Why does the foot being divisible by 12 help anything? If you're dealing with something 7.3 ft long, what's the advantage over 2.23 meters?
Hell, if you've got something 2.4 meters long and 7.87 ft long, it's the metric length that happens to be conveniently divisible by 12.
The situation with machine tools in the US is unbelievable, by the way. So many stupid mistakes have been caused by the confusion between mils (1/1000 of an inch) and millimeters. And many many tools and bits are designated in fractional inches rather than whole or decimal units (as in countries using metric) which is a massive pain in the ass because both CAD software and quick mental comparisons are generally not conducive to bizarre fractions like 9/64".
The situation is legitimately a little bit different with minutes and hours, since we are able to specify units of time somewhat arbitrarily to match the units, i.e., if hours were 64 minutes instead of 60, many meetings would instead be 64 (or 32) minutes long. This has to do with the reality that we generally do not know accurately in advance exactly how much time is required, so in general there's a lot more approximation involved with common measures of time than common measures of distance, and it's handy to be able to split the hour cleanly in multiple ways.
Hours being base 12 is why time is way more painful to calculate with than other quantities, and why SI just sticks to seconds.
Would Americans love pre-decimal British currency? All those shillings and florins with lots of integer divisions? I bet the average metric hating American would be unironically demanding decimal currency back when faced with it.
I always get curious about how American construction works when I hear this argument. Do builders spend all their time dividing stuff into 3 rather adding, multiplying or subtracting? I would've thought adding a sequence of measurements up would be a far more common operation.
What happens when you need to divide something into 3 a second time? Or you need to divide an arbitrary length into 3? Or what if you need to divide into 3 sections, but there is something extra between each section (like a frame or a post), or you have to account for the width of the cuts etc?
Is an 8x4ft sheet (eg plywood etc) really easier to mentally divide into 3 (on either dimension) than a 2400x1200mm one?
mensetmanusman|2 years ago
nwiswell|2 years ago
Hell, if you've got something 2.4 meters long and 7.87 ft long, it's the metric length that happens to be conveniently divisible by 12.
The situation with machine tools in the US is unbelievable, by the way. So many stupid mistakes have been caused by the confusion between mils (1/1000 of an inch) and millimeters. And many many tools and bits are designated in fractional inches rather than whole or decimal units (as in countries using metric) which is a massive pain in the ass because both CAD software and quick mental comparisons are generally not conducive to bizarre fractions like 9/64".
The situation is legitimately a little bit different with minutes and hours, since we are able to specify units of time somewhat arbitrarily to match the units, i.e., if hours were 64 minutes instead of 60, many meetings would instead be 64 (or 32) minutes long. This has to do with the reality that we generally do not know accurately in advance exactly how much time is required, so in general there's a lot more approximation involved with common measures of time than common measures of distance, and it's handy to be able to split the hour cleanly in multiple ways.
antod|2 years ago
Would Americans love pre-decimal British currency? All those shillings and florins with lots of integer divisions? I bet the average metric hating American would be unironically demanding decimal currency back when faced with it.
I always get curious about how American construction works when I hear this argument. Do builders spend all their time dividing stuff into 3 rather adding, multiplying or subtracting? I would've thought adding a sequence of measurements up would be a far more common operation.
What happens when you need to divide something into 3 a second time? Or you need to divide an arbitrary length into 3? Or what if you need to divide into 3 sections, but there is something extra between each section (like a frame or a post), or you have to account for the width of the cuts etc?
Is an 8x4ft sheet (eg plywood etc) really easier to mentally divide into 3 (on either dimension) than a 2400x1200mm one?
hoseja|2 years ago