Topic: Episode #349

[craig]

It's just one more excuse for us foreigners to laugh at you Americans.

But the same thing happens in Britain  - most people still measure road distances in miles, weight in stone, height in feet, liquid volume in pints etc. However, no-one I know uses Fahrenheit.

That is funny because Fahrenheit is the last one that I would want to give up.  I like having the smaller units; it allows me to be pickier about room temp.

[GodSlayer]

Not really.  Some small arms ammunition is measured in metric (5.56mm, 7.62mm, 9mm rounds) while others are imperial (.50 caliber, .45 caliber).  Explosive munitions (artillery, RPG's, granade launchers, mortars) are always metric, but explosives are imperial (1lb of C4) and lage bombs are imperial (5,000lb bomb).  Some things are measured in both systems - for instance, aircraft fuel is measured in both pounds and liters.  It's complicated.

goddamnit.

[GodSlayer]

I like having the smaller units

that's what she said


btw, '.5' increments are common on fancy temperature altering devices that use Celsius (so, you can go from 68 to 68.9 to 69.8, for example)

[craig]

I like having the smaller units

that's what she said

That's good news for you then

[GodSlayer]

I like having the smaller units

that's what she said

That's good news for you then

pics or stfu.

[Chew]

The American military tends to use the metric system for the reason of interoperatbilty with our allies.  The German's and French just don't think in miles, gallons and caliber. Rather they think kilometers, liters (litres) and millimeters.

Not really.  Some small arms ammunition is measured in metric (5.56mm, 7.62mm, 9mm rounds) while others are imperial (.50 caliber, .45 caliber).  Explosive munitions (artillery, RPG's, granade launchers, mortars) are always metric, but explosives are imperial (1lb of C4) and lage bombs are imperial (5,000lb bomb).  Some things are measured in both systems - for instance, aircraft fuel is measured in both pounds and liters.  It's complicated.

He said "tends". He didn't say they used it exclusively. But he knows what he's talking about. He just retired from the US Army.

[Pak]

Sorry, didn't mean to offend. I guess dry Vermont humor becomes quite dessicated over the internet. After a dozen years, my wife (a Canadian) still is never quite sure if I'm serious or joking. There was a point to the humor, somethings should be just switched over all at once... like switching to the metric system & switching what side of the road to drive on.

Probably my place to apologise. Your sense of humour would on qualify you as an Aussie - or possibly an Yorkshireman.

[Moloch]

The American military tends to use the metric system for the reason of interoperatbilty with our allies.  The German's and French just don't think in miles, gallons and caliber. Rather they think kilometers, liters (litres) and millimeters.

Not really.  Some small arms ammunition is measured in metric (5.56mm, 7.62mm, 9mm rounds) while others are imperial (.50 caliber, .45 caliber).  Explosive munitions (artillery, RPG's, granade launchers, mortars) are always metric, but explosives are imperial (1lb of C4) and lage bombs are imperial (5,000lb bomb).  Some things are measured in both systems - for instance, aircraft fuel is measured in both pounds and liters.  It's complicated.

I don't think Old Hoplite was speaking exclusively about units of weapons but communications as well.

[Shadow Of A Doubt]

It's just one more excuse for us foreigners to laugh at you Americans.

But the same thing happens in Britain  - most people still measure road distances in miles, weight in stone, height in feet, liquid volume in pints etc. However, no-one I know uses Fahrenheit.

That is funny because Fahrenheit is the last one that I would want to give up.  I like having the smaller units; it allows me to be pickier about room temp.

Well, we have this thing called the decimal point... 

[Steven Novella]

I agree that we should just convert entirely to metric so that the world is on one system, and the metric system has several advantages because it is base 10.

But - I do prefer Fahrenheit to Celcius. Celcius does not have the advantages of the rest of the metric system. It is based on the freezing point of water and the boiling point of water at 1 atmosphere. These are arbitrary criteria that do not lead to any specific advantage for the user, except that it is easier to remember the freezing and boiling point of water. So what.

