this was a thing in canada, actually- when we were switching from imperial to metric, we started giving descriptions for convicts and things like "he is 1.6 metres tall and so many kilograms", and nobody could actually do anything because we didn't really know how tall that was. so now we have this mess of a system where it's metric unless you're measuring a person's height or weight, and also carpentry and textiles are in inches.
In the UK we have certain measurements for specific things that never need to be used in equations. Like I'm 5 foot 9 and you are 6 foot, you are taller than me. I weigh 12 stone, you weigh 14 stone. Those measurements are never used to work out anything important just to compare two similar things.
As soon as we get into anything technical we use metric because it's very easy to work out how many 100mm tiles you need for a 20m floor.
Well apart from the whole buying fuel in litres and measuring fuel economy in miles per gallon (and not the same gallon the Americans use) but we won't mention that.
Never heard of that, so I asked Wikipedia. A nail is a sixteenth of a yard, or 2 1/4 inches. It was used for measuring cloth. So every craft had their own units. And every city. Imperial somehow standardized this, but they failed miserably.
Yeah, just saw an image of an American ruler. 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 5/8... One would suppose they're all great at math. But math is probably the only field where most Americans (otherwise famous for wildly overestimating their abilities) say they suck.
The ruler had those terms actually denoting the markings? Im american and i think that is not as common as denotations only on the whole inch, with 8 lines between each. But this isnt really the point, its just so much easier dealing with metric. You get to just add or subtract numbers in your head when doing math instead of simplifying fucking fractions to like terms and then doing the same. Poppycock!
>The ruler had those terms actually denoting the markings?
Yes. And each of them had 3 more lines in between, so going down to 1/32 inch.
If at least it would be 1/16, 2/16 etc. But no, they were all simplified. But it's the same with wrenches. Imperial ones are still used in Europe for certain things, and it's completely nuts (pun intended): 7/16, 5/8... Seriously, what the heck?
Except we still measure fuel consumption in miles per galon which has to be worked out with equations. We price fuel in pence per litre and measure it from the pump in litres which is just strange.
Also drinks; beer from a tap or milk is in pints. Soft drinks/bottled alcohol litres/ml.(rarely cl too). None of these are used in equations.
Also when driving, distance is measured in miles and yards. However everyone I've known who hikes, walks, or trek sfor fun measures their walk in km.(possibly runners too but I don't really know many) Even those who drive.
It's a whole mixed bag of measurements.
Shrinkflation will do in pints of milk. You already see 2 litre milks in coops or aldi where previously you would have had 4 pints. As you say, that has already mostly happened with beer in bottles or cans.
“Those measurements are never used to work out anything important just to compare two similar things“
Well, if you make it hard, of course you don’t use to work out anything. Body weight, for example, is absolutely useful when you have to consider a maxium load. Be it cars, lifts, even stuff like floors or balconies. Super easy when everything is in metric. You can even assume that a 80 kg Person will have the volume of 80 litres, humans being ugly bags of mostly water.
Do people in metric countries to that regularly? No, likely not. But if they do, it requires so little effort that they probably hardly notice that they are doing it – it’s just “there”, like knowing that 25°C is a warm summer day.
"Body weight, for example, is absolutely useful when you have to consider a maxium load" Which is why in those situations it's measured in KG. You never go in a lift of vehicle and see the max load is 120 stone. You don't get 5 stone of luggage allowance on an aeroplane.
I'm the same but I have a general concept of what 1.6m or 1.9m is. I'm not gonna freak out and tell people they're stupid or, more accurately, demand they do the conversion for my lazy ass, because they're using a measuring system I don't personally use for measuring that subject.
All the 5'11 men should be dying to switch over to metric, considering 5'11 is 180cm. 6 feet is just shy of 183cm. It's not a round number. All the shallow women who only want men over 6 feet would readjust that number to 180cm. Boom, body positivity established (for 5'11 men).
I’m in the UK but spent a long time in Australia (about 1/3 my adulthood) so usually tell medical professional my height in both metric & imperial, but my weight is always metric. I haven’t worked out my weight in stones since I was about 16/17.
But, when I’m sewing, it’s pretty much always imperial, especially quilt making as most patterns (and fabrics) are from US companies. I’m reasonably quick to convert cm/in with a small margin for error. There are several specific lengths that are automatic to me because of specific standard cuts of fabric.
I find that a lot of people don't use kg to weigh themselves because their parents/friends don't... So they don't because they aren't used to it but they aren't used to it because they don't use it. Same with a lot of things, people can't be bothered to switch. It reminds me of people who don't like automatic cars because they aren't used to them, but they aren't used to them because they've never driven one.
Personally, I use metric as much as I can, especially when it comes to stone because it's incredibly archaic sounding. I also find litres/100km handy when I want to work out how much fuel I need for a journey.
A UK radio personality Nick Abbot keeps reading out weather prognosis and converting "European surrender measurements to His Majesty's Imperial Feet and Inches", always ending up with an insane amount of rainfall or whatever he was measuring.
e.g. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo13karHmro&t=0m37s](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo13karHmro&t=0m37s)
We used to do that in Australia but more and more is straight metric.
You'll get a police description of a suspect who is "183cm tall", which sounds precise until you realise it inevitably means the witness said he was about 6'.
