inches. I then needed to convert this to cubic feet (divide by 12³, or 1728) and then by 27 (3³) to get cubic yards. The next time, I simply measured in metres, multiplied it up to get the volume and then used the conversion from m³ to cubic yards. Today, it is easier still as concrete is batched in cubic metres.
Another point to remember even if only for science and engineering is that some metric units are far far smaller or far far larger than those used in imperial such as the picometre; 1 trillionth of a metre or a gigametre; 1 billion metres
That's the beauty of the system. You *can* and will use multiplier syllables. Pico-, nano-, micro-, milli-, (nothing), kilo-, mega-, giga-, tera- ... all give you three orders of magnitude between neighbors. You'll probably not use the larger or smaller ones in everyday life, since they're either too large or too small to matter (1 Tm is 1 billion km, a distance even the light takes 55 minutes to travel), but they do exist and can be used. Expect a few funny looks when you tell someone that going to the Moon should be easy, since it's only 0.4 Gm away... ;-)
One advantage is the easy way to use cubic capacities with mass. So if a fire truck has a 3,400 liter tank, it’s carrying 3.4 tonnes of water.
Hi from France.
Pretty interesting video. I honestly always get lost when it comes to talk in inches, feet or miles.
It was very nice to have your point of you as well as to watch that video. (Isn’t it the voice of the CZcams creator known as TotalXclipse ?)
Thx again
UK Here
I am 6 Feet and 7 Inches tall.
However I weigh in at 117.4 kilograms .
When driving I use Miles Per Hour, but when planning a drive from point A to point B I will use Kilometres as its easier to work out.
Also UK here.
When driving I think in miles however when walking I think in kilometres (blame pokemon go for that).
Height in feet and inches but weight in kilos (and the reason for that is I only weigh myself when I want to weigh my luggage for the plane and that's in kilos).
Baking I'm easy, will happily do either depending on the recipe although I do think recipes are easier to remember in imperial.
@@flo6956 But what is a Cup in recipes? I get confused to knowing what a cup is.
I'm English, it's not true that we've switched over to the metric system. People typically give their height in Feet and Inches, our travel speeds and distances are in miles, bodyweight in Stones and Pounds. Our pubs and bars serve us our Pints in... well... Pints.
We're a complete mish mash of the two measurement systems and there are far more examples than just the ones I've listed, though those are incredibly common daily usage ones.
1. Metric system conversion do exists as the current definition (I call version 2) is based on version 1 numbers that were not constants and taken with approximation at the time of redefinition. For example, 1 meter (metre) was defined to be the 1/10000000 of the distance between the Earth's pole and equator passing through Paris, which in 1982 happened to measure the speed of light by version 1 to 299792458 (approximated to closest integer I suppose), which is shamefully close to an easy 300000000, but unfortunately such weird numbers must be still remembered in science. (There are "natural unit systems" that address issues like that, where the only fundamental constants are pi, e, square root of 2, etc).
2. Metric is heavily water oriented. When combining units, the easiest estimations of energy, density, volume and mass are with water. For example, the lowest density of liquid water is 1 (at 4°C) making conversions between mass and volume trivial (1 ton of water in 1 cubic meter).
3. People that learned metric as kids can do visual and feel estimations of length and weight directly in metric. You can tell how tall someone is in approximately 10cm accuracy. You can estimate a weight of a bad in approximately 100g (< 1kg) or 500g/1kg for >10kg. In fact, those that never learned imperial, cannot visually estimate inches or feet (like size of a computer screen) or pounds. I suppose, this is applicable on the other side, which is the reason why people resist using metric - a unit you never learned as a child.
4. Celsius is technically not metric, but it is on the same scale as Kelvin, only shifted by certain amount (the temperature of ice melting at 1 atm at 273.15°K). So temperature difference in Celsius is actually the same value as temperature difference in Kelvin.
Somehow, here in the U.K., we manage to go between the two quite easily. Metric is clever! 💚🧡
It's mostly because the government can't be arsed to require both units for a while in a transition period while teaching both in schools and then just using the metric system.
