Metric system dumbs us down.

[ajhil]

Math skills? Hardly! Using different systems of measure involves no more than memorizing units and performing the simplest arithmetic - mathematics has advanced considerably in the past few centuries.

[valhalla360]

If metric is so great, why is paper measured as A0, A1, A2, etc... rather then by dimensions like normal people use?

If you aren't going to use dimensions, just say "letter size"? To make matters worse, letter size in metric is 8.3x11.7inches or 210x279.4mm. If you are going to make up a special metric paper size, you would either match it to the old standard or use round numbers. Is trimming that 0.6mm off, really needed?

[Stormboy]

OK, guys lets use some smaller words to deal with the complexities of the metric system ......
for our dear cousins in Burma, Liberia and another place. lets call it whatchamacallit
Yes, change is hard.......specially if its simple......incredibly simple....and the good folk of Burma, Liberia and whatchamacallit, will need all the time and patience of us lucky metricians, if they are to finally join us.
Turning round an elephant or a Liberian oil tanker is slow and potentially dangerous, but, turning round the States of Trumpmania, thats going to be around the year 3017 by my calculations. Every empire goes through a long period of hubris and self satisfaction during their decline.....( talking about the little known empire of Liberia....naturally ) but in just a millennium they may join the rest of the world.
Fahrenheit !!!.....seriously....

[carstenb]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Quote: "How many here can convert a fathom or a cable to a more "everyday" unit of measure?"

Well, you for one :-) I'd have thot that you are perfectly aware of soundings stated in "favne vand" and that "et pund" coffee, say, is 1/2 kilogramme or 500 grammes.

For purposes that relate directly to accommodating the human body the "old" measures are a lot easier to use. But they have no place in microbiology or in astrophysics. Designing houses and ships using the metric system is a pain. So much easier in "old measures" which aren't specifically English/American. Every society worked in inches, feet and yards, tho these units were of different lengths in different societies. In England/America the "ell" wasn't much used but on the continent its use was more frequent than the use of the "yard".

I used to drive "associates" in Danish lumberyards around the bend by insisting on their explaining to me why sheets of plywood were cut to "stupid" measures like 2,438mm x 1,219mm. Not once did I find an "associate that knew the answer to that. Duh!

TrentePieds

yep "favne vand" can still be found on very old charts - but I'll bet a cup of coffee (or something stronger) that the majority of members on this site are not able to tell us how long a fathom or a cable is in any other measure (feet, meters, yards, etc)

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by DumnMad

Metric system is too easy - dumbs down maths in the population due lazy brainwork.

Then explain how school kids from every European (metric) country beat US kids at maths hands down...

I don't think the metric system dumbs you down, as it makes it possible to do more in your head that otherwise would need a calculator.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

If metric is so great, why is paper measured as A0, A1, A2, etc... rather then by dimensions like normal people use?

If you aren't going to use dimensions, just say "letter size"? To make matters worse, letter size in metric is 8.3x11.7inches or 210x279.4mm. If you are going to make up a special metric paper size, you would either match it to the old standard or use round numbers. Is trimming that 0.6mm off, really needed?

Actually there is a beautiful logic behind the DIN paper sizes. And it makes perfect sense.

The reason for the odd size is that the aspect ratio is the square root of 2.
This means that you can make an A1 by just halving a sheet of A0, an A2 by halving a sheet of A1, etc...
This means that paper mills only need to produce one type of sheet, and can produce all other sizes just by cutting it, with no waste.
(My father's architecture firm would only buy A0 and A4, and just cut up a sheet of A0 if they needed other sizes...)
The number of sheats of A3 that fit in an A0 is 2^3
The number of sheets of A4 that fit in an A0 is 2^4
and so on...

The second clever thing is that the surface area of a sheet of A0 is defined as exactly 1m2. So A1 is then 0.5m2, A2 0.25 etc.

Given that paper weights are in g/m2 that makes it easy to just calculate how much a page of a certain size will weight (convenient for calculating postage...)
There are 2^4 (=16) A4 pages in on A0, my printer paper is 80g/m2, so a page is 80/16, or 5g.