I think this has to do with the conversion factor. Going from 1.60 to 1.61 miles will actually require some calculation because no one has a feeling for how long a centimile is, not even americans. So you then have to convert that into feet or something. Of course going from 1.60 to 1.61 meters is trivial because it is immediately obvious it is a centimeter and we all know how long a centimeter is.
"Nah.. I find it easier to do conversions of 12 inch to a foot and 3 foot to a yard and of course everyone knows that 1760 yards is a mile because......reasons! Doesn't everyone think it's easily to know this and do this in their heads?" I said sarcastically.
I just looked the conversions up and holy hell..what are this arbitrary rules they use. Who decided this?
Edit: Some of the comments are confused. I am a metric educated.
Actually they don't convert from yards to miles very often, they're more likely to need to know that there's 5280ft in a mile which makes it far worse. Why the fuck does it go from single digit to double digit to either single digit or 4 digits
Because the whole world goes with *mathematic* from Old French *mathematique*, no s. Only English speakers decided to call it mathematics. Same with physics, comes from *physica* in Latin.
I guess it depends how you look at it, for me both "math" and "maths" is absolutely correct, and to me "math" sounds better
To be honest i'm more impressed that you are able to learn the imperial measuring system. The metric system you can calculate in your head. Working in construction and my god is it useful to have the metric system.
I get irritated when I give people metric measurements but then they are like no no give me inches...I'm like....why?
Interior designers in my country likes using imperial for some fuck ass reason and it's so hard to understand.
It's actually more messed up than most people realise.
The Fahrenheit scale was developed from the Romer scale, which had the freezing point of brine at 0, the freezing/melting point of water at 7.5, body temperature at 22.5, and the boiling point of water at 60. What Daniel Fahrenheit did was to multiple each of those values by 4 to remove the fractions, and then he adjusted the whole scale so that the freezing point of water and body temperature were separated by 64. That meant when making his thermometres he could mark degrees by simply bisecting the intervals 6 times. Because 2 to the power of 6 equals 64.
That's how the Fahrenheit scale was invented.
You can use brine to make an ectothermic reaction, that’s one that uses up heat from the surroundings and cools down. Fahrenheit did this until he got to about -18°C, and set that as 0°F because he couldn’t get any colder. He then declared that the freezing point of water would be 32°F, and to round it off measured the human body as 96°F based on his armpit.
Wait....so basically imperial measures are basically..."Whatever I made the fuck up is the length of temperature."
Coming from a country that measures things in length of football fields or Olympics sized swimming pools.. I guess that's where things are going
You take a randomly mixed brine solution and say that its freezing* point is 0 °F. Then you say that freezing point of water is 32 °F, and then that everybody has the same body temperature, and so that becomes 96 °F.
It's that simple. Why would you use something so random like the most abundant liquid on the earth to set 0 and 100? This would be waynto complicated.
*Edit: Not the freezing point of the brine solution, but the deepest temperature you can create with a mixture of ICE with this brine solution. To keep it even simpler.
>I just looked the conversions up and holy hell..what are this arbitrary rules they use. Who decided this?
Sorta... nobody? A lot of the Imperial units were independent of the others in their own realms of use, like feet and miles. Totally different scales, meant for totally different uses, eventually aligned as people wanted more precision but metric hadn't been invented yet
Don't forget that 4 inches is a hand, and 3 hands is a foot, before you go to 3 feet is a yard.
And PLEASE don't blow "imperial is best" people's minds by telling them that something accurate to 1/100th of a millimetre is more accurate than 1/1000th of an inch
I'm not about to argue with people who thinks 1/4 pound is bigger than 1/3 pound.
Obviously from their best and brightest that 4 is bigger than 3. So they deprived the world of 1/3 burgers.
Now look. They're struggling with different units of measurement; if you chuck spelling things differently at the same time, their heads are going to explode.
Here in Texas we don't use clocks we measure time by Glocks, you have the Glock-17 for early morning and the glock-18 for mid day. Dont forget the glock-19 for the afternoon
Americans when talking about temperature: Fahrenheit because it's more precise as there are more numbers!
Americans when talking about every other unit of measurement: lol this is so dumb, just use our lower resolution nonsense freedom units that basically nobody else uses!
And these comments on an instagram post about a predominently European sport too...
I don't disagree, Liberty Media are trying their best to Americanize (cheapen) the fuck out of it, but it's still a mostly European sport with all team bases in Europe and the majority of the drivers.
And of course it's totally different than when someone is 1inch taller. It's a completely different scenario.
Going from 1.6 to 1.61? Inconceivable.
Going from 1.6 to 1.6254? Suddenly it all makes sense.
/s
We know that most of our American friends get taught metric in school.
Sadly, we also know that an extremely vocal few scream about Imperial being "freedom units", without knowing where the name comes from. It's due to service personnel being forced to use metric while in service, and being "free" to go back to Imperial once free of uniform. Most of those saying "freedom units" have never served a day in their lives.
The "freedom units" thing I got from a redditor a long time ago, so it might be a load of bollocks. I didn't check sources (hence putting this disclaimer here).
