I give in

[Frank Burroughs]

I am an imperial person. The last the metric system was used was when I tutored mathematics after college. The amount of data coming in through books and articles uses milliliters rather than inches has converted me. I must relearn the metric system. God, what other standards will fall in the pursuit of this hobby.

[bruce d]

I know what you mean.  I have heard the process described as 'decimisation'.  Whatever is behind it, I find the metric system sooooooo much easier to use.

Oddly, even though I now only use metric measurements in the workshop I find that imperial pops up in any conversation or attempt to describe things: some part of my brain makes the (usually correct) conversion unconsciously.

Edited September 17 by bruce d

[Keith_W]

33 minutes ago, Frank Burroughs said:

I am an imperial person. The last the metric system was used was when I tutored mathematics after college. The amount of data coming in through books and articles uses milliliters rather than inches has converted me. I must relearn the metric system. God, what other standards will fall in the pursuit of this hobby.

 

Milliliters is for volume, inches is for length. I think you mean millimeters  

[Frank Burroughs]

Of course I did, thanks!  I can remember in 1975 when the metric system came and went in high school.  Why we did not keep it then is beyond me.  The act was voluntary.  Guess we do give an inch rather than a millimeter!  (Got it right that time)

[Keith Black]

 It's tenths by gawd and tenths it shall remain! 

[Jaager]

In use, I can convert with no problem,  and metric is much easier to use,  but I cannot intuit metric.  

But when just reading I can visualize 6 foot  but if it is X cm - no picture.   Miles - yes  -Km -  no picture    0 - 1000 g  yes   pounds - yes   Kg - no picture.

0 - 1000ml - yes    gal - yes   Kilo litres - no   acres - yes   hectares -no

 

For what we do -  For English and US vessels - sticking with Imperial is easier -  decimal Imperial on a digital caliper saves dealing with fractions.

Old European with each country using a different system of weights and measures - it is easier to use the author's conversion to metric and then convert that to Imperial  rather than go from foreign foot to Imperial foot directly.

[Literalman]

What used to drive me bats was editing technical material in which the author referred to something like 1000 km per hour and unhelpfully provided the equivalent in miles per hour down to the tenth of a mile per hour (in this case, 621.4 mph), which was not accurate because the initial number was a round number intended as such. In that case I would just make it 620 mph. I still don't think in metric; I have to convert the numbers (in my head for some rough equivalents, with a calculator for precise numbers).

[thibaultron]

AS all of the models I am interested in use feet and and inches in the plans, and my 2D CAD uses them exclusivly, I draw everything in the system. When I go to use a 3D printer or metric CNC, I convert the file to metric using various programs.

[Dr PR]

In late 1950s Junior High School (Middle School) I had a 9th grade Science class that I really enjoyed. Everything was in Imperial units. But I watched a Chemistry series on TV called Continental Classroom and they used strange units I had never heard of - like "leeters." I asked my science teacher what a liter was and he didn't know! That really made me lose respect for him, but in after thought I realized he was a very good science teacher. The units don't matter, it is the concepts that count.

 

Then Sputnick happened, the sciences and math became top priority in our schools. I had two years of Chemistry in High School, and majored in Chemistry in college. Everything was metric. But everything in ordinary American (US) life was in Imperial units (and still is - except for wine). So I have lived for 60 years with both systems and can switch between them easily. However, I still don't understand all of the bizarre Imperial volume units (firkins, noggins, pottles, etc.). Metric is MUCH more rational!

 

For modeling I use the units the original was designed in. There are too many opportunities for screwing up conversions. And with CAD I design in 1:1 scale and when the design is done just convert the whole thing to whatever scale I desire.

Edited September 18 by Dr PR

[Frank Burroughs]

Just now, Dr PR said:

For modeling I use the units the original was designed in. There are too many opportunities for screwing up conversions. And with CAD I design in 1:1 scale and when the design is done just convert the whole thing to whatever scale I desire.

The route I will take.  Not sure what CAD program to design in.  Fusion 360 is discussed in the forum.  It is free! 

[mtaylor]

18 hours ago, Dr PR said:

IHowever, I still don't understand all of the bizarre Imperial volume units (firkins, noggins, pottles, etc.).

I think those were in use even before Imperial.  Or so it seems.  At least we never had t learn cubits and other truly ancient measurements.

[thibaultron]

In a physics class, we were once required to calculate a high fraction of the speed of light in furlongs per fortnight!