In Celcius the temperature range that humans typically live in is about -10 to 30 degrees. For Fahrenheit the typical temperature range that humans live in is 0-100. This is a much more comfortable and intuitive range. I have a good sense of each tens of temperature. I know what the 40s feel like compared to the 50s or the 60s.

While you can use decimal points with Celcius, the temperature range for human conditions is compressed and not as useful or intuitive.

I can see setting zero to the freezing point of water, but making 100 the boiling point (at 1 atmosphere) is arbitrary. It would have been better to set the boiling point at 300, so that the range of temperature would be more useful as a measure of weather - the most common everyday use.

Or - we can just keep Celsius and Kelvin for scientific use, and keep Fahrenheit for everyday use. No real problem there.

[Trinoc]

So blame the Brits for our backwards, parochial ways.

Well, we shipped our Christians to America and our convicts to Australia. With hindsight maybe it would have been better the other way around, though the aboriginal people of Australia might disagree.

[Old Hoplite]

The American military tends to use the metric system for the reason of interoperatbilty with our allies.  The German's and French just don't think in miles, gallons and caliber. Rather they think kilometers, liters (litres) and millimeters.

Not really.  Some small arms ammunition is measured in metric (5.56mm, 7.62mm, 9mm rounds) while others are imperial (.50 caliber, .45 caliber).  Explosive munitions (artillery, RPG's, granade launchers, mortars) are always metric, but explosives are imperial (1lb of C4) and lage bombs are imperial (5,000lb bomb).  Some things are measured in both systems - for instance, aircraft fuel is measured in both pounds and liters.  It's complicated.

I don't think Old Hoplite was speaking exclusively about units of weapons but communications as well.

I was involved in serveral coalition ops during my time in the service. Mostly with Germans and Brits, sometimes the French.
The Brits still many times used pounds instead of kilograms, but mostly used kilometers instead of miles and almost always used meters in place of yards, just like most "Yanks."
The Germans used the metric system strictly. A 500 Lb bomb was 225 Kilograms, or just kilos. Fuel was done in liters for thier SP arty pieces while we used gallons. Distance was always kilometers. Although us "amis" shorted that to "kays" or "clicks".
I never once heard a Frenchman use an english measurement for anything. Including thier weapons. They even called a .50 caliber 12.7MM. But that may just them being FRENCH. 

[lippard]

The source of this week's quote, Bernard Haisch, was also for many years (and may still be) the editor of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, the journal of the Society for Scientific Exploration, which is a group of academics and scientists interested in scientific investigation of paranormal and fringe science claims which is occasionally at odds with organized skepticism.  A number of articles critical of skeptical groups have been published in the JSE, and some frequent targets of skeptics have published in the journal (e.g., Rupert Sheldrake, Ian Stevenson, Dean Radin, Roger Nelson, Robert Jahn, Russell Targ, Stanley Krippner, William Roll, Jacques Vallee, Jerome Clark, Bruce Maccabee, etc.), as have some notable skeptics (Gerd Hovelmann, William Jefferys, Ray Hyman, Michael Epstein).

[lippard]

BTW, here's a particularly horrific publication in the JSE:

"An Anomalous Legal Decision"
http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_22_4_blasband.pdf

Compare to:

"Dr. Gloria Dodd--A Case Study in the Failure of Government Regulation of Veterinary Medicine":
http://skeptvet.com/Blog/2011/01/dr-gloria-dodd-a-case-study-in-the-failure-of-government-regulation-of-veterinary-medicine/

[Beep Boop Boop]

But - I do prefer Fahrenheit to Celcius. Celcius does not have the advantages of the rest of the metric system. It is based on the freezing point of water and the boiling point of water at 1 atmosphere. These are arbitrary criteria that do not lead to any specific advantage for the user, except that it is easier to remember the freezing and boiling point of water. So what.

Really Steve??? Really??? You seriously are going to argue that a measurement that literally was based upon a candle is more advantageous than the Celsius scale.