Metric System vs. America

[stoogefreaky]

I'm raised doing the standard system, so I hate the Metric system. IT IS SO CONFUSING! I have math homework using the metric crud.

I don't know why America was born using the standard and all the places in the world use Metric!

[CommanderEVE]

What is the metric system?

[Astro Forever]

If you use Celsius instead of Farenheit and meters instead of inches, then you are using the Metric System.

I use both (partly because of the US shipping all kinds of items over here... ...but also because older people are still more comfortable with the imperial system and habits are hard to break!). Give yourself a little bit of time, stoogefreaky, because it's (IMO) the simpler of the two, since everything goes by 10.

[jeffbert]

THe US system seems based upon arbitrary distances, etc. I, for one find it much easier to work with meters, Kilometers, picometers, etc, which are all multiples of 10, 100, 1000, etc. 12 inches in a foot, 5xxx feet per mile, 32 degrees is freezing etc. What a pain. However, I admit that the US system is what I have been using since childhood; But that is its only advantage: I am already familiar with it. Who wants to do fractions when looking for the right socket? You need to know right off that 7/16 > 11/32! Why couldn't they just express these as decimals rather than fractions?

Ok, so the 'foot' was the length of the king's foot, but why make the mile 5280 feet instead of 1000, 2000, or some sensible multiple of 10?

[CommanderEVE]

Oh I see now thanks you guys.

[stoogefreaky]

You know what, all mesurment units are hard for me.

[fafner]

You know what, all mesurment units are hard for me.

Maybe you are trying too much to put a meaning on them. The only measurment units I really understand are centimeters (roughly inches), meters (roughly feet) and seconds. Beyond that I can't really "feel" units, even millimeters, tens of meters (I don't "see" the difference between 100 and 500 meters). Temperature is even more abstract to me (I only understand cold, warm, and neutral). Accelerations (distance divided by the square of time) is something I don't even understand on an intuitive level.
Nevertheless, I never had troubles deducing formulae (sometimes rather complex) and making the calculations afterwards. I think it comes from the fact that when I manipulate them I don't try to put meaning on them, because at this level, meaning is useless. What is useful is the relations between measurement units: speed is distance divided by time, acceleration is speed divided by time, or distance divided twice by time (divided by the square of time), etc. Once the useless meaning is discarded, and the relations well known, everything becomes easy. At least for me...

[CommanderEVE]

I found it hard my self.

[stoogefreaky]

I have a math test on Monday!!! I'm going to have to memorize the covertions from Standard to Metric.

[Astro Forever]

How many?

I know of inche to centimeters (2.54), kilogram to pounds (2.2), miles to kilometers (around 1.6) and I really have to take a few minutes to memorize forever Farenheit to Celsius because it would be really useful in my everyday life!