We have the odd thing here or there that is US sourced (ye olde worlde tape recorders on board satellites is one). So the americans don’t necessarily use metric in space (ISS they do, but elsewhere, possibly not).
All the figures are in imperial… pressures in PSI, tension in lb-f, tape length in feet, travel speed in inches per second.
tbh, it’s no big deal… everything has upper and lower limits and expected values, and there’s really no point converting back to units that Europeans understand or can conceptualise.

Sure if I was designing it now, it would be in metric, although these days that’s all obsolete tech now anyway.

The metric system’s the work of the devil! My car does 40 rods to the hogshead, and that’s the way I likes it.

I’ll continue to measure bikes and rides using whichever system is more flattering though.

depending on which “cup” you’re using

Yes but it’s US recipes that use cups, so there is only one US cup yes? Certainly only one in common use. And no-one ever has this problem in the US when cooking.

I once worked with a woman who utterly refused to use the metric system which caused a few issues in a packaging company.

She also refused to drive or even get in a car and rode to work on a horse.

I liked her a lot.

The metric system requires an extra conversion due to the conversion from newtons to pascals,

I don’t see the problem – pounds per square inch is the same as Pascals ie newtons per square meter.

pascal is so small you end up with massive strings of zeros

Er that’s why we have multipliers, k, M, G etc. If you have too many zeros just use kPa, that’s what everyone else does. I didn’t just go on a 20,000m bike ride, for instance, and I don’t weigh 87,000g. Well I do, but I don’t talk about it.

The really nice thing about metric measurements is that they are all derived from other things, and there are only two arbitrary things in it – the metre and the kilogramme. Everything else is based on real world phenomenon and these two things so scentific formulae become much easier!

And no-one ever has this problem in the US when cooking.

They don’t have a problem with their date format either, and that’s bloody stupid as well.

And no-one ever has this problem in the US when cooking.

Similarly, no-one in the rest of the world has a problem cooking with metric measurements.

No-one’s mentioned temperature yet. What the f is Gas mark 5 ?
And isn’t Celsius just a tad more useful than Fahrenheit ?
Apropos:
I had major problems with my liquid helium plant, but it’s nearly OK now.

when you are dealing with pressures up to 20,000 psi a pascal is so small you end up with massive strings of zeros

Eh? Surely that’s like saying metric is useless at measuring big distances because a metre is too small.

Isn’t megapascal or gigapascal the appropriate magnitude?

e.g. 20,000 psi = 137.9 MPa (megapascals) or 0.1379 GPa (gigapascals)

And isn’t Celsius just a tad more useful than Fahrenheit ?

Not in everyday terms – makes no difference. However in scientific terms they are both useless, hence Kelvin 🙂

Similarly, no-one in the rest of the world has a problem cooking with metric measurements.

No I know, I’m not defending it – I use weights too. I was responding to the poster who said it was confusing because cups are not all the same size. This is not an issue due to a standardized cup used for cooking in the US.

haha! a former colleague, manager, had a previous life as an astro-physicist – lovely guy.

Anyway, his classic memory of mixed and indeed downright weird measurement units was the measurement of heat in outer space – apparently (according to Phil) it was in BTUs (British Thermal Units, about 1000 joules) per cubic megaParsec (which I suspect is quite a large volume…)

Think typical values would be definitely single figures…

I had major problems with my liquid helium plant, but it’s nearly OK now.

Brilliant, I’m stealing that.

Not in everyday terms – makes no difference

I reckon people can relate to frozen water at 0c, boiling at 100c a lot better than they can to the same events in Fahrenheit?

Not really. In the US, everyone knows water freezes at 32 and boils at 212. Not something that really needs ‘relating’ to.

The really nice thing about metric measurements is that they are all derived from other things, and there are only two arbitrary things in it – the metre and the kilogramme.

Actually…

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l9gqTzAbXI[/video]

In the US, everyone knows water freezes at 32 and boils at 212. Not something that really needs ‘relating’ to.

Okay – off the top of your head what is two-thirds of boiling point in Fahrenheit? 🙂

Obviously you can still work it out, but it is MUCH easier in metric (and thus easier to relate to as a scale).

I think all scales that are in everyday use should start at some seemingly arbitrary number and end at another.

We could have feet starting at -0.15″ and ending at 16.73″ and being divided into 734 equal points in between everyone could just learn the relationships between them?

What common every day reason would there be for me needing to work that out instantly?

Everyone knows what 70F, 80F, 90F etc feels like in terms of weather or heating; and people set their ovens to whatever it says in the recipe. Any other everyday use for temperature values?

Everyone knows what 70F, 80F, 90F etc feels like in terms of weather or heating

actually, my kids have no idea. I’m pretty hazy beyond knowing that 90 is a bit too warm and 70 probably ‘ok’.

tbh, I know that I set our thermostat to 20c during the winter but no idea what that is in Fahrenheit.

If I’m cooking I set the oven to 180-200c for cooking meat, 220c for roast potatoes and 160c for cakes. Again, no idea what they woudl be in Fahrenheit.

I’m 48, was never taught F at school and have never had any reason to learn the relevant points on it that would be needed for everyday life.

