How to save billions of dollars.

[Zenda]

Even trained people screw up all the time. If I were really getting the 0.5 MG daily dose of tacrolimus that my prescription bottle claims, I'd be writing this on a Ouija board instead of a keyboard.

A normal daily dose of tacrolimus happens to 0.5 mg. If you think that's wrong for you, you should contact your doctor and not blame the metric system.

Note that you used the lower case m = milli and he used the upper case M = mega.

Lowercase mg is the official notation for milligram, and there is no such thing as MegaGramms. He used uppercase for emphasis.

[Crusader]

In The Netherlands we stopped using the 1 and 2 eurocent coins. Not officially, they're still legal in every way and form, but we just stopped using them. Most companies have a sticker on their door stating they will round up or down to €0,05 increments.


With this, I am pleased.

*reads lengthy pete story*

Ummm...


Celcius and Centegrate rule! They're easy to understand and usable in everyday situations. I don't understand yards and feet and whatnot. 1000mm=100 cm=1dm=1m. 1000M= 1km. etc.

No, then that other, inferior system, I've looked this up:
36 inch=3 feet=1 yard.
5,280 feet = 1,760 yards = 1 mile
errrrr..... why?


0'C is when water freezes. 100'C is when water boils. I mean, what could be easier? I honestly don't know what Fahrenheit is based on, so I'm going to look it up now.

The zero point is determined by placing the thermometer in brine: he used a mixture of ice, water, and ammonium chloride, a salt. This is a frigorific mixture which automatically stabilizes its temperature at 0 °F. A mixture of ice and water also stabilizes, either freezing or melting at 32 °F,[6] though Fahrenheit did not use this point in defining his temperature scale. The third point, 96 degrees, was the level of the liquid in the thermometer when held in the mouth or under the armpit of his wife. Fahrenheit noted that, using this scale, mercury boils at around 600 degrees.

Later, work by other scientists observed that water boils about 180 degrees higher than the freezing point and decided to redefine the degree slightly to make it exactly 180 degrees higher.[5] It is for this reason that normal human body temperature is 98.6 on the revised scale (whereas it was 96 on Fahrenheit's original scale).[7]

According to a letter Fahrenheit wrote to his friend Herman Boerhaave,[8] his scale was built on the work of Ole Rømer, whom he had met earlier. In Rømer’s scale, the two fixed reference points are that brine also freezes at 0 degrees and water boils at 60 degrees. He observed that, on this scale, water freezes at 7.5 degrees. Fahrenheit multiplied each value by four in order to eliminate fractions and increase the granularity of the scale (resulting in 30 and 240 degrees, respectively). He then re-calibrated his scale between the freezing point of water and normal human body temperature (which he observed to be 96 degrees); he adjusted the scale so that the melting point of ice would be 32 degrees, so that 64 intervals would separate the two, allowing him to mark degree lines on his instruments by simply bisecting the interval six times (since 64 is 2 to the sixth power).[9]

Wow. You have a temperature scale based on some dude's wife's armpit temperature. Cool, didn't know that. But how is practical in any way? I mean, how often do you think 'wow, it's the temperature where a mixture of water, ice and some salt stabalises." as opposed to "Ah, it's the temperature where water boils"

I'm gonna stick to the metric and centegrate systems, thankyouverymuch. At least they are logical and easy to use.

[Zenda]

The metric system is not limited to 7 base units. It doesn't say you can't use your own convenient units. It only requires you to define such units in SI units. That's why solar mass and atomic mass units are so popular around the world, and noone needs to guess how much it actually is.

If that's all it takes: 1 foot = 0.3048 meters. So now can America keep using feet? Same goes for pounds and everything else.

The reason to use solar masses and atomic masses is that expressing values in SI units would give unwieldy numbers (too many zeros, like Pete said). There is no such argument for feet, miles or pounds. There are only unnecessary calculations in communications, which leave room for unneeded mistakes.

[Kevin]

Even trained people screw up all the time. If I were really getting the 0.5 MG daily dose of tacrolimus that my prescription bottle claims, I'd be writing this on a Ouija board instead of a keyboard.

A normal daily dose of tacrolimus happens to 0.5 mg. If you think that's wrong for you, you should contact your doctor and not blame the metric system.

Note that you used the lower case m = milli and he used the upper case M = mega.

Lowercase mg is the official notation for milligram, and there is no such thing as MegaGramms. He used uppercase for emphasis.