Kids in UK schools have not been taught the Imperial System for decades. I should know, I was at school in the 60s and 70s when the gradual change to Metric began and have kids and grandchildren who have no idea about Imperial measurements apart from distances between places and pints in a pub. 😜
There's still some older people in the UK who want the return of imperial. It was even touted by some politicians as a benefit of brexit, that we can go back to the good old days and use imperial measurements again.
Being English I still use both systems. but younger people seem to use metric. america has officially converted to metric, but is slow to adopt it in practice.
I'm from Germany. The only thing that comes to my mind, where we don't use metric units is screen sizes of TVs and "horse powers" for car engines.
Working in engineering, we got a project from a branch overseas. Man, I‘m so glad we could just put in inches in our CAD-Tool and switch over to mm. We had the exact same situation as the bridge-example with bolts and sheets… it was mind-boggling. Imperial engineers are madmen.
Yes, most of us outside the US use the metric system. Mathematically it makes a lot of sense. However, we still speak about altitude in feet when flying, nautical miles, the speed of a ship in knots. Makes you think.
for many years I worked on updating cable records, the new stuff came in metric and the old records were in feet and inches, you soon learn to convert in your head (we were putting it all on the plans in metric)
Canada converted in the 70s and I’m old enough to remember the older people complaining at the time because they had to learn a new system. But you know what? They did.
Our math time at school in measuring was spent making sure we knew how many decimal points to move the dot. Compared to the imperial measurements, it looks like we had plenty of extra time to learn other mathematical concepts while Americans were spending ages memorizing the unit conversions within their own system. Metric is ridiculously easy to learn, I think the last hold-outs should just rip the band-aid off an join the bandwagon.
I went to school and lert Imperial. So much time was spent learning imperial as everything was different and you had to learn all the calculations. Metric can be learnt in hours.
I grew up in the UK with imperial so that was my first language of measurement, how ever the metric system is so muck easier to calculate, although I must admit my kitchen scales are still set on pounds and ounces.
it makes sense if your existing recipes uses pounds, ounces cups etc... But there's no reason newer recipes couldn't use metric
We use a right mixture in the UK. Often with baking, weighing ourselves and even in construction we still use imperial units. We learn metric first in maths and science, but do cover converting to imperial in maths or tech subjects (we have a group of subjects known as deisgn and technology which includes cooking, woodwork, textiles, graphic deisgn etc).
Shaking my head! I challenge any Brit to go to Florida and ask the American in the room next door how many stones he weighs. Then ask him how many 2 liters bottles of Coca-Cola are needed to to fill up a 5 gallon bucket. Would that be an American gallon or an imperial (aka British) gallon? They're not the same? Oh bother! Does the king or the president have a longer foot? Time to retire some antiquated notions! Just put it on the shelf next to the typewriter, the 8 track tape player, the Betamax, and the wall phone!
The definitive answer is YES.
It does matter and it's better.
I think it says quite a bit that the main reason I learned some basic Imperial measurements was because fantasy roleplaying games used them. In that environment, it feels quaint and pre-industrial. ;)
I play Pathfinder. In the German translation everything has been metrified.
Dungeons & Dragons was first written in the Swedish and we have been using the metric system for a very very long time.
In the UK we use both metric and imperial, but imperial is mostly for casual stuff like measuring how tall you are, or cooking (somtimes). We also still use miles on our roads but that's because trying to change all of the road laws would be an absolute disaster. But metric is used for science and engineering because those are actually important to get right
I learned about Metric when we resided in the Irish Republic in the mid 60's before returning to the UK in 1967 and the lessons were 99% Imperial
Then we started work and the measurements were in a different style altogether on machinery dating back to the late1800's but somewhere in the early 70's we started to see packaging details change to a dual standard format and people just started asking for Portions instead of the weight which was a straightforward method.
I loved the precision of working with metric measures as the finer millimeter sizes on new devices maintenance were a godsend as opposed to Imperial which you had to have a bigger toolkit and I and my pals often would have to purchase/ loan a odd size to finish a job or butcher the task. Seen too many of the latter over 50 years of DIY. 😞
I'm glad that working on computers has been Almost 100% metric and there is a system App which converts
Instantly any number question only snag was knowing what decimal after the "." was appropriate. Windows never had a font set for the old style fractions to my knowledge and that would have been dropped promptly through lack of interest. The Internet community adapted instantly to the alternate style.
