No. Nobody wants to know that. Nobody needs to know that.
Nobody needs a measurement with a magnitude of a mile to the precision of an inch. And if they did, they’d either measure the whole length in inches or decimal miles, not some bullshit multiple-unit travesty.
Ya’ll are solving a problem that never existed in the first place.
If I’m building a railroad, I’m going to need mm precision in laying sleepers and rail, sure. But I’m not particularly interested in km magnitude while I’m driving spikes.
If I’m driving a train over that rail, I’m interested in km lengths, but I can tolerate several hundreds of meters of imprecision in those measurements. No need to convert to meters, let alone mm for that measurement.
The closest I’ll come to needing both km magnitude and mm precision is in figuring out how much material to order.
But, when I do that, what I will actually be converting isn’t length to length. I’ll be figuring out how many sleepers per km, how many rail segments per km, how many buckets of spikes per km. None of those will be simple metric unit conversions.
But, when I do that, what I will actually be converting isn’t length to length. I’ll be figuring out how many sleepers per km, how many rail segments per km, how many buckets of spikes per km. None of those will be simple metric unit conversions.
This is actually the primary strength of imperial and the impetus behind most of its conversion ratios. Base 10 is just terrible for being divided. But if you have a mile of railroad, you can place your rail and stakes regularly at almost any foot-length and come out even.
Exactly. Our base-ten number system is cursed. A base-twelve metric system would be gorgeous. Our existing clocks would already be metric.
In addition to scaling by “10” (pronounced “ten”), current Metric Rulers commonly scale by 2 when going from centimeter to 1/2 centimeter markings, or by 5 when going from cm to 2mm markings, depending on the degree of precision required. Rarely do rulers actually scale from cm to 1mm. You typically need calipers to make measurements smaller than 2mm.
With base-twelve, we’d still be able to scale by “10” (pronounced “twelve”), but we’d also be able to scale by 2, 3, 4, or 6.
Well the main reason why the metric caught was there were many many mny versions of older systems in place. You may have heard a french inch was different then an English inch. But it was way more complex then just that.
Even in a single country different industries could all use a gallon but have it be different. Need 39 yards of rope for your ship? Well is that paris or vince yards? Also better remember the currency conversion.
Having one system was better since everyone could now agree on how long something was. This is also why metric time failed to catch on. Everyone agreed on days, weeks, years etc etc.
Bingo. That’s the true advantage of the metric system: everyone uses it. Unit conversion is a highly overrated function.
Metric time will only catch on if and when we adopt interplanetary travel and are no longer fundamentally tied to the rotation and revolution of a particular rock around a particular star.
No. Nobody wants to know that. Nobody needs to know that.
Nobody needs a measurement with a magnitude of a mile to the precision of an inch. And if they did, they’d either measure the whole length in inches or decimal miles, not some bullshit multiple-unit travesty.
Ya’ll are solving a problem that never existed in the first place.
Railways? Large tunnels? Bridges?
Show me.
If I’m building a railroad, I’m going to need mm precision in laying sleepers and rail, sure. But I’m not particularly interested in km magnitude while I’m driving spikes.
If I’m driving a train over that rail, I’m interested in km lengths, but I can tolerate several hundreds of meters of imprecision in those measurements. No need to convert to meters, let alone mm for that measurement.
The closest I’ll come to needing both km magnitude and mm precision is in figuring out how much material to order.
But, when I do that, what I will actually be converting isn’t length to length. I’ll be figuring out how many sleepers per km, how many rail segments per km, how many buckets of spikes per km. None of those will be simple metric unit conversions.
This is actually the primary strength of imperial and the impetus behind most of its conversion ratios. Base 10 is just terrible for being divided. But if you have a mile of railroad, you can place your rail and stakes regularly at almost any foot-length and come out even.
Exactly. Our base-ten number system is cursed. A base-twelve metric system would be gorgeous. Our existing clocks would already be metric.
In addition to scaling by “10” (pronounced “ten”), current Metric Rulers commonly scale by 2 when going from centimeter to 1/2 centimeter markings, or by 5 when going from cm to 2mm markings, depending on the degree of precision required. Rarely do rulers actually scale from cm to 1mm. You typically need calipers to make measurements smaller than 2mm.
With base-twelve, we’d still be able to scale by “10” (pronounced “twelve”), but we’d also be able to scale by 2, 3, 4, or 6.
Well the main reason why the metric caught was there were many many mny versions of older systems in place. You may have heard a french inch was different then an English inch. But it was way more complex then just that.
Even in a single country different industries could all use a gallon but have it be different. Need 39 yards of rope for your ship? Well is that paris or vince yards? Also better remember the currency conversion.
Having one system was better since everyone could now agree on how long something was. This is also why metric time failed to catch on. Everyone agreed on days, weeks, years etc etc.
Bingo. That’s the true advantage of the metric system: everyone uses it. Unit conversion is a highly overrated function.
Metric time will only catch on if and when we adopt interplanetary travel and are no longer fundamentally tied to the rotation and revolution of a particular rock around a particular star.