No he didn't use it for emphasis. There is in fact a megagram MG, most people call it a tonne, but it is an SI unit the official SI unit in fact, it might not be widely used but it does in fact exist just because everyone calls it a tonne doesn't mean it doesn't exist. M = mega and m = milli saying it doesn't exist and has no meaning would be doing exactly what Pete was pointing out (not with this specific example but elsewhere in the post) that the system isn't self consistent. The fact that you can introduce large error just by using the case of a letter is drawback, though context should make that obvious.

And to an earlier point you made, while the kilogram is listed as the base unit that also breaks self consistency within the system. Gram is the word which to be consistent means it should be the base unit. To be consistent if the kilogram were the base unit then we should have millikilograms and kilokilograms, etc. Gram is the base word, it should be the base unit.

Now all that being said I'd still prefer a world standardization and I got very used to using grams, liters, and centigrade in course work I wouldn't mind all the road signs and such being changed and waiting another 100 years so for the mile and foot and inch and such to fade out completely. Yes it will take that long, I'm somewhat used to the metric stuff but since everything I run into in practical application is still the old imperial units that is still mostly what I "think" in and I figure I would adapt faster than other people to a wholesale change, but it won't happen overnight.

[Zenda]

...context should make that obvious.

Yes, that's why I didn't think we are talking about taking in a tonne of tacrolimus every day

Regarding your 'megagram': this word seems only to exist in Polish and Dutch, and it's abbreviation is Mg, not MG.

Gram is the base word, it should be the base unit.

If you say so.

Btw, as a point of interest:

Fahrenheit based his temperature scale on 3 reference points. The zero point was the stabilized temperature of a mixture of ice, water and ammonium chloride. He liked binary numbers (for the reason Pete pointed out earlier: to make dividing up his scale easier), so he gave the stabilized temperature of a regular water and ice mix (the freezing point of water) a value of 32. He then noted that 96 was the temperature of... his wife. So, since a scale of 96 is preferrable to a scale of 32 (smaller margin of error), Fahrenheit decided to define his scale using salt-water-ice mixture of unknown exact composition, and his wife's temperature.

Nowadays, Fahrenheit is only used in a few nations (Jamaica, Palau, Burma, Belize, Liberia and the US), and only in non-scientific applications.

[Kevin]

...context should make that obvious.

Yes, that's why I didn't think we are talking about taking in a tonne of tacrolimus every day

Regarding your 'megagram': this word seems only to exist in Polish and Dutch, and it's abbreviation is Mg, not MG.

Indeed it is and I typo'd it too. Thus accidentally proving my point.

[Nystul]

So Poland and the Netherlands don't use SI, or they are the only countries which do? If a Polish scientist described something in Mg, would a German scientist be confused by the unit?

And are there 1024 bytes in a kilobyte, or just 1000?

If miles existed before meters, then who is adding redundant units and creating confusion?

Why do we use hours instead of kiloseconds?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

What does this have to do with pennies?

[weakwarrior]

So Poland and the Netherlands don't use SI, or they are the only countries which do? If a Polish scientist described something in Mg, would a German scientist be confused by the unit?

I've always wondered why that doesn't happen with the word billion. American English thinks that's 10^9 whereas British English thinks that's 10^12. That should have led to loads of confusion.

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

3. 2 licks before you give up and bite the whole thing off (which I think counts as a lick). Duh.

Personally I think we should be protesting God or mother nature or evolution or whatever. 365.24 days in a year is just annoying. It should be either 100 or 1000. Similarly, the lunar cycle is 29.5 days. I mean, come on!

[--Pete]

Hi,

On the general rant - I think you exaggerate how little we convert units. I'm 5 foot 6 inches. My baby was born 9 lbs 4 oz. Stuff like that.

OK, we use units all the time. But where is there any conversions there? Or do you mean that since you're using mixed units, there's some kind of conversion?

No, the US may have been one of the signing nations of the Metre Convention, but up to this day does not officially use or mandate a metric system of units, making it one of only three countries that still use customary units.

First, all the units used in the USA are defined in terms of metric units. Second, mandate all you will, many people in countries that are officially metric use their traditional units in everyday life.

Yeah, maybe we should have kept the Stunde, which represents the distance a person walks in a hour

Perhaps you should read more carefully. This was answered in the original post in the paragraph about the league.