I think all current UK recipe books will use metric units as that is how ingredients are labelled.
Converting miles to kilometres is all too hard?
In Australia, metrication of all roads signs took place in July 1974. With thorough planning and public education, the conversion was all very straightforward.
@@user-kc1tf7zm3b Not too hard, no, but people are dumbasses over here and will most likely refuse to get their speedometers changed in their cars out of sheer stubborn stupidity and will end up going the wrong speed on every road because "that's what it used to be back in my day" and there will be chaos
In UK we have been using dual measurement for over 50 years and I would say that we are quite adept at it now such that occurrences like the Air Canada flight are unlikely to happen. Typicall,y we use imperial for travel distance and speed Miles/mph reserving metric for specific uses and finer measurement. The weather reports used to combine Fahrenheit and Centigrade but we are all now comfortable with Centigrade. I was first taught using the imperial system and then swapped over to metric after about 15 years and without doubt I found the metric system so much simpler to apply.
Americans are beginning to use the metric system more and more, although many diehards desperately hang onto imperial out of dogma, which I find a little surprising because their currency has always been metric, whereas in Britain we always had to contend with the change over from £sd (£1=20s=240d) to £p (£1=100p) that was a more difficult adjustment that was used by all day in day out.
I think UK airport tankers dispense litres of fuel, the same as for road vehicles.
@@Phiyedough It doesn't matter what system you use so long as its consistent. The problem with the Air Canada flight was that the aircraft needed to know the weight of the fuel so they converted litres to Kgs but crucially used the imperial conversion values to determine how much that led to the horrific under estimate for the number of litres required. That was just plain negligence. You would expect most professional aviation people to know approximately how much fuel would be required for the journey, irrespective of whether it was in kgs, litres, pounds or gallons (imperial or US)
I live in Poland. We never really used imperial system in any recent history, so we're used to metric.
And it is true that metric is easy, even in daily life. I'm 1.91 m tall. How many centimeters is that? Well, there are 100 cm in a meter. So I'm 191 cm tall.
There are many sub-units in a metric system. And it's insanely easy to convert. Typically as a unit of mass we use either gram or decagram. A gram is one thousandth of a kilogram. And decagram is one tenth of a kilogram. So all you need to do to convert is to shift a decimal point a few places left or right. That's it.
You definitely need to use metric if you're going to Europe in any foreseeable future because you wouldn't be able to buy anything if you gave weight in imperial units.
14:00 In metric everything can be multiplied or divided by 1 or 10 or 100 or 1000. You usually don't even need math, you just add/substract/divide/multiply 2 simple numbers and shift the decimal point to the left or right. Kids around the world learn metric in the elementary school, because it is that easy. If you can count to 1000 you can master the metric system for every days use.
I very much recommend 2 videos on the metric system by Robert Becker, those are one of the only videos on CZcams I could find that actually explain the full picture very understandably and concisely. Each of them is about 10 minutes, so they would fit into one reaction video. Definitely one of the best resources for understanding the system.
This should be as is taught in every school!
I’m British and like the way we use both! I use imperial when baking (8, 8, 8, 4!) but metric for all other cooking. Imperial at the hairdressers and I still think 6x4 when printing photos. Oh and my height and weight too. Generally I use metric, although perhaps imperial when measuring paper or something depending on whether or not it gives me a whole number. As soon as I get part of an inch - no thanks!
To be honest, there’s not much to learn about the metric system. You just need to know there are 10mm in a cm, 100cm in a m and so on.
I forgot about photos. Yes, they're always in inches. So are screens thinking about it. TVs, monitors, tablets, phones, laptops, they're all inches. I also bake in imperial, but cook in metric.
When everything is based on powers of ten (simplifying here), things just get easier. 10mm in a cm, 10 cm in a dm, 10 dm in a meter, etc etc. 1000grams in a kilogram etc. It's just so simple.
As an Australian I grew up with metric. But I made sure I was aware of the foot/mile/pound so I knew what ppl were saying sometimes.
In a way it is slipping into the USA, how big is your car's engine? Since about the 90s it was measured in litres.
