They're so high and mighty that the SI system is so consistent.

mass

But only a small number of things are measured in grams. Everyone uses kg. And if it gets too big, then they start using metric tons! Powers of 10 my rear end!

And what about Newtons? WTF is up with that? kg m/s^2

If you were going to be consistent it should have been g m/s^2. But yet Newton is the "SI unit", proving that the SI system really just does whatever it feels like.

length

When's the last time you heard someone use a Mm, as in a mega meter? No, that's a 1,000 km. Why? Because it is.

10/10/2011 10:21:47 AM

wat

10/10/2011 10:23:33 AM

^

10/10/2011 10:24:32 AM

We don't care about Kilograms and Kilometers because we're America and we own the fucking world so we don't have to.

10/10/2011 10:24:37 AM

Shhhh, shhhh. It'll be ok. Nobody is coming to take your 16 oz. to a pound, 12 in. to a foot, or your 5280 feet to a mile away.

10/10/2011 10:24:59 AM

Quote :

"because we're America and we own the fucking world"

we did buy the world, we just haven't paid for it yet

10/10/2011 10:31:43 AM

^^ they are coming to take your 32.174 lbm to a slug away

10/10/2011 10:32:05 AM

I also like how we can't use hectometer.

I mean, for heaven's sake, the news talks about 100 m records so much.

It's the hectometer record. If you run track, you measure things in hectometers.

Proof that if you make a logical unit system, people won't use it.

10/10/2011 10:33:55 AM

wat

10/10/2011 11:40:08 AM

Quote :

"mass But only a small number of things are measured in grams. Everyone uses kg. And if it gets too big, then they start using metric tons! Powers of 10 my rear end! And what about Newtons? WTF is up with that? kg m/s^2 If you were going to be consistent it should have been g m/s^2. But yet Newton is the "SI unit", proving that the SI system really just does whatever it feels like."

kilograms are actually the consistent unit in the SI system of units. So, kg-m/s² is the standard, consistent compound unit. I guess I understand what you are saying in that theoretically the consistent units should all be the "base" units but if you look up "consistent" units for SI, kg is the standard. I use both on a daily basis. I'm more comfortable these days with US units because they are used so much in the HVAC & Utilities industry and thus I use them more, but I do think that the SI units make a lot more sense overall.

If we want to complain about something related to mathematics and foreign countries, let's complain about the swapping of periods and commas . I understand that many countries use them opposite of the way we do with number systems...but it can get confusing when some foreign clients or manufacturers compensate for the fact they are dealing with an American company and use commas and periods like we do while others use them the way they normally do in submittals. I'm constantly second-guessing figures from them to see which way makes more sense.

[Edited on October 10, 2011 at 11:50 AM. Reason : ]

10/10/2011 11:43:29 AM

Quote :

"kilograms are actually the consistent unit in the SI system of units. So, kg-m/s² is the standard, consistent compound unit."

Yes, that's exactly it. I mean, 1,000,000 kg is.... a million kilograms unless you're using tons. The "way of thinking" behind it, is basically like a Mkg, although it could be a Gg, a gigagram. I shutter to think of the reaction from an engineering team upon mention of a gigagram.

Dude, man, did you know that supertankers are the largest moving thing man has ever made. They're like half a gigagram.

10/10/2011 12:51:15 PM

the only reason anyone in America learned the metric system is so they could buy drugs from Mexicans.

10/10/2011 12:52:57 PM

I'm fat. In lbs.

10/10/2011 2:57:20 PM

Tell overweight girls that they need to loose a about 10 kg and then watch the reaction when they figure out how many pounds it is.

10/10/2011 3:02:08 PM

Quote :

"Dude, man, did you know that supertankers are the largest moving thing man has ever made. They're like half a gigagram."

half a Gg for a supertanker?

10/11/2011 4:05:12 AM

Tg

10/11/2011 10:02:33 AM

no one said metric is perfect; it's just better than feet/pounds/miles/etc.