The original Nautical mile was not suitable for a standardized unit of length, because it varied from equator (1843 m) to poles (1862 m). It wasn't until 1929 that the (average) value of 1852 m was used internationally, and the US kept using it's own version (1853 m) until 1954.

Poor logic. The nautical mile was not a good unit to standardize length because it wasn't standardized itself, but then it was standardized? So why not standardize it in 1800?

The base unit of mass in the Metric system is Kg, nog gramms.

NO! It is the gram -- as Gnollguy so well pointed out. And thank you for contributing to my argument that nobody uses the metric system as defined. The symbol for 1000 is 'k' not 'K' (which is the designation for degree Kelvin).

MKS stands for Metre-Kilogramm-Second, so I see no problem with measuring my mass in Kg. I know you asked for weight, but noone is really interested in how hard the earth pulls at me in my current location, is it?

The point isn't whether I'm interested in your weight or your mass. The question is whether you're intelligent enough to know the difference.

Apparently you are having a problem with the decimal numbering system as well as the metric system. I'll readily agree that binary would be better, but there are plenty of higher-priority issues, don't you think?

Yeah, like increasing the general intelligence of humanity -- as your post demonstrates so well.

That's true, but beside the point. Metrification is about standardisation and unification. If you want to compare gas usage between a European and American car, for example, you will need to choose one set of units. In other words, one of us has to do a conversion. Since you claim to be 'metric', why don't you drop the miles and gallons and give me the numbers in kilometres and liters? (btw, if you insist on miles, which one is it?)

Yep. How often is this necessary? Especially since the 'same' car will get a different gas usage in Europe and in the USA (the safety and emission standards of the USA make it illegal to import many European cars, and those that are imported are often an Americanized version so that, conversion or no conversion, the comparisons are meaningless).

The metric system is not limited to 7 base units. It doesn't say you can't use your own convenient units. It only requires you to define such units in SI units. That's why solar mass and atomic mass units are so popular around the world, and noone needs to guess how much it actually is.

I can use my own convenient units? The inch is defined to be 2.54 mm. So I can use the inch. The foot is defined to be 12 inches, so I guess I can use the foot. Or the hand, the fathom, the league, the mile (any of them as long as they're ultimately based on the inch).

As to the solar mass unit (Ms = (1.989±0.004) x 10^30 kg) and the atomic mass unit (1 u = 1.660 54 x 10^-27 kg, approximately), they're not even close to being 'defined' in terms of SI units. Your arguments are not only lousy, they're inconsistent.

Water can easily be obtained in a pure enough form to measure its freezing and boiling point accurately, no worries there. Actually, there aren't many other readily available liquids that would do.

Yeah, right. A bunch of scientists on a huge budget couldn't do it at one of the foremost labs in the world. And where does it say it has to be 'readily available'? Or what does that even mean? Sure, you can get water from the sink. But water of the quality you need does not come from a sink. If you have ever been in a real lab, you'd know that a large number of liquids are 'readily available'. But as usual, you use your ignorance as the platform for your argument. You don't know, so it must not be.

Second, the relatively steep lines of its phase transitions mean that small errors in the pressure yields a larger error in the temperature than would be the case with other materials.

You got that backwards. A sharp phase transition is needed for accurate measurements. If ice would melt gradually between 0 and 5 degrees, how would you ever determine the exact freezing point of water?

Again, ignorance. You argue and you don't even understand the concepts you are arguing about. It is not the sharpness of the transition that I'm talking about. It is the slope of the transition line in the temperature-pressure plane.

Your factors of 10 find their use in the prefixes of units. The metric system says nothing about conversions having to be based on factors of 10.

The metric system is based on the concept of one unit per physical property and a set of prefixes to allow that unit to cover all necessary cases. Those prefixes designate powers of ten. Your statement here is another fine bit of nonsense. From it, I can logically claim that I only use the metric system, but I do so based on conversion factors of 25.4 and 12 and 3 and 5280, etc.

Celcius and Centegrate rule! They're easy to understand and usable in everyday situations.

Celsius is centigrade. Fahrenheit is easy to understand and usable in everyday situations. Neither is particularly good, since neither is a thermodynamic scale. And just because you're used to one doesn't make it superior.

I don't understand yards and feet and whatnot.

And so, you blame the units for your lack of understanding?

errrrr..... why?

Because one size does not fit all.