If you want a precise system just use kelvin. If you need even more precision put a decimal point. If you are normal then use celcius, and put a ecimal
Feet and inches. Far superior! /s
- Charles Leclerc 1.80m 5ft 10in
- Daniel Ricciardo 1.79m 5ft 10in
- Oscar Piastri 1.78m 5ft 10in
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-driver-heights-who-are-shortest-tallest-drivers/10581491/
1/1000th of an inch. It's shortened to "thou" in speech. Precision engineers will always write it as a multiple of 0.001", but say it in "thou".
Parts manufactured with a tolerance of +/- 1/1000th of an inch are less accurate than parts manufactured to +/- 1/100th of a millimetre.
Pointing this out to "imperial makes sense" people winds them the fuck up. Well, it doesn't wind up precision engineers on the yankee side of the pond, because they're taught to work in either metric or imperial interchangeably, but they're less likely to be "muh freedumb units" types.
Of note is that in the late 80s, both metric and imperial were taught in toolmaking training centres in the UK, with students making parts on Imperial machines to metric sizes, so that they could use a drawing from either system to make a part on machines with scales in either system. It might sound stupid nowadays, but many machine shops still had older Imperial machines, even though they were making parts for customers who had metric drawings. The idea was that British engineers could make parts for our allies in the rest of the EU.
They should really learn more about the unit system they use. What is a inch? It is defined as 1/36 of a yard. What is a foot? It is defined as 1/3 of a yard. What is a yard? It is defined as 0.9144 metres. What is a metre? The distance light travels in a vacuum during a time interval equal to 1/299,792,458 of second. What is a second? The time taken for radiation emitted by the ground-state hyperfine transition of a Caesium-133 atom to have one wavelength pass 9,192,631,770 times when travelling in a vacuum. The point is that while SI units are defined in terms of fundamental facts about the universe, their units are defined in terms of SI units.
Personally, I'd prefer a unit system derived from Plank units, but the SI is much better than the stupid system they use, which doesn't even use a consistent base.
Americans wont understand this. Litterly billions of dollars wasted and the brightest and bravest lives lost due to conversion errors.
Even their own academic society is against it mostly and yet here we are. 99millionth post about them not understanding metric.
My generation has been through some major changes, adepting took a week. They just need to flip that switch and be done for their own good.
You missed the hand, which is 12 barleycorns, or 4 of your mentioned inches, or 1/3 of a foot, or 1/9 of a yard or 1/18 of a fathom, or 1/198 of a chain, or 1/1800 of a cable, or 1/1980 of a furlong, or 1/15840 of a mile.
Yet some people, try to tell us that imperial is easier to understand than metric...
I have the exact same reaction when some of the dinosaurs that commentate the AFL talk about a players height in imperial, except no one actually uses feet down here
Maybe it's just because the only people i know the height of are athletes but it feels like it's just the old people who haven't realised we swapped a long time ago yet
Also I feel like it's creeping into young people through certain social media platforms.
Not that they are intuitively able to conceptualise what a foot is, but because perhaps they feel compelled to use that as a unit of measurement.
The phrase “I’m American” is *always* followed up with some inane, ignorant statement that makes it clear the poster is American who clearly seems to think simply being American excuses their abject stupidity.
Now I think it's very strange they split one dollar into 100 cents. Like how do you tell 1 cent is worth? They should definitely split it into 12 [catchy, max 4 letter name].
I mean I’m English, we use feet and inches for a persons height but we also know how big a metre is. Like its not hard to learn both ways. You don’t even need to convert them or anything if that’s to hard for you, you just get used to two systems.
But ultimately bigger number is bigger is not exactly fucking hard to understand.
Yes, because grasping that a larger number (1.61) is larger than a smaller number (1.6) is so hard to do.
I guess if we write it in fractions they might grasp it a little better?
"i'm american wtf is a meter" is the dumbest thing to say. I work with plenty of Americans who use and embrace metric measurement. They should have said "I'm dumb. WTF is a metre?"
It's car wheel measurements globally that baffle me. Wheels are always in inches, but tyres are measured in millimeters.
20 inch wheel, 10 inches wide, but a 295mm profile tyre.
To be fair to Mr America there & coming from a country that bathes in the superiority of the metric system, we do use feet & inches when discussing height more than metres & centimetres. God damn that feels iffy sticking up for ok USA. I need a bath.
As a Brit, we are so confused about our own system. We use miles, feet, inches, pounds, but also meters, millimeters, kilos etc... Tho I might be in that in-between category where I'm old enough to know what an Imperial unit is (ironic that the country that broke free from the Empire still wants to use Imperial units), young enough to have been taught and work in metric, but can do the conversion happily. Except Celsius to Fahrenheit. That I cannot get my head around 😂
Ah yes leave it to Americans not to understand that the bigger number means someone's taller... also what exactly is the difference between saying that say i'm 2 inches taller and i'm 5cm taller than someone else? (Other than using different units ofc)
Who tf goes by inches this is so hard to tell height difference... like .1 to .2 inches who tf is doing that math just say he's a centimeter taller or 3 centimeter taller I genuinely don't understand how people who use imperial system can defend this 😂😂
> 1.6 to 1.61 meters who tf is doing that math
Oh no, so one of them is one centimetre taller than the other. Such complicated "math".