10/11/2011 10:07:32 AM

i came to this thread for the fathoms and furlongs

10/11/2011 10:11:23 AM

0.5 Tg fully loaded (500 Gg)

0.1 Tg dry (100 Gg)

Quote :

"no one said metric is perfect; it's just better than feet/pounds/miles/etc."

[Edited on October 11, 2011 at 10:36 AM. Reason : ]

10/11/2011 10:35:55 AM

fourscore and 7 years ago the English did not use the Metric system

10/11/2011 11:03:05 AM

the speed of light = 1.98287925 × 10^14 fathoms per fortnight

the speed of light = 1.8026175 × 10^12 furlongs per fortnight

10/11/2011 11:04:18 AM

um mrfrog. u realize that you are arguing over using kg vs g and m vs km

all u do is drop a 00 to convert between them if you want to use the other units

what's the problem again?

10/11/2011 11:04:59 AM

Quote :

"um mrfrog. u realize that you are arguing over using kg vs g and m vs km all u do is drop a 00 to convert between them if you want to use the other units what's the problem again?"

[Edited on October 11, 2011 at 11:40 AM. Reason : ]

10/11/2011 11:40:15 AM

lmao

10/11/2011 2:35:52 PM

Quote :

"0.5 Tg fully loaded (500 Gg) 0.1 Tg dry (100 Gg)"

500 Gg, or 500 GOOD GODS!

amirite?

10/11/2011 2:38:07 PM

gg mrfrog

10/11/2011 3:14:36 PM

Quote :

"the speed of light = 1.98287925 × 10^14 fathoms per fortnight the speed of light = 1.8026175 × 10^12 furlongs per fortnight"

my preferred constant for the speed of light is 0.011751994 parsecs per fortnight

[Edited on October 11, 2011 at 6:10 PM. Reason : also, 0.04377021951 parsecs per dog-year]

10/11/2011 6:08:36 PM

Of everything you bitch about is mass being represented in kg and not g? How about Europeans saying x weighs y kgs? Think about it!

10/11/2011 6:30:44 PM

My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

10/11/2011 6:31:28 PM

terrible. my car gets 440 picoparsecs to the stère. 0-60 in 6 microfortnights SON

where would this thread be without wolfram alpha

10/11/2011 6:43:39 PM

Quote :

"My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it."

http://www.google.com/search?q=convert+40+rods+%2F+hogshead+to+mpg

a) srsly Google, wtf

b) what the F are you driving? Hagrid's flying motortank?

10/12/2011 8:22:41 AM

i think he's driving Grampa Simpson's car

10/12/2011 8:25:24 AM

So is a school bus part of the metric system?

http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/10247153/

[Edited on October 12, 2011 at 8:37 AM. Reason : s]

10/12/2011 8:37:27 AM

bump

2/8/2012 7:56:52 AM

I wonder if the meteor that caused the K-T extinction event weighted 1 kT exactly...

2/8/2012 8:08:04 AM

hmph...

Quote :

"Crews cleaning up from Hurricane Irene have removed enough debris from state roadways to fill about 2,600 school buses, the North Carolina Department of Transportation said Tuesday. That's equivalent to more than 55,000 tons of trees and limbs "

2/8/2012 8:39:25 AM

2.6 kilobuses!

2/8/2012 8:41:29 AM

2/8/2012 9:01:23 PM

Quote :

"we did buy the world, we just haven't paid for it yet"

I just rolled my eyes at this, then I looked and saw who posted it

2/8/2012 9:07:11 PM

2/8/2012 9:10:53 PM

That picture reminded me that our time system is extraordinarily arbitrary at times. But in the case of time, there's so much incentive to follow the same system everyone else is, that there was never any question of what to use. We standardized it and then we were done.

The 7 day week is probably one of the most ingrained Jewdeo-Christian traditions in our modern systems. There is no natural basis for it at all, whatsoever.

But it might have made sense in certain ways. If you consider

30 days/month
12 months/yr

It sort of made sense to have the multipliers go 7-4-12. By seasons, you could say 7-4-3-4 to make it even more balanced.

Oh, but hours, minutes, and seconds also have no natural basis. Where were you on those SI system?

2/8/2012 11:30:51 PM