Tenths To Fractions

[vtk]

When the human race leaves this planet, I advocate switching to a Planck-based system of measurement. Because there's nothing special about the size and rotation rate of Earth nor the density of the most common liquid on its surface, whereas the universal constants are universal. Of course, the base Planck units are all way off from human scale, so I recommend choosing multiples based on highly-composite numbers (with several prime factors, not just two and five, because there's nothing special about the number of fingers and hands on a human) to derive units that are useful to us while still being recognizably Planck-based to other intelligent entities we encounter.

[Rothman]

When the human race leaves this planet, I advocate switching to a Planck-based system of measurement. Because there's nothing special about the size and rotation rate of Earth nor the density of the most common liquid on its surface, whereas the universal constants are universal. Of course, the base Planck units are all way off from human scale, so I recommend choosing multiples based on highly-composite numbers (with several prime factors, not just two and five, because there's nothing special about the number of fingers and hands on a human) to derive units that are useful to us while still being recognizably Planck-based to other intelligent entities we encounter.

I think you win the Internet for today.

[hm insulators]

All things considered, would you guys support a movement towards metric units on our highways? Everything I'm reading above seems to indicate a strong preference for imperial units.

People prefer what they're used to. In everyday life, I don't consider the metric system to be superior or inferior to the imperial system, but I prefer imperial because that's what I encounter all the time. (Even when I design large things like interchanges, I prefer measures that are nice fractions of a mile, rather than round numbers of feet, because of the historical use of rods and chains in surveying, and I have memorized those measures expressed in feet.) Converting the United States to metric would be a huge undertaking for almost no practical benefit, and would rightly face massive public resistance.

Back in the early '70s, there was going to be a push for converting the United States to metric. It was going to begin about 1976 and finish around about 1980. It was much ballyhoo-ed, to, that "The United States will become just like everybody else and go metric!" But a lot of people (read, "voters") howled at the idea of converting to metric and by God, they were going to stick to their miles/feet/pounds/whatever! By 1976, the US had a lot of issues (double-digit inflation, Watergate still echoing through the Capitol, Barry Manilow on the airwaves) that were more important than whether or not we measured the distance from Phoenix to Los Angeles in miles or kilometers, and the short half-hearted attempt at converting to metric went queep and died.