I wouldn't mind all the road signs and such being changed and waiting another 100 years so for the mile and foot and inch and such to fade out completely. Yes it will take that long, . . .

You might be right, although I don't think it would take that long.

--Pete

---

Hi,

And are there 1024 bytes in a kilobyte, or just 1000?

Funny you should ask. There are 1000 bytes in a kilobyte. There are 1024 bytes in a kibibyte. I kid you not.

Yet another 'simplification and standardization' from the people who brought you the erg.

--Pete

[Zenda]

Thus accidentally proving my point.

Are you sure?

Apparantly, there is something like a megagram, and it's even an official SI unit. I didn't know that. Noone uses it, though (and that includes Polish scientists).

I never had much medicines, so I might have missed Pete's original intent by using uppercase 'MG'. After looking at some pharmacy labels, I realize that most of the texts upon them are nearly completely uppercase, propably to facilitate easier reading by elderly or otherwise impaired patients. Someone with a grievance towards the metric system might indead read 'megagram' where it says 'MG', instead of milligram. But as remarked before, it's all in the context.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Personally I think we should be protesting God or mother nature or evolution or whatever. 365.24 days in a year is just annoying. It should be either 100 or 1000. Similarly, the lunar cycle is 29.5 days. I mean, come on!

I do believe that those considerations (and a surfeit of Absinthe) drove those French academicians crazy. Not that it was a long drive. More like a putt.

--Pete

[Zenda]

NO! It is the gram

See for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internation...nits#Units

And thank you for contributing to my argument that nobody uses the metric system as defined. The symbol for 1000 is 'k' not 'K' (which is the designation for degree Kelvin).

I have always accidently used Kg instead of kg, and will propably continue to do so. Old habits die hard. But if you are saying that nobody will use the metric system correctly because I don't, you think too highly of me

[--Pete]

Hi,

See for yourself:

See for yourself: gram.

What you seem to be missing is that there is a difference between the metric system and the practical systems based on the metric system. The cgs systems, the MKS system, the Rational MKSA system, and SI are all attempts to make something useful out of a bunch of poorly chosen units. They are all based on the original metric system. None of them use all three basic units as originally defined by that system.

I have always accidently used Kg instead of kg, and will propably continue to do so. Old habits die hard. But if you are saying that nobody will use the metric system correctly because I don't, you think too highly of me

I say nobody uses the metric system precisely because nobody does. At least, not outside of a laboratory. What's the outside temperature where you are in K? What is the peak torque of your car in Nt•m? What is its power output in watts? What's the distance to the nearest star in meters?

Any of those you need to calculate, even in your head, means you don't really use the metric system. You use some metric units when they are convenient, and then use whatever is convenient the rest of the time.

--Pete

[Jester]

See for yourself: gram.

From your link:

...a gram is now defined as one one-thousandth of the SI base unit, the kilogram...

Any of those you need to calculate, even in your head, means you don't really use the metric system. You use some metric units when they are convenient, and then use whatever is convenient the rest of the time.

This seems a touch stringent. Nobody uses the metric system rigorously, exclusively, and instinctively. But then, nobody uses any other system that way either. I know the distance from Edmonton to Calgary in kM, not miles, but I know my weight in pounds not kilograms. I know the distance to the nearest star in astronomical units ( ) and I know the torque of my car in a precise, unitless way - zero anythings, because I don't own one.

But, I use the metric system for most things. Much like your insistence about water not technically freezing at 0 or boiling at 100, it seems like a distinction which is philosophically sound, but has very little application outside of hard science. Just because it's not being used perfectly, doesn't mean it's not being used.

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

From your link:

...a gram is now defined as one one-thousandth of the SI base unit, the kilogram...

What is so hard to understand here? To reiterate: What you seem to be missing is that there is a difference between the metric system and the practical systems based on the metric system. The cgs systems, the MKS system, the Rational MKSA system, and SI are all attempts to make something useful out of a bunch of poorly chosen units. They are all based on the original metric system. None of them uses all three basic units as originally defined by that system.

My point in this is simple. The base units were so poorly chosen that no practical system has ever been based directly on them. That's what I'm saying, nothing more, nothing less.

This seems a touch stringent. Nobody uses the metric system rigorously, exclusively, and instinctively. But then, nobody uses any other system that way either.

Yes, that is exactly right. I have no problem with using any convenient and familiar unit. I am not calling for the abolition of the metric system (although its replacement with something more useful would not be amiss). I am simply pointing out that those who call for the abolition of all non-metric systems because the metric system is so great are ignorant of the system they champion. They are mistaking familiarity with superiority.

