Maths

[mcatrophy]

See, that's exactly why the metric system should be abolished world-wide: because Americans use feet, pounds, quarts, and acres.
NASA has done some amazing things, including landing and retrieving a handful of humans on the moon, and now SpaceX is doing stuff that stretches my imagination.

I think you'll find there are more people in the world using the metric system rather than the imperial, so perhaps it would be easier for the Americans to adopt it?

Or, do like we English.

• Buy our petrol (gas) in litres, but measure our vehicles consumption in miles per gallon.
• Measure our road distances in miles, but have kilometre markers on motorways and put our countdown signs approaching a turn-off ("off ramp") at 100 metre intervals.
• Buy our milk in containers marked 1.136 litres, which coincidentally is 2 pints (that's UK pints, not USA pints).
• Our television weather forecasters use degrees Celsius, but usually say "That's 43 Fahrenheit" at the end.
• Buy timber in length multiples of 300mm, which we called "metric feet" when we went metric.
• Independent grocers sell vegetables in pounds and ounces, but by law they have to have kilogram scales.
• Ballon height records are usually quoted in metres, aircraft heights are usually quoted in feet.
• Tyre sizes are quoted with wheel diameters in inches but widths in mm. And I don't think we are the only ones who do that
  
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And I have total admiration for NASA and its achievements. The success-to-failure ratio is remarkably good considering the amount of totally new science and engineering.

But I do love to pick up on the (very rare) stupid mistake

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[Uncle Hud]

mcatrophy posted: I think you'll find there are more people in the world using the metric system rather than the imperial, so perhaps it would be easier for the Americans to adopt it?

Well, I thought the entire world -- except the US -- measures in meters, grams, and liters. But Americans use feet, pounds, and quarts, so the rest of the planet is doing it wrong.

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As an engineer, I sincerely lament the unsuccessful US metrification effort during the late 1980s. Yes, I'd prefer meters, grams, and liters. Two systems means I have to purchase two different sets of wrenches, and I'm a cheap SOB.

 

[infrared]

Well, I thought the entire world -- except the US -- measures in meters, grams, and liters. But Americans use feet, pounds, and quarts, so the rest of the planet is doing it wrong.

.As an engineer, I sincerely lament the unsuccessful US metrification effort during the late 1980s. Yes, I'd prefer meters, grams, and liters. Two systems means I have to purchase two different sets of wrenches, and I'm a cheap SOB.

Uncle Hud,

I have never seen a set of Metric sockets that did not have a 1/4" or 3/8" or 1/2" ratchet drive wrench.

So, after all the wrenches and sockets in the world are Metric, all of the drives are all still going to be Imperial . . .

Cheers,

Infrared

 

[FJReady]

Ditto with tires. We measure section width in millimeters and rim diameter in inches. WTF?: just pick one and go with it. Aspect ratio is fine at %, no units required.

 

[BigOgre]

I've learned some metric measurements over the years . . .

 

[SacramentoMike]

It was nice for the liquor business when they went from quarts and fifths and half-gallons to liters, 750 ml, and 1.75 liter bottles. Less booze, same money. If we switched over to liters of gas, guess which way they're gonna round the results.

@mcatrophy, so I see that in Great Britain gas (sorry, petrol) is sold by the liter, but speed limits are in miles per hour. So how do you figure what kind of mileage you're getting? Miles/liter? Do cars and bikes read out in kph or mph? What about odometers?

 

[mcatrophy]

It was nice for the liquor business when they went from quarts and fifths and half-gallons to liters, 750 ml, and 1.75 liter bottles. Less booze, same money. If we switched over to liters of gas, guess which way they're gonna round the results.
@mcatrophy, so I see that in Great Britain gas (sorry, petrol) is sold by the liter, but speed limits are in miles per hour. So how do you figure what kind of mileage you're getting? Miles/liter? Do cars and bikes read out in kph or mph? What about odometers? :weirdsmiley:

When we converted, there were a lot of manipulations of quantities and prices, but nothing too severe. It all settled down fairly quickly, but it gave the conspiracy theorists a field day (or few weeks).
As I said in my earlier post, we use miles per gallon. Odometers read miles and vehicle computers give consumption figures in miles per gallon, though in some cases (such as my Gen III FJR) we can switch them to metric, useful when visiting our Continental neighbours. And if I switch to kilometres, I get a choice of km/L or L/100km. (That's on my FJR, I've not tried it on my wife's Audi pollutemobile.)