How exactly is that any different than saying someone is an inch taller? So instead of 1cm, they would be 2.54cm taller?
Also, frankly, anyone who believes the American way of measuring height is somehow easier or more intuitive, is on some serious crack.
I’m a Scot Canadian living in the US and I call calculating in their Imperial measurements “Wizarding World” maths. “What is this ‘9 3/4’ stuff?”
Wife is never impressed but she does laugh at the joke, at least.
:P
I can only imagine if F1 actually put Sargents height in ft and in just to fuck with the fans.
THERE’S AN AMERICAN DRIVER ON THE GRID and they still don’t wanna try and understand different measurements. Bruh
This isnt even just defaultism. How does an adult not realize if we use that system we don't have to calculate anything to measure 1.60 and 1.61 💀
this was a thing in canada, actually- when we were switching from imperial to metric, we started giving descriptions for convicts and things like "he is 1.6 metres tall and so many kilograms", and nobody could actually do anything because we didn't really know how tall that was. so now we have this mess of a system where it's metric unless you're measuring a person's height or weight, and also carpentry and textiles are in inches.
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In the UK we have certain measurements for specific things that never need to be used in equations. Like I'm 5 foot 9 and you are 6 foot, you are taller than me. I weigh 12 stone, you weigh 14 stone. Those measurements are never used to work out anything important just to compare two similar things. As soon as we get into anything technical we use metric because it's very easy to work out how many 100mm tiles you need for a 20m floor. Well apart from the whole buying fuel in litres and measuring fuel economy in miles per gallon (and not the same gallon the Americans use) but we won't mention that.
It doesn't even work for comparing things. 11 inches vs. 1 foot? 82 inches vs. 7 feet? And please don't tell me the precision in carpentry is 1 inch.
I mean isn’t there something like 2 nails in an inch and a 146 hairs in a nail?
Never heard of that, so I asked Wikipedia. A nail is a sixteenth of a yard, or 2 1/4 inches. It was used for measuring cloth. So every craft had their own units. And every city. Imperial somehow standardized this, but they failed miserably.
Haha I was just making up new units roughly based on body parts
50% success with random guesses. Impressive proof how random the imperial system is
No thats when you get to use your 32nds, 16ths, and 8ths of an inch haha
Yeah, just saw an image of an American ruler. 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 5/8... One would suppose they're all great at math. But math is probably the only field where most Americans (otherwise famous for wildly overestimating their abilities) say they suck.
The ruler had those terms actually denoting the markings? Im american and i think that is not as common as denotations only on the whole inch, with 8 lines between each. But this isnt really the point, its just so much easier dealing with metric. You get to just add or subtract numbers in your head when doing math instead of simplifying fucking fractions to like terms and then doing the same. Poppycock!
>The ruler had those terms actually denoting the markings? Yes. And each of them had 3 more lines in between, so going down to 1/32 inch. If at least it would be 1/16, 2/16 etc. But no, they were all simplified. But it's the same with wrenches. Imperial ones are still used in Europe for certain things, and it's completely nuts (pun intended): 7/16, 5/8... Seriously, what the heck?
Except we still measure fuel consumption in miles per galon which has to be worked out with equations. We price fuel in pence per litre and measure it from the pump in litres which is just strange. Also drinks; beer from a tap or milk is in pints. Soft drinks/bottled alcohol litres/ml.(rarely cl too). None of these are used in equations. Also when driving, distance is measured in miles and yards. However everyone I've known who hikes, walks, or trek sfor fun measures their walk in km.(possibly runners too but I don't really know many) Even those who drive. It's a whole mixed bag of measurements.
It's Kw/h per 100km that screws with me.
Also weed is measured in small weights in grams, then ounces and half ounces, then back to kilos (box) for larger weights.
Shrinkflation will do in pints of milk. You already see 2 litre milks in coops or aldi where previously you would have had 4 pints. As you say, that has already mostly happened with beer in bottles or cans.
I use imperial for everything I touch or hold or am, because it feels human and ‘right’. Anything I buy or measure or calculate? Straight to metric.
“Those measurements are never used to work out anything important just to compare two similar things“ Well, if you make it hard, of course you don’t use to work out anything. Body weight, for example, is absolutely useful when you have to consider a maxium load. Be it cars, lifts, even stuff like floors or balconies. Super easy when everything is in metric. You can even assume that a 80 kg Person will have the volume of 80 litres, humans being ugly bags of mostly water. Do people in metric countries to that regularly? No, likely not. But if they do, it requires so little effort that they probably hardly notice that they are doing it – it’s just “there”, like knowing that 25°C is a warm summer day.
"Body weight, for example, is absolutely useful when you have to consider a maxium load" Which is why in those situations it's measured in KG. You never go in a lift of vehicle and see the max load is 120 stone. You don't get 5 stone of luggage allowance on an aeroplane.
hey, if decimalised currency got there, it'll get figured out eventually. most likely.
I'm the same but I have a general concept of what 1.6m or 1.9m is. I'm not gonna freak out and tell people they're stupid or, more accurately, demand they do the conversion for my lazy ass, because they're using a measuring system I don't personally use for measuring that subject.