And I can figure that all out in my head. No calculator needed.

The system was invented by the Germans, and it is no surprise that almost everyone in the world uses it.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Designing houses and ships using the metric system is a pain.

Why?

I don't get it. I learned to design houses (and everything else) in metric. I would consider having to do it in feet and inches a pain.

In a way the measurement system itself is not that important. What matters is that it is used consistently, and that everyone agrees on it.

In the 18th century scientists around the world started to communicate more, and found out that the traditional system of measurement was horribly broken. So they pushed for a universal system. Scientists and politicians from the US were in favor of an universal, decimal system of measurements as well. The US could actually have been one of the first countries to go metric, and we would be having a very different discussion now...

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by Benz

One of the many insoluble problems of the Metric System (or SI, as some call it, for "System of Idiots" but I will not be so unkind), is that when measuring lengths you get all tripped up between meters, centimeters, decimeters, and millimeters. So much of the word "Meters," that it's hard to keep track of what unit you were discussing. Exactly how long is 5.8 decimeters? Wait, was that deci- or centi-?

Very nice straw man you are building there.

No really. Where is the confusion? I do not know of anyone who grew up in the metric system that is confused by the metric prefixes.

"deci" means one tenth, so that a decimeter is on tenth of a meter is immediately obvious. Converting just means moving the decimal point.

The confusion got so great in one boat shop that was trying against all reason to convert to Metric, that we ended up building 42-foot boat measuring only in millimeters. I was having to do ridiculous things like measure 6,475 millimeters from here or there.

So you measure 6.475 m from here to there. A second grader can make that conversion. And why is that somehow silly, and measuring 21.245 feet not?

When I see 6475 mm I simultaneously see 647.5 cm, 64.75 dm, and 6.475 m, and can thus measure the distance with whatever metric measuring that I have handy.

So I wouldn't say the Metric System makes you dumber--it's just harder to use and far less convenient.
Ben
zartmancruising.com

Now explain why metric boatshops out produce non-metric boatshops by a huge margin...

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Like introducing a new currency (Euro) on 300 million people and in the medley round up the prices from the old currencies to make a little on the side

The metric system work brilliantly for diving. Cylinder volume is calculated in liters of water volume. Pressure is measured in bar (close to atmospheres) so multiplied together give the volume of free air available, eg 10 x 232 bar equals 2320 litres of free air.

Depths are measured in meters and for every 10m the pressure increases 1 bar. Again simple maths to work out how much air you will breath at depth per minute, to a point most of us can do these calculations underwater in the cold when slightly panicky because you are running short of air

for engineering, well the imperial system is just baffling. So you want a drill slightly bigger than 5/32, what's the next size up

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

Actually there is a beautiful logic behind the DIN paper sizes. And it makes perfect sense.

The reason for the odd size is that the aspect ratio is the square root of 2.
This means that you can make an A1 by just halving a sheet of A0, an A2 by halving a sheet of A1, etc...
This means that paper mills only need to produce one type of sheet, and can produce all other sizes just by cutting it, with no waste.
(My father's architecture firm would only buy A0 and A4, and just cut up a sheet of A0 if they needed other sizes...)
The number of sheats of A3 that fit in an A0 is 2^3
The number of sheets of A4 that fit in an A0 is 2^4
and so on...

The second clever thing is that the surface area of a sheet of A0 is defined as exactly 1m2. So A1 is then 0.5m2, A2 0.25 etc.

Given that paper weights are in g/m2 that makes it easy to just calculate how much a page of a certain size will weight (convenient for calculating postage...)
There are 2^4 (=16) A4 pages in on A0, my printer paper is 80g/m2, so a page is 80/16, or 5g.

And I can figure that all out in my head. No calculator needed.

The system was invented by the Germans, and it is no surprise that almost everyone in the world uses it.