But here's a counterpoint... Here in Australia if you go and buy a piece of timber, it'll be in a metricised imperial size. E.g. 1800mm for 6'. But seeing as you are going to be cutting it to size to build or fix your widget that doesn't matter.
Millimetres are so easy to measure with for even the home shed I'm glad I don't deal with fractions of an inch.
And here's another weird one.. Did you know the US gallon is NOT the same as a UK gallon?
We use both Imperial and Metric here in the UK, but are moving more toward a metric only system over time. Like a comment below, I was at school at the time of 'metrification' - the move from Imperial over to metric systems. I consider myself lucky in that regard - its really quite easy for me to switch between the two for rough mental conversions made in everyday situations.
The US uses some metric measurements too - your money system, for instance is decimal - 100 cents = $1 and $1000 is $1k and $1000000 = $1M. If you buy a box of tylenol (we call it paracetamol), the amount of the drug is written on the box in metric measurements - 325mg (milligrams) or 500mg for the extra strength pills. Another quasi-decimal system is used on the computer you used for this video. 'kilo'bytes (1000 bytes), 'Mega' bytes (1 million), 'Giga' bytes, 'Terra' bytes and so on.
Its still quite rare in the UK for someone to say they're driven 50 kilometres in their car. Even young people express that sort of distance in miles. If we go over to France though kilometres is the only measurement used.
The entire world uses time by the same measurement though. 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, then 24 hours a day, and so on. There were some efforts to develop and apply a decimal time system in Europe, but it failed miserably.
You aren't completely correct about computers. It has not 1000 but 1024 base (2^10). Unfortunately, but it actually makes sense. Due to binary system inside the computer hardware.
It's confusing, I know. But unlike the imperial system, this is not a matter of preference, but a consequence of how we work with information
@@stannumowl I get you, but it seems most manufacturers have moved over to GiBytes, rather than simple GB. Annoying if you're used to the 1024.
As an american you should react to all the stuff that us americans already measure in metric. Most are suprised.
You were correct, the US didn't switch, because it would cost "too much" to change all the signs and whatnot.
Well, that's the excuse they gave/give, at the least.
I think the key to learning and using the metric system is to resist the temptation to convert everything to imperial.
Try working exclusively with a metric measuring tape on your next project and see how you go.
Also look up some metric unit charts, and you’ll see how the language is consistent across the board, and very straightforward.
What a brilliant video. Like you I want to explore the language of the Universe more. I grew up with Imperial but when we changed to metric it was easier. However, like us you use a decimal system for money. We had to change to that in the 70's. Again much easier. I still like to know my weight in stones and pounds though. Centigrade is much better than Fahrenheit. It makes sense to have zero for a starting point and go either side , minus for below freezing and plus for warm etc. Shocking about NASA. A thought provoking video
I learned Imperial at school in the 1960s, then changed to metric at school in the 1970s. I vaguely recall that my exam papers in 1974 were in a mixture! Metric is FAR FAR easier and safer. And knowing that a kilogram of water is a litre, for example, is very useful! Its funny though - although I generally use Kg for all weights, and litres for all fluids, I still use stones (you do not have those in the US - 14 lbs) and lbs for weight of people . And road distances are still all in miles, yards and feet so you think of longer distances in those terms. And I still think of a person's height and various other relatable shorter lengths in feet. And draught beer of course still comes in pints - which is great, since a litre is too much and too heavy, and half a litre is gone too fast!
Just an example. I am 172cm, which is roughly 5 ft 8. But 5 ft 8 also means 173cm.
Anyway lol, I am:
1720 mm
172 cm
17,2 dm
1,72 m
0,172 dkm
0,0172 hm
0,00172 km (1km = 0.621 miles)
See how easy it was to convert my length in every unit possible? I just needed replace the decimal. This is why metric is much easier, and more precise. I can even easily calculate how long it would take an ant to walk from my feet to the top of my head if it walked 0.5km per hour.
Just switch it over to cm/per hour, calculate how many times the decimal has to move.
0.5 km/h =
5 hm
50 dkm
500 m
5000 dm
50000 cm
500000 mm
So the ant would be moving at 50000cm per hour
Divide 60 minutes by 50000, × my length and youve got the time it takes the ant to walk from my feet to the top of my head.