[Keith Black]

36 minutes ago, thibaultron said:

In a physics class, we were once required to calculate a high fraction of the speed of light in furlongs per fortnight!

 Or...how long does it take a frog jumping up and down in a cup of water to generate enough steam to blow a factory whistle. This was an actual test question.  

Edited September 18 by Keith Black

[GrandpaPhil]

I have scales for both Imperial and metric.  I use whichever is the most convenient at the time.

[Louie da fly]

I grew up with Imperial with its weird and wonderful units - 16 ounces to the pound, 14 pounds to the stone, 8 pints (4 quarts) to the gallon, 66 feet in a chain (the length of a cricket pitch but also the length of a surveyor's iron chain, which has 100 links each of 7.92 inches), 80 chains in a mile (5280 feet or 1760 yards). An acre - the area that can be plowed by a man with two draft animals in a day - is 1 furlong (the length of a furrow - 660 feet) long and 1 chain wide. Gills, pecks, bushels - in Primary school all our exercise books had the mensuration tables on the back cover - but as a child I got into model railways and discovered that an inch is 2.54mm.

 

In high school we learnt physics and chemistry in metric. Then Australia went entirely metric, but I still thought in Imperial for everything but science (and model railways). I had trouble converting until I worked in architectural drafting. Always having to convert from old drawings, I became familiar with the conversion factors (304.8mm to the foot, 39.37 inches to the metre). The best part was re-drawing plans from 1:96 (Imperial)  to 1:100 (metric).

 

Yes, metric is far more user-friendly, but I miss the romance and the history of those old units, often based on bodily measurements - the ell is the length of your arm from wrist to shoulder, while the cubit is the distance between your elbow and the tip of your middle finger - a fathom is the distance between your fingertips when your arms are outstretched. And of course a ton is the capacity of a large barrel (tun) which then became the way burthen of a ship was measured - the number of tuns it had space for.

 

 

Steven

[Old Collingwood]

Its the  same  with me  -  I can visualise how long a  ship  is  if its  in feet   but  not  if its  in metres, same  with  human height  I can work with feet and inches  but not so many metres  tall,  but my figures  in   millimetres I'm  ok with  as  they are 28mm  and  I can see how tall they  are  and  do not  need  to  convert  them  into  inches.

 

OC.

[Jack12477]

2 hours ago, mtaylor said:

At least we never had t learn cubits and other truly ancient measurements.

A cubit is the length of a man's lower forearm, elbow to tip of middle finger, approximately 18 inches.

 

1 hour ago, GrandpaPhil said:

I have scales for both Imperial and metric.  I use whichever is the most convenient at the time.

Me too. 

 

If you want a real challenge try working simultaneously in 4 different numbering systems, decimal (base 10), hexadecimal (base 16), octal (base 8), and binary (base 2). Did that for 40 years.  Add hexadecimal values FACE + ABE = ?? 

 

 

 

 

Answer: 1058C

 

Took a course in college in Number Theory, never really understood it until I started Programming mainframe operating systems, then it all made sense. 

[probablynot]

I’m OK with metric - remember working with it at school in the 1940s, in parallel with imperial.  One thing that gets me really puzzled though, is the way the building trade here in UK uses it.  In imperial, the basic unit of measurement was the foot. Nice, big, tangible foot.  So when I go to buy an 8ft by 4ft sheet of plywood nowadays, why does it have to measure two thousand, four hundred and forty millimetres by one thousand, two hundred and twenty millimetres?

[Louie da fly]

Or timber that's 90x38mm? 38MM? WHAT? Because it's one and a half inches.

 

Steven

[Dr PR]

FACE+ABE=

 

Hexadecimal 1058C

Octal 202614

Binary 10000010110001100

 

or 2¹⁶ + 2¹⁰ + 2⁸ + 2⁷ + 2³ + 2² = 65536 + 1024 + 256 +128 + 8 + 4 = Decimal 66,956

 

The hex, octal and binary conversion are easy, as is the binary to decimal addition. But I used a calculator for the hexadecimal addition!

 

I haven't done this since I was programming computers in binary machine code in the 1970s. And I did as little of that as possible!

[mrcc]

I was 11 years old in 1975 when Canada officially went metric…

Having started learning the imperial system and switching over to metric was a difficult adjustment at the time but I find at this time (at my age), I am constantly juggling both in my mind. 

