American Customary (a.k.a Freedom) Units vs Imperial vs Metric

[Stefan Mikes]

They put a man on the moon and invented the atom bomb with that system.

Science uses the Metric system, even in the U.S. I do not need to remind you the Project Manhattan and later H-bomb were the German, Italian, Danish, Hungarian and Polish, with the Americans having had studied in Europe pre-WW2? Wernher von Braun, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller or Stan Ulam? Yes, Oppenheimer was American.

How the French and English managed to build concorde is beyond me.

Somehow the Brits learned the metric system. Doable. The British, German and French built Airbus, too. Interestingly, Airbus' management had to find the way to sell to the U.S. market so decided to adopt the U.S. aviation units: nautical miles, knots, feet, feet per minute. The fuel is in kilogram I guess. It is hPa or in Hg for barometric pressure (optional). Not sure about the temperature units (C?) and visibility (probably km or statute miles per geographic area).

Please check the famous "Gimli Glider" air incident. An airliner got its engines flamed out because of fuel starvation mid-flight. In those times, the Canadian hadn't learnt the conversion between litres, kilograms and pounds yet

 

[Chargeride]

Scientists used metric, engineers used inches.
Apollo and the bomb were built in thousandths

 

[Stefan Mikes]

What was about that space probe that went off course and never came back because someone confused the decimal dot with decimal comma?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Chris, let me say something. I have lived off American software for the last 35 years, and am glad the Houston boys and girls took care of the unit conversion from the day 1

The name is CHEMCAD.

 

[Chargeride]

What was about that space probe that went off course and never came back because someone confused the decimal dot with decimal comma?

Did you know UKs two aircraft carriers were broken for months and months because of faulty French balancing software, they kept trying to fix it and just made it worse.
Eventually we discovered zere were too many onions on one side of ze andul beerz.

 

[stompandgo]

Chris, let me say something. I have lived off American software for the last 35 years, and am glad the Houston boys and girls took care of the unit conversion from the day 1

View attachment 215287
The name is CHEMCAD.

They're brewing IPA?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

They're brewing IPA?

Isopropanol (Iso Propyl Alcohol) The liquid you certainly use to clean some things

 

[Mr. Coffee]

What was about that space probe that went off course and never came back because someone confused the decimal dot with decimal comma?

I think that has happened at least twice.

I'm pretty much comfortable in either set of units, with a preference for SI units when I can get away with it. Most of the tools and the like around the house are metric. My homemade bolometer measures in degrees Kelvin, and is accurate in detecting temperature differences down to about 0.008 degrees Kelvin.

If I am in a bad mood, I'll ask for a 375ml drink instead of 12oz.

The thing that makes me queasy is when they mix units. My car reports kWh / mile, which is bizarre.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

bolometer

One learns for the entire lifetime!

measures in degrees Kelvin

For all practical reasons, I'd prefer Celsius. P.S. please say "Kelvin" not "degree Kelvin". This the proper SI naming. Yes, degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit but just "Kelvins".

My standard set of units that I teach my customers on. Note: I prefer kWh to MJ! Also, bar G or bar A are optional, depending on the industry. I still like using centipoise (cP) for dynamic viscosity instead of Pa-s as it is easy to compare fluid viscosity to the one of water.

If I am in a bad mood, I'll ask for a 375ml drink instead of 12oz.

Coke is sold by liter in the U.S., isn't it.

My car reports kWh / mile, which is bizarre.

I find it practical for your country.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Coke is sold by liter in the U.S., isn't it.


I find it practical for your country.

Well, it would be if somewhere it would tell me how many kWh are currently in the battery.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Well, it would be if somewhere it would tell me how many kWh are currently in the battery.

Well, it is Empty, Reserve and Full on a traditional car fuel gauge, not litres either Still, the car can calculate the l/km or mile per gallon?

 

[Chargeride]

I have started using metric but if you give them three centimetres they will take a km.

The silliest part for me is nanometre.

Thats like calling a thousands of an inch a microyard

 

[Stefan Mikes]

The silliest part for me is nanometre.

This is the smartest thing. 10e-9 metre. The multiples are very precise.
Does a millionth part of inch have even a name?

 

[stompandgo]

This is the smartest thing. 10e-9 metre. The multiples are very precise.
Does a millionth part of inch have even a name?

Thousandths of an inch is a hybrid between metric and imperial, and, in my own experience, are effectively the standard for machining tolerance (along with tenths and hundredths of a thousandth) worldwide.

Why can't we all just get along?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

worldwide

How so.

 

[stompandgo]

How so.

"in my own experience"

I worked for a company that made CNC machines and we installed them all over the world. Every customer of ours used CAD with dimensions in thousandths (or ten thousandths) to program their CNC, for our machines and others in the same production line as our machines. Belgium, UK, South Africa, Denmark, US, Canada, etc.

 

[Chargeride]

I'll make a prediction..
Anolog is making a comeback, fuzzy logic an all.
Absolutes will be rounded off in a future digital world.
Metric will take over and then be labelled as constraining.

It may seem ridiculous now, but I did predict AI videos back in the 90s to much mockery.
So Im basically Nostradamus

 

[Stefan Mikes]

"in my own experience"

I worked for a company that made CNC machines and we installed them all over the world. Every customer of ours used CAD with dimensions in thousandths (or ten thousandths) to program their CNC, for our machines and others in the same production line as our machines. Belgium, UK, South Africa, Denmark, US, Canada, etc.

I must be dreaming. How come Metric countries measure the tolerance in the fraction of an inch? Belgium, Denmark?!

 

[Stefan Mikes]

It may seem ridiculous now, but I did predict AI videos back in the 90s to much mockery.
So Im basically Nostradamus

One Stanisław Lem, a Polish Sci-Fi author predicted it well before you
While "The Tales of Robots" are facetious, the "Summa Technologiae" is a serious philosophical treaty.

 

[stompandgo]

I must be dreaming. How come Metric countries measure the tolerance in the fraction of an inch? Belgium, Denmark?!

Maybe they adapted that line for the machines being used? I don't know.