Calculated it is 0.2064 minutes, which is roughly 12 seconds. (12,384 sec to be exact)
Its the better system and never too old to learn how to use it!
It's so damn easy: 1 meter is the base unit. When you go smaller you shift decimals. 1 decimeter is 1/10, 1 centimeter is 1/100, 1 millimeter is 1/1000, when you go even smaller you shift 3 decimals so 1 micrometer is 1/1000000, 1 nanometer is 1/1000000000, and so on. When you go higher you have as follows: 1 decameter is 10 meter, 1 hecto meter is 100 meter, 1 kilometer is 1000 meter, from them on you can go per 3 decimals again. So 1 you could say 1 megameter is 1000000 and so on but we don't really use that. But the same words can be used in different measurements like frequency, volume etc...
While us Brits invented the imperial system, and use pounds, inches, pints and miles, the metric system is just as commonly known and used.
Romans had imperial long before Brits.
In actual fact, the UK uses a strange conglomeration of both systems, distance/speed is still miles/mph while fuel is in litres making miles per gallon a headache to calculate.
@@DruncanUK And a US gallon is different to a UK gallon - which doesn't help the situation at all.
Personally, I like the flexibility to use either one, depending on the situation.
Yeah same, I do graphic design and switched over to metric just so I could do less math, I find it great, and can now use both for smaller distances, I do still sometimes have to convert over to inches for clients or printers, but mostly the software will take care of that, and its much better than working in 0.125 .0625 and .03125 inches as everything is decimal on computers anyway you need to convert the common fractions of 1/8th 1/16th and 1/32nd inches all the time anyway. So doing one conversion at the end of a project is much easier than working in that type of hard to intuit madness
Because you grew up with it. If you would have learned metric from first grade, using arbitrary measurements like feet and inches would sound alien and absolutely bonkers to you 😉
@@erebostdYes but they didn't. What is your point exactly?
One of the things I really like is how easy it is to change between the units using standard form in multiples of 3 without needing to change the decimal point or add zeros or anything so there’s less chance for mistakes there’s even the ENG setting on the calculator for it! So if you need to write 120Tb in bytes you can write it as 120x10^12 bytes (I think T is 12(sorry if I’m wrong it’s been a while)) so you don’t have to add a load of zeros to the calculation you need to do and risk missing one out! It’s very useful!!
And to trough a spanner in to that, in IT we use TiB with base 2 instead of 10 😱
So 1KB = 1000 Bytes and 1KiB = 1024 Bytes, and that's why your 12TB drive is just a little bit less than 11TiB
I think the hardest part for someone familiar with the imperial system to be able to switch over to the metric system is visualizing what the equivalent measurements are. By this I mean understanding what Fahrenheit temperatures are in Celsius, or how far a 15 mile drive is in kilometers. But once you have a general idea and frame of reference for these things then actually working with metric values is so much easier as all the conversions between units are powers of 10. I've been using the metric system in my daily life and at work here in the US for about 15 years and would prefer to never have to use the imperial system ever again.
"By this I mean understanding what Fahrenheit temperatures are in Celsius, or how far a 15 mile drive is in kilometers.". I was born in 1961. We went metric in the UK in the 70s. People adopted the idea of 0 (Celsius, aka Centigrade) being freezing pretty quickly. But hot temperatures (It's over 80 outside!) were talked of colloquially for a long time. More recently, hot temperature (it's nearly 40!) have started to be referred to colloquially in Celsius.
Metric is so much simpler, and I’m a boomer who was taught imperial at school (UK). Since then I’ve chosen to use metric because imperial was always so confusing to me. To be honest, as a crafter I find the American preference for imperial trying when buying craft tools and products.
To say Britain has been a metric country since before I was born I honestly don't think we have gone far enough with our conversions
All of our road signs are in miles/mph. People still with themselves in stones and pounds, we still but beat in pints and TVs in inches
the speed signs are in mp/h because the tachometers in cars are in mp/h and expecting people to concentrate on converting the number their tachometers show, in their heads, while driving would be awful.