Outside of manufacturing and large printing operations, the average user could care less what the surface area of a sheet of paper is. I've yet to see a printer spec that lists 0.25m^2 paper as an option for printing. This sounds a lot like the producer telling the customer what they should want rather than meeting the customers needs first.

If you want to be able to get other sizes by folding in half, much more logical to start with the smallest sheet with nice logical sizing in round numbers and the keep doubling it to get larger sizes. (ie: 8.5*11 becomes 11*17).

FYI - if you've ever folded plan sheets down to "letter" size, it doesn't work anyway as each fold adds a few mm to the outside dimensions, so it doesn't come out exactly letter size anyway.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Outside of manufacturing and large printing operations, the average user could care less what the surface area of a sheet of paper is. I've yet to see a printer spec that lists 0.25m^2 paper as an option for printing. This sounds a lot like the producer telling the customer what they should want rather than meeting the customers needs first.

If the user doesn't care, but the paper manufacturers do, than it makes perfectly sense the let the manufacturers set the standard, not?

The need of the customer is to have a good product at a reasonable price. Avoiding waste in the paper plant is thus also in the customers interest. That is what the whole DIN series of paper sizes set out to achieve.

And for the customer it doesn't matter. Everybody is happy with A4. It's just the US that seems to need two paper sizes that are completely unrelated...

FYI - if you've ever folded plan sheets down to "letter" size, it doesn't work anyway as each fold adds a few mm to the outside dimensions, so it doesn't come out exactly letter size anyway.

I've never had to fold down to "letter" size, as I grew up in a metric country.

I did fold down A0, A1 etc. I used to help out my father a lot. And it was very convenient that any plan size would fold down to A4, and then fit in a B4 envelope to mail out.
Same with correspondence. You can fit a stack of A4 pages in a B4 envelope, or if it's only a few pages just fold them in half (A5 size), and fit them in a B5 envelope.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

If you want to be able to get other sizes by folding in half, much more logical to start with the smallest sheet with nice logical sizing in round numbers and the keep doubling it to get larger sizes. (ie: 8.5*11 becomes 11*17).

The problem with that is that this way the aspect ratio doesn't stay the same. The fact that A0,A1 etc all have the same aspect ratio is very convenient.

You can reduce an A3 by 50% and it will fit perfectly on a A4. Or enlarge an A1 by 200% and it will fit perfectly on a A0.

In the end the DIN-A series does the same thing you propose. Start with a round number, and produce a series of convenient sizes with convenient properties from it.

[YARGESOL]

what I noticed is , that what they charge in European stores per kilo - say ham,meat etc , or electrical store sell wires per linear meter...in US about the same money (if not more) they grabs per pound ...,or linear feet

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

If the user doesn't care, but the paper manufacturers do, than it makes perfectly sense the let the manufacturers set the standard, not?

Keeping up "the business telling the customer what they should want." I never suggested the customer doesn't care about the dimensions of the paper. What the customer doesn't care about is how many square meters a piece of paper is.

I've never had to fold down to "letter" size, as I grew up in a metric country.

Way to dodge the question with semantics!

I did fold down A0, A1 etc. I used to help out my father a lot. And it was very convenient that any plan size would fold down to A4, and then fit in a B4 envelope to mail out. But the folded A0 will not be the same dimensions as the A4 as you originally suggested, so for the end user, having it fold perfectly (IN THEORY) doesn't do anything for the customer.
Same with correspondence. You can fit a stack of A4 pages in a B4 envelope, or if it's only a few pages just fold them in half (A5 size), and fit them in a B5 envelope.

Sounds like you just like them because you grew up with them and that's what you are comfortable with...which is fine...but they don't match up with the idea behind metric standardization. It's just a new arbitrary measurement system just like quarts and furlongs set up to meet the needs of a specific user (apparently in this case paper manufacturers and printing companies).

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Benz

So much for everything being standard. What is the standard SI method of measuring a circle? Has anyone decided yet?

Yes, the derived SI unit is the radian (rad). There are 2 x Pi of them in a circle, so one radian is just under 57.3°