. . . and I know the torque of my car in a precise, unitless way - zero anythings, because I don't own one.

That is on the level of 'the barber is a woman'. Cute.

Much like your insistence about water not technically freezing at 0 or boiling at 100, . . .

I do not insist that water doesn't freeze and boil at those temperatures on the Celsius scale, that would be foolish. That's the definition of those temperatures. I simply say that it is an arbitrary definition, of little intrinsic value. Indeed a poor definition. Consider the parallels: we define 273 meters to be the zero of length. Call the new unit the retem. So, if you're two meters tall, your height would be -271 retems. If you find that ludicrous, then how can you find Celsius not? If you don't find that ludicrous . . . then . . .

. . . it seems like a distinction which is philosophically sound, but has very little application outside of hard science. Just because it's not being used perfectly, doesn't mean it's not being used.

Again, you are missing my main point. Why should we give up a system of units which we do indeed use consistently, which cover our needs from the smallest to the largest, which evolved from necessity and convenience and replace it with a system who's users do not use consistently and correctly, which does not cover from the smallest to the largest, and which was arbitrarily defined by a bunch of ivory towered individuals with little or no understanding of the practical?

As an aside, notice that from yotta to yocto is 48 orders of magnitude. From the solar mass unit to the atomic mass unit is 57. One size fits all, but sometimes only if it rips.

I have no problem with people using whatever system they want. Just like I have no (well, little) problem with people having whatever religion they want. I have a problem with people shoving their units or their faith down my throat.

--Pete

[Zenda]

I have no problem with people using whatever system they want.

SI is not just a collection of units. It serves the purpose of a language. Wouldn't you have a problem communicating with someone in the absence of a common language? Oh wait, now you'll propably say that American industries and scientists don't need to communicate with the rest of the world

I have a problem with people shoving their units or their faith down my throat.

Let me remind you that by signing the Metric Convention in 1875 the US declared it's intention to participate in a uniform system of measurements using international prototypes of the meter and of the kilogram.

[Jester]

Let me remind you that by signing the Metric Convention in 1875 the US declared it's intention to participate in a uniform system of measurements using international prototypes of the meter and of the kilogram.

So? The system the US would have committed itself to using in 1875 has long since been supplanted by SI. It would also have used the centimeter and the gram as base units, not the meter and kilogram.

-Jester

[Zenda]

So? The system the US would have committed itself to using in 1875 has long since been supplanted by SI. It would also have used the centimeter and the gram as base units, not the meter and kilogram.

The Metric Convention did use the meter and kilogram. The Centimeter-Gram-Second system was never widely used.

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/laws...ntion.html

[--Pete]

Hi,

SI is not just a collection of units. It serves the purpose of a language. Wouldn't you have a problem communicating with someone in the absence of a common language?

Yes, I would have a problem. So, if I had lived around the Mediterranean a few centuries ago, I would have learned Latin, or the Frankish Language, or (a little later) French. That doesn't mean I would use any of them at home.

I have a problem with people shoving their units or their faith down my throat.

Let me remind you that by signing the Metric Convention in 1875 the US declared it's intention to participate in a uniform system of measurements using international prototypes of the meter and of the kilogram.

And let me remind you, once again, that the USA does exactly that. Our common units are defined in terms of metric units.

Please, say something new or say nothing at all. You keep bringing up quibbles that have already been addressed. Read. Think. If you think you have an argument, read again and see if it hasn't been already addressed. Otherwise, you're just a nuisance.

--Pete

[Zenda]

That doesn't mean I would use any of them at home.

Sometimes, you do use the metric system 'at home', next to your own customary units. What about this 327 million dollar example?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climat...its_mix-up

If you want to interpret 'home' more literally, don't forget your daily dose of tacrolimus.

You keep bringing up quibbles that have already been addressed.

Adressed? Sure. Resolved? No, unless you confirm that the SI base unit for mass is kilogram, and that the international metric system actually abolished the gram as a standard, instead of introducing it. The original gram (as defined by the mass of a cm3 of water) was first proposed in 1795, and the Centimeter-Gram-Second system followed in 1832. Both well before the convention of 1875. This is not a matter of opinion, but simply acceptance of the facts. Once you've done that, read your own post again and see what's left of it.