I’m an American and I approve this message.
Go to sleep!
I just awoke from 21ks of sleep.
This just made me think, why haven’t those damn commie Europeans with their fancy metric system come up with a better system for measuring time yet?
People like to talk a lot of shit about how subjective the definitions for an inch or a mile are, but I never hear complaints about how a second or an hour are antiquated and based on things that only make sense from an Earth-centric point of view.
I just feel like someone be mad at Americans for still using hours (ugh, trivially decided on the amount of time it takes the Earth to rotate) and not something like the amount of time it takes for 1 kilogram of water to decay via natural radiation when under a vacuum.
By the way, before downvoting, this post is heavy with /s in case it wasn’t obvious.
Edit: I just looked up the formal definition of a second and it is “the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom”.
It’s all so arbitrary is funny. People get so passionate, but then I’ll bring up,“Why aren’t we using Swatch Time?” Or, why don’t we have 13 months of exactly 28 days (With a bonus vacation day or two)?
They’ll usually fall back on what people are used to or tradition or something that just supports staying on imperial measurements. To be clear, I don’t give a shit what measurement system is used. It’s not like it takes a big brain to figure out what is going on when you travel.
This can go even further. Why aren’t we using base 12 numbers, which can be divided much more conveniently?
I remember watching the Numberphile video on base 12 a few years ago. I thought it was pretty interesting.
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Measures weren’t standard before the french revolution, so picking something and getting buy-in was easy. Time keeping was well established, and the French moved to a metric calendar, and proposals for metric time were made, but all were eventually rejected.
Honestly, that explains perfectly why America will never likely switch to the metric system.
It will happen because there is so much traction on metric, but it will be slow and both systems will be marked for a long time.
The metric system is not mathematically proven!
As an American, I upvoted.
Edit: Wait, why am I awake at 5am?
American who just woke up… upvote cuz metric
Too early, back to bed with ya! *smacks with pan*
Downvote cuz screenshot, and SWAT OP cuz Word.
Damn, I did 2 years of physics studies but I never heard about atto and exa. Though I did spend a lot of time to try to memorise the other ones.
Just wait until you hear about zetta (10^21) and yotta (10^24) and their inverses zepto (10^-21) and yocto (10^-24). :D
Huh, neat! When fact-checking my statement, I just learned that there are even two more prefixes on each side of the scale: ronna (10^27), quenna (10^30), ronto (10^-27) and quecto (10^-30). They got added last year.
I’m waiting for the day when planck length (1.6 * 10^-35 m) has its own prefix.
And then there’re the Americans who point at the Metric system and scream “why not us”. Which is anyone who’s sane and not afraid of change.
Americans
sane
I am by no means sane, but I’m all about metric.
Well in that case, please let me introduce you to the inch. I have a good feeling about this!
Please keep it in your pants, Ron
I don’t think I’ve ever seen thousands separators in decimals
Where are you from if I may ask? As far as I’m aware they are are pretty common, I know only of India which does them differently and maybe US / Canada? Although I think the point and the comma are switched in some countries, so a thousand Euros would be 1.000,00€
I’m from the US, but I’m not talking about thousands separators in the whole number. I guess a better word would be thousandths separators.
deleted by creator
The list isn’t even complete
Should have been millo, cento, deco, hecta and kila instead of milli, centi, deci, hecto, and kilo.
And kilo should have been K nit k, and all should have matching characters not k-m, M-μ, G-n, T-p, P-f, E-a.
Only Z-z, Y-y, Q-q, R-r are nice.μ is probably the greatest sin as it isn’t present on way too many keyboard layouts.
Not in German.
Ronna/ronto quetta/quecto were added in 11/22.
It’s deca, not deka
Not in German 😶
It’s universal. That’s the point. German or not, it’s deca
I wait to the day the US rejects the metric completely, and invents a new system for Voltage measurement (proposed unit names: cell, shock, spark).
IIRC the US already uses metric (technically). The imperial units are defined in terms of metric units.
They’re not serious before they stop using metric for ammunition
We aren’t unitist when it comes to naming ammo. Half (ratio pulled from my ass) gets named based on US Customary units and half on Metric units. Most calibers get named in whatever unit sounds coolest. Seven point six two PRC (or any variation of the 7.62 verbalization) doesn’t have the same ring or implied power as three hundred PRC.
I guess “9mm” really does sound a lot better than “almost 3/8 inch”
Which 9mm ammo?
If the common 9mm cartridge, 9x19 Parabellum, were designed in the US back in 1901 it would be a .38 caliber.
No idea, man, I’m European, I have no idea about ammo. I said 9mm because it’s literally the only one I “know”.
nooooo my teaspoon measurements!
It’s just prefixes, you can use decateaspoons if you want.
Those are tablespoons!
US, UK, Canadian or metric teaspoon? It’s all different measurements.
I guess that’s like tons but damn that is frustrating to learn. You finally did it and all called it the same thing and then just messed it all up. We were so close!
it’s beautiful
It’s just so confusing, the American system is so much better /s
Joke’s on you; I’m an insomniac.
And FWIW we use the metric system too. We just tend to mix it with US Customary, like how Canada and The UK does with Metric and Imperial. Except the UK uses more Metric than Imperial. Vice versa for the US. Food is sold using both. Science and computing are always in Metric. And a few other things too but it’s 4am and I’m too tired to think.
Edit: I don’t even know how a CPU’s temperature translates to Fahrenheit, but for weather it makes perfect sense. I know that 100°F is hot for outside, and that 80°C is hot for a processor. But I couldn’t tell you what is what if you swapped the measurements.
If you’d swap those, your CPU would be super cool and outside would be deadly.
For me it’s the reverse. It’s just usus.
American expat upvoting for science
