For Americans Only

[Coasterkidmwm]

Americans.

Case closed?

[jayman]

Compared to metric, imperial units seem extremely random and inefficient. I mean, who the hell decided 1 mile = 5280 ft!

actually the reason for the length of a mile should be something anyone who's studied astronomy should understand , at least somewhat..

http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/mile.asp

[gouldy]

bloody farmers!

[Coasterkidmwm]

You can really confuse kids if the ruler says "MM" instead of "CM"

To be fair in the start of year nine we where taught to use inches, fair enough, but then they confused me when they told us millimetres was what we must work with when we started year ten! I had just got the damn thing down when we where made to use a totally different number system, I can use both now but it was a hella lot of trouble. an inch is 25.4mm, awkward, no? let's just all use metric, imperial was a good system right up until the point when we started gaining more than just intelligence: common sense, and a little bit of laziness.

METRIC FTW

Originally posted by Adrenaguy

imperial was a good system right up until the point when we started gaining more than just intelligence: common sense, and a little bit of laziness.

That makes absolutely no sense.

Imperial units suck. I've been using metric units (on a small scale) for the past three years in science and already love them more than I ever thought I could love a units system. Unfortunately, I still get confused and have to think whenever I go to another country, so I usually just do a quick divide by two or whatever.
The problem with Imperial units is that they are TERRIBLY inefficient. Any time you have to do a conversion between two units, you need to go through this obnoxious calculation based on book conversion factors. In the metric system, however, that obnoxious calculation still exists, but its with conversion factor you know already.