My somewhat anal mpg recordings use simple maths to do the (not very) hard sums from my entries of miles and litres.

Most importantly of all, we still buy our draft beer in full sized (UK) pint glasses .

 

[RayW]

Well, I thought the entire world -- except the US -- measures in meters, grams, and liters. But Americans use feet, pounds, and quarts, so the rest of the planet is doing it wrong.

.As an engineer, I sincerely lament the unsuccessful US metrification effort during the late 1980s. Yes, I'd prefer meters, grams, and liters. Two systems means I have to purchase two different sets of wrenches, and I'm a cheap SOB.

Uncle Hud,

I have never seen a set of Metric sockets that did not have a 1/4" or 3/8" or 1/2" ratchet drive wrench.

So, after all the wrenches and sockets in the world are Metric, all of the drives are all still going to be Imperial . . .

Cheers,

Infrared

At one time, a number of years ago, I had an old Triumph Spitfire. Triumph in an act of benevolence towards us in the US built their US spec cars using American size nuts and bolts.

At the same time I had a Ford Taurus. Ford had decided to use metric system for all their nuts and bolts.

So....I had the odd experience of using "American" wrenches on my foreign car and metric wrenches on my American car.

 

[mcatrophy]

... At one time, a number of years ago, I had an old Triumph Spitfire. Triumph in an act of benevolence towards us in the US built their US spec cars using American size nuts and bolts.

At the same time I had a Ford Taurus. Ford had decided to use metric system for all their nuts and bolts.

So....I had the odd experience of using "American" wrenches on my foreign car and metric wrenches on my American car.

Please don't go there, it's an absolute minefield.

Even in my day, we had Whitworth and BSF (British Standard Fine). Spanners (wrenches) would fit either, but were named differently, one used the thread diameter for the spanner size, the other the width of the hexagon on the nut (or bolt head). We also got AF (American Fine), though that was relatively rare at least for me. Then I started using French cars, so needed metric.

Luckily, the Japanese follow one of the previous standards (metric), except, of course, for their cross-headed screws, which are JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard), not Philips nor Posidrive. So, use the one in your tool-kit for best purchase on the cross-headed screws on your bike

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[RossKean]

In Canada, we are "fully" metric. We use litres and kilometers but if someone asks how much gas the FJR uses, my answer is in miles per US gallon. (Official units are litres per 100 kilometers). In mcatrophy's neck of the woods, I believe that miles per Imperial gallon are common. Looks better than per US gallon.

My FJR (Gen II) is, unfortunately, monolingual - doesn't switch between miles and kilometers. What's worse is that the bike originated in the USA so readouts are miles (km in fine print on the speedo) and °F for the temperature.

 

[SacramentoMike]

My FJR (Gen II) is, unfortunately, monolingual - doesn't switch between miles and kilometers.

Really? One of the early little surprises I had when I got my first '05 was that I inadvertently switched the odo over to kms instead of miles (held that button down too long). Wow, though, I couldn't believe how far I'd apparently gone on that next tank of gas when I still had several bars left on the gauge! Man, I'm getting GREAT mileage, I thought.

Wasn't though, really.

 

[RossKean]

The ability to change from miles to kilometers is available on Gen I and Gen III. I guess it skipped a generation; no way for Gen II bikes.

 

[wnyfjr]

I finally learned the conversion from gallons to liters while standing at a urinal in Markham, Ontario. There, printed on the top of the urinal it said "1 Gal. (3.8 L) per Flush". You just never know what you'll learn in the Men's room...