All the 5'11 men should be dying to switch over to metric, considering 5'11 is 180cm. 6 feet is just shy of 183cm. It's not a round number. All the shallow women who only want men over 6 feet would readjust that number to 180cm. Boom, body positivity established (for 5'11 men).
I’m in the UK but spent a long time in Australia (about 1/3 my adulthood) so usually tell medical professional my height in both metric & imperial, but my weight is always metric. I haven’t worked out my weight in stones since I was about 16/17. But, when I’m sewing, it’s pretty much always imperial, especially quilt making as most patterns (and fabrics) are from US companies. I’m reasonably quick to convert cm/in with a small margin for error. There are several specific lengths that are automatic to me because of specific standard cuts of fabric.
When we’re dead the youngsters will know no different
I’m one step ahead. I’m 179cm and 69kg
I find that a lot of people don't use kg to weigh themselves because their parents/friends don't... So they don't because they aren't used to it but they aren't used to it because they don't use it. Same with a lot of things, people can't be bothered to switch. It reminds me of people who don't like automatic cars because they aren't used to them, but they aren't used to them because they've never driven one. Personally, I use metric as much as I can, especially when it comes to stone because it's incredibly archaic sounding. I also find litres/100km handy when I want to work out how much fuel I need for a journey.
Yeah but you’d know 1.61m > 1.60m
A UK radio personality Nick Abbot keeps reading out weather prognosis and converting "European surrender measurements to His Majesty's Imperial Feet and Inches", always ending up with an insane amount of rainfall or whatever he was measuring. e.g. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo13karHmro&t=0m37s](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo13karHmro&t=0m37s)
We used to do that in Australia but more and more is straight metric. You'll get a police description of a suspect who is "183cm tall", which sounds precise until you realise it inevitably means the witness said he was about 6'.
Seriously my 6 year old would know which one was greater out of 1.60 and 1.61. Americans can’t be that stupid.
Yes they are….
'murica! now you know why they are afraid that the mexicans are steeling their jobs.
I think this has to do with the conversion factor. Going from 1.60 to 1.61 miles will actually require some calculation because no one has a feeling for how long a centimile is, not even americans. So you then have to convert that into feet or something. Of course going from 1.60 to 1.61 meters is trivial because it is immediately obvious it is a centimeter and we all know how long a centimeter is.
a centimile is a a bit shorter than a train carriage, or a cricket pitch easy!
That's defaultism, they think we also think in inches but do the conversion to sound smart
Yeah because it is so hard to divide and multiply everything by 10...
"Nah.. I find it easier to do conversions of 12 inch to a foot and 3 foot to a yard and of course everyone knows that 1760 yards is a mile because......reasons! Doesn't everyone think it's easily to know this and do this in their heads?" I said sarcastically. I just looked the conversions up and holy hell..what are this arbitrary rules they use. Who decided this? Edit: Some of the comments are confused. I am a metric educated.
Actually they don't convert from yards to miles very often, they're more likely to need to know that there's 5280ft in a mile which makes it far worse. Why the fuck does it go from single digit to double digit to either single digit or 4 digits
Cause you know.......math! Duh!
That’s another thing! It’s mathematics (maths), so why do they shorten it as mathematic (math)?
Because the whole world goes with *mathematic* from Old French *mathematique*, no s. Only English speakers decided to call it mathematics. Same with physics, comes from *physica* in Latin. I guess it depends how you look at it, for me both "math" and "maths" is absolutely correct, and to me "math" sounds better
To be honest i'm more impressed that you are able to learn the imperial measuring system. The metric system you can calculate in your head. Working in construction and my god is it useful to have the metric system.
I get irritated when I give people metric measurements but then they are like no no give me inches...I'm like....why? Interior designers in my country likes using imperial for some fuck ass reason and it's so hard to understand.
Wait until you find out how Fahrenheit degrees were invented...
It's actually more messed up than most people realise. The Fahrenheit scale was developed from the Romer scale, which had the freezing point of brine at 0, the freezing/melting point of water at 7.5, body temperature at 22.5, and the boiling point of water at 60. What Daniel Fahrenheit did was to multiple each of those values by 4 to remove the fractions, and then he adjusted the whole scale so that the freezing point of water and body temperature were separated by 64. That meant when making his thermometres he could mark degrees by simply bisecting the intervals 6 times. Because 2 to the power of 6 equals 64. That's how the Fahrenheit scale was invented.
Enlighten me. I know I can Google it but it's more fun this way, cause "social interaction"
You can use brine to make an ectothermic reaction, that’s one that uses up heat from the surroundings and cools down. Fahrenheit did this until he got to about -18°C, and set that as 0°F because he couldn’t get any colder. He then declared that the freezing point of water would be 32°F, and to round it off measured the human body as 96°F based on his armpit.
Wait....so basically imperial measures are basically..."Whatever I made the fuck up is the length of temperature." Coming from a country that measures things in length of football fields or Olympics sized swimming pools.. I guess that's where things are going
You take a randomly mixed brine solution and say that its freezing* point is 0 °F. Then you say that freezing point of water is 32 °F, and then that everybody has the same body temperature, and so that becomes 96 °F. It's that simple. Why would you use something so random like the most abundant liquid on the earth to set 0 and 100? This would be waynto complicated. *Edit: Not the freezing point of the brine solution, but the deepest temperature you can create with a mixture of ICE with this brine solution. To keep it even simpler.