[Jack12477]

15 hours ago, Dr PR said:

But I used a calculator for the hexadecimal addition

Actually it's not that difficult to do in your head.  Given hexadecimal A = decimal 10, B = 11, C = 12, D = 13, E = 14, F = 15. Then FACE + ABE = 1058C.

 

Break it down : (from right to left)  FACE + ABE

E + E = 14 + 14 = 28 minus 16 = 12 or C with carry of 1

C + B = 12 + 11 = 23 plus carry of 1 = 24 minus 16 = 8 with carry of 1

A + A = 10 + 10 = 20 plus carry of 1 = 21 minus 16 = 5 with carry of 1

F = 15 plus carry of 1 = 16 - 16 = 0 with a carry of 1

Answer: 1058C

 

Subtraction is same:  FACE minus ABE = F010 

Edited Tuesday at 07:28 PM by Jack12477

[mtaylor]

7 hours ago, Jack12477 said:

Actually it's not that difficult to do in your head.  Given hexadecimal A = decimal 10, B = 11, C = 12, D = 13, E = 14, F = 15. Then FACE + ABE = 1058C.

 

Break it down : (from right to left)  FACE + ABE

E + E = 14 + 14 = 28 minus 16 = 12 or C with carry of 1

C + B = 12 + 11 = 23 plus carry of 1 = 24 minus 16 = 8 with carry of 1

A + A = 10 + 10 = 20 plus carry of 1 = 21 minus 16 = 5 with carry of 1

F = 15 plus carry of 1 = 16 - 16 = 0 with a carry of 1

Answer: 1058C

 

Subtraction is same:  FACE minus ABE = F010 

I guess you were deep into the Dark Arts of the early days.     I never went there... just some "newer" languages when I did it, like C, C++, and the fun one... Assembly Code when something needed large amount of optimization.

[Jack12477]

36 minutes ago, mtaylor said:

guess you were deep into the Dark Arts of the early days

Oh you don't know how deep ! 😊😊

[Dr PR]

I loved assembly language. I used a macro assembler, and that let me write code for many different processors. I used it to write a C compiler.

 

I programmed in BASIC, Forth, Stoic, Pascal and C. However, I never went much farther than C. I like the additional features of C++, but I have never learned them all. My programmer friends say I really program in C--.

[Frank Burroughs]

College was a double major for me, mathematics and computer science.  Programing was a nightmare for me!  I achieved enough to pass, but never liked it.  Finally drifted off to study artificial intelligence.  There C++ gave away to Lisp programming  language.  A much better time was had.

[allanyed]

Metric is the way to go and in the US I THINK it was  industry that lobbied the government not to adopt it due to the cost of retooling back in the day.  Even the auto industry in the USA has finally gone metric from what I have found.   While the general public still seems to prefer imperial, it would only take one generation of schooling to make a conversion in thinking. 

 

Regardless, for those interested in contemporary information such as scantlings, it is all imperial for English ships and similar for some other nations.  None of the older information is in metric so it is easier for me to just stay with what they gave us back then.   

 

At least the world that has gone metric did not convert to the ten hour day like France did at the time of the revolution when it went metric.  Fun times!!!

 

[javajohn]

9 hours ago, Dr PR said:

I loved assembly language. I used a macro assembler, and that let me write code for many different processors. I used it to write a C compiler.

 

I programmed in BASIC, Forth, Stoic, Pascal and C. However, I never went much farther than C. I like the additional features of C++, but I have never learned them all. My programmer friends say I really program in C--.

That brings back memories! My whole career has been programming. I had a thing for computer languages and spent time with Pascal, Fortran, SNOBOL, Assembly, C in the old days. I even wrote a few compilers. I've learned simpler is better; C++ is so complicated that few programmers know it all. Today I'm a software architect and don't get much time to program but I really enjoy the Go language.

 

Getting back to metrics, I too find that metrics is far easier. My first ship model was an Artesania Latina kit (La Toulonnaise). I found the simplicity of metric so much easier, even simple things like dividing by 2. Imperial units are also a pain in cooking when you have to convert a recipe from say 4 people to 6 people servings. Culinary schools have entire classes on how to convert units.

 

 

[JohnLea]

I was in Canada when we converted to metric and it made sense to me.  Moving to the USA required a re-conversion.

 

Rob Cosman has an interesting perspective on this.

 

 

 

[Frank Burroughs]

The closer you get to Canada, the more things will eat your horses. ~ T. King

 

Ain't that true!