Systems of measurement

[Admin]

Personally, I think millimeter (mm), centimeter (cm), decimeter (dm), meter (m), kilometer (km) and Celsius (C) are far easier to understand that inches, foot and Fahrenheit (F).


Milli means one thousandth.
Centi means one hundredth.
Deci means one tenth.

One meter is thus 1000 mm, 100 cm, and/or 10 dm. <-- notice the even numbers

Kilo means one thousand so 1 kilometer (km) is 1000 meters.

With (C), just below 0, you start to "freeze", since you're in a minus degree state.


One inch is 2.54 cm and one foot is 30.48 cm. <-- notice the really uneven numbers
So one meter is 39.370 078 74 inches or 3.280 839 895 feet. <-- just look at those numbers!

With (F), the point of "freeze" state is 32 degrees +(!)
Highly confusing.


How can people use such spotty numbers??
I would love to hear how you Americans learn these odd numbers.

[MeAmCryzor]

I use the metric system. (The first one)

I cant get my head around feet and inches

[loopy]

It's so weird. Even now i forget your not american...

[njayhuang]

When the first units you learn are degrees in Farenheit and feet and inches, it's not really that hard.

The concept of feet and inches actually makes sense

The average foot length is about 9.4 inches (240 mm) for current Europeans. Approximately 99.6% of British men have a foot that is less than 12 inches long. One attempt to "explain" the "missing" inches is that the measure did not refer to a naked foot, but to the length of footwear, which could theoretically add an inch or two to the naked foot's length. This is consistent with the measure being convenient for practical uses such as building sites. People almost always pace out lengths while wearing shoes or boots, rather than removing them and pacing barefoot.

There are however historical records of definitions of the inch based on the width (not length) of a man's thumb that are very precise for the standards of the time. One of these was based on an average calculated using three men of different size, thereby enabling surprising accuracy and uniformity throughout a country even without calibrated rulers. It therefore seems likely that at least since about the Twelfth century, the precise length of a foot was in fact based on the inch, not the other way around. Since this length was fairly close to the size of most feet, at least in shoes, this enabled the above-mentioned use of one's shoes in approximating lengths without measuring devices.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_(length)

[MeAmCryzor]

In maths today we made up our own units of measurements instead of doing work!

But its getting a bit complex now that we discovered the mum-to-nose matrix

[loopy]

Jul 15, 2009 15:35:04 GMT MeAmCryzor said:

In maths today we made up our own units of measurements instead of doing work!

But its getting a bit complex now that we discovered the mum-to-nose matrix

Mum-To-Nose Matrix?

That sounds wrong ;D

[Admin]

Jul 14, 2009 15:18:51 GMT MeAmCryzor said:

I use the metric system. (The first one)

I cant get my head around feet and inches

This actually surprises me, because I've come to understand that the British more than often use Imperial (and to some degree U.S. customary) units.
I hear inch, foot, yard, mile, pound and pint almost always being used in British TV/movies.

Jul 14, 2009 22:00:51 GMT njayhuang said:

When the first units you learn are degrees in Farenheit and feet and inches, it's not really that hard.

Of course, anything learned early on and mastered is easy for the learner, but it's still a much more (over)complicated system in comparison in the long run.

[loopy]

Jul 16, 2009 7:31:24 GMT Admin said:

Jul 14, 2009 15:18:51 GMT MeAmCryzor said:

I use the metric system. (The first one)

I cant get my head around feet and inches

This actually surprises me, because I've come to understand that the British more than often use Imperial (and to some degree U.S. customary) units.
I hear inch, foot, yard, mile, pound and pint almost always being used in British TV/movies.

Jul 14, 2009 22:00:51 GMT njayhuang said:

When the first units you learn are degrees in Farenheit and feet and inches, it's not really that hard.

Of course, anything learned early on and mastered is easy for the learner, but it's still a much more (over)complicated system in comparison in the long run.

Yeah i've ALWAYS been told to learn whilst im young. Apparently its easy for little kids to learn other languages for some reason.