I'm a kit modeller and one hang up that we have. particularly in model railways, is the fact that 4mm more or less equals 1 foot!! This applies to a scale of 1/76th. There is an infitesimal difference between the two measurement forms which the eye doesn't pick up on. However expand that to real life engineering projects, no matter wether it's distance, or size then that's the stuff that causes satelites to crash into planets as has happened.
One Mile is 1760 Yard or 5280 feed or 63360 inch. In metric 1,60934 Kilometer (km) 1,6 Km 1609,34 Meter (m) 1609m, 160934 Zentimeter (cm) A quick and easy way to get a general idea is to use 1 mile times 1.5 which isn't particularly accurate but gives a good general idea and is fairly quick and easy to do in your head. (rough calculation)
Air Canada Flight 143 was the flight number of an Air Canada scheduled flight between Montreal (Canada) and Edmonton (Canada). On this flight, on July 23, 1983, a Boeing 767-200, occupied by 61 passengers and 8 crew members, ran out of fuel due to a mix-up of units of measurement when refueling. The crew made an emergency landing at Gimli Airport, Canada. In the press, this aircraft, which was decommissioned on January 24, 2008 at Mojave Airport in California after a last flight with those involved, was nicknamed the "Gimli Glider".
It might be easier, but we managed just fine for centuries with Imperial Weights & Measures. It depends on what you are accustomed to using. I still use pounds and ounces when cooking and we use miles on the roads. They reckon 45 degrees in Itlay at the momnent is hot, but it sounds quite cool to me.
So 4% of the world (the USA) is correct and the other 96% is wrong then? How very American! 🤣
We didn't manage just fine for centuries at all. It depended which country you were in. Continental countries used different meaasures from British Imperial. Measures differed from country to country. This is not feasible in a connected world like the 21st century. Unless the US wants to find the same level of influence as Myanmar and Liberia. And that process has already begun, my friend!
So we should be still using imperial currency?
Imperial is fine for use in DIY but when talking about teaching it in schools to be used by engineers and scientists or aircraft refullers or anything in industry where conversion is just waste and risk, especially when imperial units are defined by metric anyway (doubly so when you have to convert everything back if needed).
And why? "Because its what im used to" is a poor excuse. (again, keep using what your most comfortable with for DIY)
Ireland changed from Mph to Kph in 05.. I'd say it took all of 6 months for my then 76 yr old granny to start using Km day to day.
She still says miles from time to time.. but the unit is Km that she is using (she lives 5 km from town, sometimes says 5 mile even though she is V aware it's only 3 miles)
You got on fine with a horse, but you still evolved into using cars. Don't be afraid of change.
@@andypandy9013 FYI, I am British. I'm not saying that one system is wrong. My thoughts were that it depends upon which system you were educated and with which system one feels most comfortable. I prefer Imperial measurements but if someone else prefers metric, then it is up to them. We drive on the left and that is a convention with which I am accustomed, but I am not saying that is 'right' - but what is 'right'?
I'm form the UK and I use Metric AND Imperial. In some cases it's easier to use inches and other times it's easier to use centimeters, and we still measure distance in miles but measure temperature in celcius (which for a long time I thought was imperial)! It's crazy and mixed up here.
In Norway we're pretty much only using metric. We used to buy/sell building materials in inches (4 by 2's etc), some of that still lingers in the day to day even though stores have changed to metric. TVs, car wheels, and boats are still sold in Imperial though...
I worked with Cargo International Transportat for about 10 years.
My country uses Metric System (like almost all countries). When we make the Air Way Bill we use kg and m³ for everything. When we move the cargo from US we must send them both measurements. The kg and m³ to the tecnical crew (to know if it will fit in the airplane and if it's safe to put the cargo in the plane) and in pounds and square feet to the commercial crew to allow rhem to give us the price of this. It's insane.
You asked about practical uses, likes engineering. I'm graduated in electrical engineering. One of our nightmares is to use AWG convertion charts to convert the electric wires size to mm² size. And if you make a mistake on this the building may become a pile os ashes and garbage.