 

[Pterodactyl]

Pray tell, what else have you learned in a men's room? No wait! Don't!

 

[RossKean]

I finally learned the conversion from gallons to liters while standing at a urinal in Markham, Ontario. There, printed on the top of the urinal it said "1 Gal. (3.8 L) per Flush". You just never know what you'll learn in the Men's room...

That's for a US Gallon. Imperial Gallon is 4.546 L. You would think that in Canada, they would reference the Imperial.

 

[Gitbox]

Three salesmen are traveling together and they need a place to spend a night.

They find a small Motel and go in.
There is only one room left and clerk behind the desk tells them it's $30.

Each salesman pays $10 and they go to their room.

Clerk feeling bad about charging them $30, tells bellboy to take $5 and give it back to salesmen.

Bellboy thinks how he can split $5 three way and decides to just give each salesman $1 and keep $2 for himself.

So, each salesman paid $9. ($10 - $1 = $9)

$9 times 3 = $27.

Bellboy kept $2.

$27 + $2 = $29.

Where did the other $1 went?

It's irrelevant. Those are two separate and unrelated transactions: paying for the room is one and getting money from the clerk is another. Try it with the clerk giving back $10 and the bellboy keeping $1.

$10 - $3 = $7

$7 x $3 = $21

$21 + $1 = $22

What happened to the other $8?

 

[mcatrophy]

Three salesmen are traveling together and they need a place to spend a night.

They find a small Motel and go in.
There is only one room left and clerk behind the desk tells them it's $30.

Each salesman pays $10 and they go to their room.

Clerk feeling bad about charging them $30, tells bellboy to take $5 and give it back to salesmen.

Bellboy thinks how he can split $5 three way and decides to just give each salesman $1 and keep $2 for himself.

So, each salesman paid $9. ($10 - $1 = $9)

$9 times 3 = $27.

Bellboy kept $2.

$27 + $2 = $29.

Where did the other $1 went?

It's irrelevant. Those are two separate and unrelated transactions: paying for the room is one and getting money from the clerk is another. Try it with the clerk giving back $10 and the bellboy keeping $1.

$10 - $3 = $7

$7 x $3 = $21

$21 + $1 = $22

What happened to the other $8?

All you have to do is follow the money.

Salesmen Clerk Bellboy Total

1. $30 $0 $0 $30

2. $0 $30 $0 $30

3. $0 $25 $5 $30

4. $3 $25 $2 $30

 

[red2kcbr]

The measuring system itself is irrelevant. Metric, Imperial, or any other standard all accomplish the goal of communicating the dimensions being measured. It's how those standards are implemented in the brain that makes switching standards so difficult. It takes a generation or even two for the change to take root. Sure, the base-10 elegance of the metric system makes for more straight forward calculations, but 100 klicks is still 60 miles. If you think in Imperial, then you will always take 100 kilometers and mentally convert it to 60 miles. Now you know how far it is. It's like a foreign language; you have to think in it to really master it.

 

[mcatrophy]

... but 100 klicks is still 60 miles. If you think in Imperial, then you will always take 100 kilometers and mentally convert it to 60 miles. ...

Better to take 80 clicks and call it 50 miles, that's less than 0.6% error; yours is more than 3.4%. Pedantic, or what?
But you're right, start thinking killometres instead of miles if you're in a killometre country. And degrees Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, litres instead of gallons. I suspect many people on this forum already think in millimetres when servicing their bike.

 

[RossKean]

I consider myself to be pretty much bilingual with respect to weights and measures. I grew up with the Imperial system in Canada and went through the change to metric. The change has been reinforced due to working in science (analytical chemistry) for the last forty years. I get practice with non-metric several times per year travelling in the USA.

Miles on the highway roughly translates to minutes and (hundreds of) kilometers translates to hours - at least as a first approximation. (Depending, of course, on the highway and if you are paying some level of attention to legal speeds)