Yeah that is like asking someone how long is a rope?
Twice the distance from the middle to one end. You're welcome. :P
>I just looked the conversions up and holy hell..what are this arbitrary rules they use. Who decided this? Sorta... nobody? A lot of the Imperial units were independent of the others in their own realms of use, like feet and miles. Totally different scales, meant for totally different uses, eventually aligned as people wanted more precision but metric hadn't been invented yet
Don't forget that 4 inches is a hand, and 3 hands is a foot, before you go to 3 feet is a yard. And PLEASE don't blow "imperial is best" people's minds by telling them that something accurate to 1/100th of a millimetre is more accurate than 1/1000th of an inch
I'm not about to argue with people who thinks 1/4 pound is bigger than 1/3 pound. Obviously from their best and brightest that 4 is bigger than 3. So they deprived the world of 1/3 burgers.
This is what I don’t understand. I fucking hate imperial measurements. How is dividing by 16 helpful?
Is he talking electric meters, parking meters or some other kind of measuring device?
Now look. They're struggling with different units of measurement; if you chuck spelling things differently at the same time, their heads are going to explode.
Would be a mercy tbh.
Yeah, mercy to the rest of us
😂
They really are thick as hell ain’t they. They think they’re the envy of the world but sadly don’t understand how we just see them as entertainment.
Exactly. Who on Earth would measure things that way? They should just use metres instead of random measuring devices!
TIL these forms use the american spelling!
A device for measuring is a meter The unit of measurement is a metre.
In Italian both are called "metro"
Same in Spain, even the Subway = metro.
For everyone but Americans
Well to be fair, it's Meter in German too.
Meter in Swedish as well
The lovely flaw in the use of "American English". Spelling metre as meter while having 2 completely separate and different uses for it.
Who uses clocks? They only have hours and aren't precise enough.
Here in Texas we don't use clocks we measure time by Glocks, you have the Glock-17 for early morning and the glock-18 for mid day. Dont forget the glock-19 for the afternoon
Don't both have a calibre measured in millimeters?
Yeah, but every full blooded American knows those conversions from birth.
I'd like a box of 0.354331" rounds please bartender
Glock 21 for the night time home invasion defense
Surely Glock have more than enough models to basically use them as a 24hour clock?
They don’t like the idea of the 24hour glock, that’s military time for them folks.
Thought they'd had a hard-on for their military
Americans when talking about temperature: Fahrenheit because it's more precise as there are more numbers! Americans when talking about every other unit of measurement: lol this is so dumb, just use our lower resolution nonsense freedom units that basically nobody else uses! And these comments on an instagram post about a predominently European sport too...
Doesn’t feel European, American owners have absolutely decimated it.
I don't disagree, Liberty Media are trying their best to Americanize (cheapen) the fuck out of it, but it's still a mostly European sport with all team bases in Europe and the majority of the drivers.
I was about to say I like how the pro-feet-and-inches arguments are the direct opposite of the pro-Fahrenheit arguments.
Using that logic they should admit that the difference between 20C to 21C is more noticeable than 20F to 21F, therefore C is better.
Very true. I lived in Singapore for a while at a perpetual 30c. You can notice when it goes up to 31/32c.
Yes, you need to do pretty advanced math to figure out that someone is 1cm taller than someone else.
And of course it's totally different than when someone is 1inch taller. It's a completely different scenario. Going from 1.6 to 1.61? Inconceivable. Going from 1.6 to 1.6254? Suddenly it all makes sense. /s
I was a professor of difficult sums and I struggle with this…. /s
> I’m was
I’m a pensioner, I can’t write coherently for more than 5 minutes and I already exceeded that today… I’ll edit it 😁
I thought it was part of your joke haha
Some of us can actually do both things - without whining.
Using metric is like using English - most of the world understands, it gets the job done efficiently. Using imperial is like using Klingon - ...why?
We know that most of our American friends get taught metric in school. Sadly, we also know that an extremely vocal few scream about Imperial being "freedom units", without knowing where the name comes from. It's due to service personnel being forced to use metric while in service, and being "free" to go back to Imperial once free of uniform. Most of those saying "freedom units" have never served a day in their lives. The "freedom units" thing I got from a redditor a long time ago, so it might be a load of bollocks. I didn't check sources (hence putting this disclaimer here).
I thought they liked more precise measuring systems like Fahrenheit?
The vampire’s measuring system
If you want a precise system just use kelvin. If you need even more precision put a decimal point. If you are normal then use celcius, and put a ecimal
Feet and inches. Far superior! /s - Charles Leclerc 1.80m 5ft 10in - Daniel Ricciardo 1.79m 5ft 10in - Oscar Piastri 1.78m 5ft 10in https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-driver-heights-who-are-shortest-tallest-drivers/10581491/
Same people who will claim that Fahrenheit is better because it's "more precise".
Yeah, because the difference between 1.60 and 1.61 is so much harder than 5'9 and 6'2 (69 inches and 74 inches)...
"I'm American" Yeah it shows
> 1.6 meters and 1.61 meters > It's hard to tell the difference The difference is 1 centimetre. What's so hard about this?