As an electrical engineer, how do you measure phase angle? I'll bet it isn't using SI. (metric)
Is like you said, you can buy a 2" x 4" wood in the store very easy, not problem at all. But when you start to process that wood to build something like any piece of furniture, is A LOT easy to use millimeters or centimeters (not matter what you choose, all are the same numbers) and not the insane fractions. Just draw your blueprint in mm or cm and that's it. Not more crazy fraction calculations. Very Easy. Very Relaxing. If you can count to 10... then you already master the metric system. 😄
"The metric system is a base 10 system. This means that each successive unit is 10 times larger than the previous one. The names of metric units are formed by adding a prefix to the basic unit of measurement. To tell how large or small a unit is, you look at the prefix. Metric prefixes can be used with any base unit. For example, a kilometer is 1,000 meters, a kilogram is 1,000 grams, and a kiloliter is 1,000 liters."
Talk to an American mechanic who works on vehicles from USA and elsewhere in the world. The problems and cost of having 2 sets of tools must be horrendous.
Absolutely not a problem if you're just tinkering on a little project at home. Use either or both.
When you're working in a dangerous field, ie NASA, air travel, oil drilling, construction, demolition etc, you gotta have a universal standard and everyone needs to understand it completely.
I was educated in metric, left school and took an apprenticeship with a boss who worked in imperial. It was a fast learning curve, and a very confusing one. My boss asked me to measure something, that come out at 16 inches 2 longer knobbles and 1 short knobble. I then learned it was 16 and 5/16ths. I then asked why there are only 16 ounces to pound, but then 14 pound to a stone, why isn't there the same quantity of units, (No reply)....lol
A decimalised method of dividing and multiplying by 10 was easier for a younger me who didn't do well in mathematics in school. 1kg =1000 grams and a 1000 mm = a metre, and 1000 metres to a kilometre. I think a dumb ass younger me would be lost with the imperial system....Great videos....bex
Another Australian here. With building, fabrication or engineering, everything is in millimeters, but if someone asks how tall I am, I'll say 6'1", not 186cm (1860mm). Last week I had 2 x 40 foot shipping containers delivered. They were placed 7850mm apart for a 26ft shelter dome to go between them. So feet and inches are still a thing for some Australians, but pounds and gallons are not, with the exception for gallons being sometimes used for rural water tanks, and then it's imperial gallons not US gallons.
I still remember being taught imperial units in primary school:-
Rod, perch, chain, fathom, acre, hectare, furlong, hundredweight, stone, ounce, pound, grain, bushel and many more.
Just stop it. Use grams for weight, metres for distance - then square or cube them for areas, volumes etc.
C'mon America, you KNOW it makes sense.
The problem a lot of people have when trying to use a different system is to be able to relate to it intuitively. When you've been using your whole life miles, for example, you have a general idea in your head of how long is 20 miles, or 12 yards. Let me say a few of the intuitive things in metric: 1m is roughly (on an average human) the distance between one shoulder to the opposite hand when your arm is extended sideways. 1 m is also roughly a purposely long step by an average human. A person on an average to high walking pace can go 1 km in 15 roughly min. An average male is 1,7-1,75m in height and 70kg in weight and an average female would be roughly 1,65 m in height and 55-60kg in weight. 1,,8-1,9m would be quite high for a male, 1,9-2m being probably close to the average height in the NBA, whereas people over 2m in height are exceptionally high, like the tallest NBA players could be 2,1-2,2m .
The easiest way to learn the metric system is to learn it intuitively. Get a tape measure with metric on it, and go around and measure distances in meters and millimetres. Then get a measuring jug in metric units and do the same with volumes of water in litres and millilitres. Then get a set of metric scales and weigh things in grams and kilograms. Eventually you'll have a basic comprehension of lengths, weights and volumes in metric in the same way that you can inherently estimate them in imperial.
The most common base units used: metre (distance), gram (weight), litre (volume). The most commonly used prefixes are: mega (million), kilo (thousand), centi (hundreth), milli (thousandth).
Thus, 1000 metres is a kilometre, 1000 grams is a kilogram, 1000 litres is a kilolitre. 0.001 metres is a millimetre, 0.001 grams is a milligram, 0.001 litres is a millilitre. Etc.
Once you've mastered that, expand into the other less used forms of measurement (electricity, luminosity, etc), and learn more of the prefixes.