Oh, I do know that ‘body’ temperature is 96.8F or something – ‘cos there was a song about that.

molgrips – Member

Everyone knows what 70F, 80F, 90F etc feels like in terms of weather or heating;

I haven’t got the slightest idea. I don’t know how many fathoms it is to my office either.

What common every day reason would there be for me needing to work that out instantly?

Well you said people could still “relate” to the Fahrenheit scale despite its arbitrariness. I’m just pointing out that they can’t really – they’ve just remembered a few arbitrary numbers on that arbitrary scale. If you ask them to do very simple maths on it then they struggle*.

I don’t have an every day reason for you. But I don’t have an every day reason for knowing the freezing/boiling point of water either. It’s just not something I use every day. 😀

* (which is oddly contra to a lot of other imperial stuff which usually uses highly composite numbers like 12 to make the maths easier)

they’ve just remembered a few arbitrary numbers on that arbitrary scale.

That’s no different to celcius. I know I need a coat if it’s 10C outside, and I don’t if it’s 20. An American knows the same thing at 50 and mid 60s. There’s no rationale to those numbers, they are arbitrary. The boiling and freezing points of water are just arbitrary anyway – why not propane or alcohol or whatever? You’re overthinking this!

why not propane or alcohol or whatever

because *everyone* knows what an ice cube looks like and when a kettle boils?

I don;t know why you’re defending Fahrenheit, really – as above, surely we could just as easily use Kelvin as a scale of we all work better with seemingly random numbers for measuring temperature variations?

I’m not defending it, I’m saying that for the everyday person it makes no difference.

what is two-thirds of boiling point in Fahrenheit?

What’s 2/3 of boiling point in C? It’s not 67… 🙂

I’m saying that for the everyday person it makes no difference.

So we can stick with celcius like 95% of the world do and everyone’s happy ‘cos it makes no difference anyway?

What’s 2/3 of boiling point in C? It’s not 67…

don’t you join in and complicated stuff 🙂 You still need to learn that babies weights are measured in lb’s not oz’s 😉

What’s 2/3 of boiling point in C? It’s not 67…

You’d need to tell us the atmospheric pressure before we can answer that one.

Anyway I can’t believe this thread is still going. It was one answer to a deliberately provocative set of direct questions posed by the Newsnight interviewer to somehow gauge how aligned Camerons own views are to some stereotypical middle Englander Conservative voter. I can’t believe it’s actually become a headline. Certainly wasn’t being asked to comment on any policy he’d want put in place. Shame to see the Guardian publishing such a misleading piece.

What’s 2/3 of boiling point in C? It’s not 67…

That sort of depends how you phrase and interpret the question really. 😀
On a scale of (standard) freezing point to boiling point, two-thirds along is 67°C

Everyone knows what 70F, 80F, 90F etc feels like in terms of weather or heating;

I don’t, I haven’t the faintest clue. Fahrenheit isn’t something I was ever taught, ever come across in real life (without an accompanying Celsius measurement, rendering it moot) or ever had any compelling reason to find out about. The only time in my life I’ve ever needed to know what ‘F is, is when discussing the weather with Americans, or doing pub quizzes.

don’t you join in and complicated stuff You still need to learn that babies weights are measured in lb’s not oz’s

I’ve never understood why people are so keen to know the mass of a newborn; it’s not like we’re cooking or selling them.

there are only two arbitrary things in it – the metre and the kilogramme

Ahem, I reckon you should stop and think about that statement for a second or two…

Everyone knows what 70F, 80F, 90F etc feels like in terms of weather or heating;

Not a clue here.

Celsius is really easy: -10C is really cold, 0C is freezing, 10C is chilly, 20C is nice, 30C is hot, 40C is really hot, 50C is lie down in the shade.

there are only two arbitrary things in it – the metre and the kilogram

One metre is the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1?299,792,458 of a second.

One kilogram is the mass of a specific lump of metal, kept in Paris.

Perfectly sensible.

I don’t, I haven’t the faintest clue

I meant everyone in America.

Newspapers report hot days in Fahrenheit and cold days in Celsius. They say temps soared to 80f but would never say they plummeted to 30f

I’ve never understood why people are so keen to know the mass of a newborn; it’s not like we’re cooking or selling them.

Apparently the UK is unusual in Europe for this- everywhere else they ask how long it is.

One kilogram is the mass of a specific lump of metal, kept in Paris.

That is in the process of changing, because they want a constant kilogram, not one that changes (minutely) over time.
Watch the Numberphile video I posted earlier.

Apparently the UK is unusual in Europe for this- everywhere else they ask how long it is.

surely the girth is more of an issue for mum than the length.

How many of the metric lovers navigate in milliradians rather than degrees?

Degrees (for angles) are a nice example of imperial systems using a Superior Highly Composite Number to make mental maths easier.

But radians have a simple beauty too, when you introduce Pi.

Everything is better with Pi.

(But yes, you’re right, no-one navigates by milliradians, that would be daft)

(Oh and degrees qualify as an accepted unit for SI angles, so they count as metric 😉 )

Degrees (for angles) are a nice example of imperial systems

was that Imperial Babylon ?