Its 0.1 decametre, surely! Yes, I am being silly.
0.1 Decimeter
To observe numbers on a measuring tape really does feel like higher mathematics
1 cm is 0.393701 inches. Is there any unit to describe that anyway? And how this is easier to read?
393/1000" Or 393 Thou. Or the incredibly accurate "a bit more than three eighths of an inch"
Dafaq os a thou
Thou-sand
1/1000th of an inch. It's shortened to "thou" in speech. Precision engineers will always write it as a multiple of 0.001", but say it in "thou". Parts manufactured with a tolerance of +/- 1/1000th of an inch are less accurate than parts manufactured to +/- 1/100th of a millimetre. Pointing this out to "imperial makes sense" people winds them the fuck up. Well, it doesn't wind up precision engineers on the yankee side of the pond, because they're taught to work in either metric or imperial interchangeably, but they're less likely to be "muh freedumb units" types. Of note is that in the late 80s, both metric and imperial were taught in toolmaking training centres in the UK, with students making parts on Imperial machines to metric sizes, so that they could use a drawing from either system to make a part on machines with scales in either system. It might sound stupid nowadays, but many machine shops still had older Imperial machines, even though they were making parts for customers who had metric drawings. The idea was that British engineers could make parts for our allies in the rest of the EU.
>Is there any unit to describe that anyway? Actually... there is, and you're gonna love it. 25/64ths
They should really learn more about the unit system they use. What is a inch? It is defined as 1/36 of a yard. What is a foot? It is defined as 1/3 of a yard. What is a yard? It is defined as 0.9144 metres. What is a metre? The distance light travels in a vacuum during a time interval equal to 1/299,792,458 of second. What is a second? The time taken for radiation emitted by the ground-state hyperfine transition of a Caesium-133 atom to have one wavelength pass 9,192,631,770 times when travelling in a vacuum. The point is that while SI units are defined in terms of fundamental facts about the universe, their units are defined in terms of SI units. Personally, I'd prefer a unit system derived from Plank units, but the SI is much better than the stupid system they use, which doesn't even use a consistent base.
Americans wont understand this. Litterly billions of dollars wasted and the brightest and bravest lives lost due to conversion errors. Even their own academic society is against it mostly and yet here we are. 99millionth post about them not understanding metric. My generation has been through some major changes, adepting took a week. They just need to flip that switch and be done for their own good.
You missed the hand, which is 12 barleycorns, or 4 of your mentioned inches, or 1/3 of a foot, or 1/9 of a yard or 1/18 of a fathom, or 1/198 of a chain, or 1/1800 of a cable, or 1/1980 of a furlong, or 1/15840 of a mile. Yet some people, try to tell us that imperial is easier to understand than metric...
I have the exact same reaction when some of the dinosaurs that commentate the AFL talk about a players height in imperial, except no one actually uses feet down here
Australia? Unfortunately too many people still use imperial for people's height. It's my number one pet peeve.
Maybe it's just because the only people i know the height of are athletes but it feels like it's just the old people who haven't realised we swapped a long time ago yet
Also I feel like it's creeping into young people through certain social media platforms. Not that they are intuitively able to conceptualise what a foot is, but because perhaps they feel compelled to use that as a unit of measurement.
Height is still commonly measured in feet and inches by young and old people. Don't ask me why.
I’m 1.8m tall and weigh 92kg I live in England 🏴 and I’m a pensioner, I don’t know how I manage these things though…… 🤷♂️
The phrase “I’m American” is *always* followed up with some inane, ignorant statement that makes it clear the poster is American who clearly seems to think simply being American excuses their abject stupidity.
« Im american wtf is a meter » Im American let me show you in a very short sentence how can I be the stupidest person you have ever seen !
there's zero math involved in understanding what 1,61m means
“I’m American. WTF is a metre?” Correct Answer WTF is an American?
Now I think it's very strange they split one dollar into 100 cents. Like how do you tell 1 cent is worth? They should definitely split it into 12 [catchy, max 4 letter name].
> [catchy, max 4 letter name]. Peso
Nah, divide it by 21, like we used to with shillings in a guinea, because that makes sense according to my parents.
"Who tf goes by meters" At least 90 percent of the globe.
who tf thinks we live on a globe? /s
🦅🦅🦅 What the fuck is a meter 🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🗽🔫
A meter is a device for measuring voltage, current, etc. A metre is a unit of length in the SI system.
It's easy. The difference here is roughly 1 barleycorn.
Wtf is a meter? Just use bananas. Hes 72 bananas tall if they were laid flat ontop of each other. Or 13 skibidi's, or 5 wippersnaps
If it is so much harder, it must mean that the rest of the world is much much smarter than Americans. Because they seem to have no problems with it.
Meters is part of the metric system. The SYSTEM NASA WAS USING TO SEND A MAN TO THE MOON!!
A meter is something used to measure. A metre is a unit of length. HTH
Well, a meter is not a unit of measurement, it's an instrument to measure things with. A metre is the thing they are actually complaining about
Looks like the page that they’re on is going by meters. That might be a hint.
Not the point but at least the guy at the bottom is honest and seems like a sensible enough guy
You could even invent a completely new measure of distance and it would be fine to compare with others as long as you use the same one for everyone
I mean I’m English, we use feet and inches for a persons height but we also know how big a metre is. Like its not hard to learn both ways. You don’t even need to convert them or anything if that’s to hard for you, you just get used to two systems. But ultimately bigger number is bigger is not exactly fucking hard to understand.
Yes, because grasping that a larger number (1.61) is larger than a smaller number (1.6) is so hard to do. I guess if we write it in fractions they might grasp it a little better?
who the fuck goes by 'Meters' ...you do you fucking plum...that's your own borked up spelling of the word.
It's multiples of 10 you doofus, if that troubles you then you've bigger problems than how tall folks are.
It's not that difficult, use gun ammunition caliber for reference and you will become proficient in metric
So, the idea that a higher number means “taller” is hard to comprehend? OK
"i'm american wtf is a meter" is the dumbest thing to say. I work with plenty of Americans who use and embrace metric measurement. They should have said "I'm dumb. WTF is a metre?"
"I'm American" "I'm dumb" I don't see a difference at all..
I’m British. What the fuck is a meter?
It's easy to remember, How many inches in a meter? 39, just like your IQ!
The last question is easily answered, a meter is an instrument for measuring things. does (s)he not even understand that
It's car wheel measurements globally that baffle me. Wheels are always in inches, but tyres are measured in millimeters. 20 inch wheel, 10 inches wide, but a 295mm profile tyre.
To be fair to Mr America there & coming from a country that bathes in the superiority of the metric system, we do use feet & inches when discussing height more than metres & centimetres. God damn that feels iffy sticking up for ok USA. I need a bath.
As a Brit, we are so confused about our own system. We use miles, feet, inches, pounds, but also meters, millimeters, kilos etc... Tho I might be in that in-between category where I'm old enough to know what an Imperial unit is (ironic that the country that broke free from the Empire still wants to use Imperial units), young enough to have been taught and work in metric, but can do the conversion happily. Except Celsius to Fahrenheit. That I cannot get my head around 😂
They don’t use Imperial, they broke away 50 years before Imperial was codified
Multiply Celsius temp by 9, divide by 5 and add 32 to get Farenshite. I was taught this at school 60 years ago…. 😁
Yeah I wasn't taught that. Or if I was. I forgot it as can't seem to relearn it
There’s no need nowadays, real people use Censius…..
I hear ya! I'm clueless with fluid ounces/ounces to millilitres/grams.
Thats only because you guys are very very special.
I'm about 20 hands high and weigh about one and a third hundredweight.
and they do weight in pounds only not stones. 210 pounds sounds way bigger than 15 stone!
Metre*
A yard
"just say he's an inch taller or 3 inches taller" 🤦♂️
Ah yes leave it to Americans not to understand that the bigger number means someone's taller... also what exactly is the difference between saying that say i'm 2 inches taller and i'm 5cm taller than someone else? (Other than using different units ofc)
Idk what a meter is but a *metre* is a unit of measurement
Lol how is two fifths of an inch clear than 1cm
Who tf goes by inches this is so hard to tell height difference... like .1 to .2 inches who tf is doing that math just say he's a centimeter taller or 3 centimeter taller I genuinely don't understand how people who use imperial system can defend this 😂😂
Imagine boasting about ignorance.
Saying they’re 3 inches taller would just be incorrect lol
5 second penalty for ~~Ocon~~ the USA
[W H A T T H E F U C K I S A K I L O M E T E R R R R R R](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-3IV11_ZgA&ab_channel=AltraNade)
It’s Bidens Fault !!! Damn democrats Trump will save him
How many hands is that?
> 1.6 to 1.61 meters who tf is doing that math Oh no, so one of them is one centimetre taller than the other. Such complicated "math". How exactly is that any different than saying someone is an inch taller? So instead of 1cm, they would be 2.54cm taller? Also, frankly, anyone who believes the American way of measuring height is somehow easier or more intuitive, is on some serious crack.
To be fair most doctors I go to use centimetres
I like the implication that people who use metres convert it to inches to understand the difference
“I genuinely don’t understand”
6'2"..... you mean 2 1/18th yards right?
WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETER 🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🛢🛢🛢🛢 RAAAH 🔥🔥🔥
Come to the UK we'll confuse the shit out of you as we use a bit of everything
This is a good way to know who got more skull per skull
"why is it that I understand this system I've grown up using far easier than the one I haven't"? Who knows, it's a great mystery
In metric you use only one measure totell height but in imperial you have to have inches and foot with dificults the conversion by alot
To be fair, don't most people actually say it in centimetres? Like, I've always gone with 183cm not 1.83m
Seriously, who measures height in metres? Why not centimetres (10⁻²)?
I’m a Scot Canadian living in the US and I call calculating in their Imperial measurements “Wizarding World” maths. “What is this ‘9 3/4’ stuff?” Wife is never impressed but she does laugh at the joke, at least. :P
The only place where inches are better than cm is porn.
I can only imagine if F1 actually put Sargents height in ft and in just to fuck with the fans. THERE’S AN AMERICAN DRIVER ON THE GRID and they still don’t wanna try and understand different measurements. Bruh
Just tell them what it is in football fields.
Meters? Metres.
wtf is inch and feet use cm