Since I grew up with the metric system it's no problem for me at all. I actually like the metric better because everything is in 10 , 100 or 1000 steps.
So much easier. not those uneven numbers. For me go ahead better today than tomorrow.
You can't even buy eggs in a dozen - only in 10 at least in Germany. LOL
and our pounds are an even 500 gr and not like the american 454 gr. or so.
So much easier. Everything in round numbers LOL
but every country needs to choose what it's best for their needs.
I agree with most of the posters. Although, as someone who is very bad in math, the transition would be scary it is scarier that my European friends can convert things and I can't. So I actually don't even know our system.... But it makes much more sense that the world all be under the same systems. And I think Mingkee is right on the temperature issue - to me, F actually makes more sense than C. But that is just my humble opinion. My boss has this quote she gave me that's great:
"There are 10 types of people in the world: those that understand binary, and everyone else."
Hee hee
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"Alas for those who never sing and die with all their music left in them" - Oliver Wendell Holmes
Well, F and C are pretty much identical, just at different ratios. They are both perfectly linear, it's just 0 & 100 are closer together in F, and at different temps. The reason C makes sense to me is I can see how they derived it. 0 = the freezing point of water, 100 = the boiling point. How did they derive, F? Does anyone know? Really, does ANYONE know?
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Caw
"I am a Canadian by birth, but I am a Highlander by blood and feel under an obligation to do all I can for the sake of the Highlanders and their literature.... I have never yet spoken a word of English to any of my children. They can speak as much English as they like to others, but when they talk to me they have to talk in Gaelic."
-Alexander Maclean Sinclair of Goshen (protector of Gaelic Culture)
I believe we should use the metric system although, as a cook, I'd of course have to relearn everything since all recipes in the US are in our measurements and all conversions, etc. also. We've grown so used to 'our' way of doing things in the states, that we don't much think about it until we are faced with converting metrics to a US standard equivalent. Multiply by this, Divide by that. It would be so much easier to just adopt and be done with it. Teaching would also be streamlined if we forget the US standard and go straight to metric except for those that will need to be taught to convert of course. They can look at it as 'We can do that' in the case of converting.
Gordon
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Lay you down in green meadows amongst the heather for it is there the music calls to your soul and beckons you home.
For standard temperatures that humans deal with, C to F and back again is easy. F -> C Subtract 30 and divide by 2. C -> F multiply by 2 and add 30. It looses its precision when you start talking about cooking as such but for talking about the weather, it'll make you look like you think natively in the other system.
As an ex-engineering student, it seems like the first weeks of every course covered converting from english units to their SI equivalents and back again. But then again if we did away with it, it'd eliminate a portion of my Trivial Pursuit winning. How many inches are in a kilometer? Stones in a pound?
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I don't think of myself as a lion. You might as well, though - I have a mighty roar. Jubel Early
What's messed up is, the general populous here in Canada still use '&" for our hight, and lbs for our weight. Oh, and all of our Stoves (ranges) use F. 'Splain dat a me.
Realm: The Pacific Northwest...land of tall trees, blue water, software and endless lattes
QUOTE (oldraven @ 28-Sep-2004, 12:29 PM)
Well, F and C are pretty much identical, just at different ratios. They are both perfectly linear, it's just 0 & 100 are closer together in F, and at different temps. The reason C makes sense to me is I can see how they derived it. 0 = the freezing point of water, 100 = the boiling point. How did they derive, F? Does anyone know? Really, does ANYONE know?
Daniel Fahrenheit established three fixed points on his thermometer. Zero degrees was the temperature of an ice, water and salt mixture. When he omitted salt from the slurry, he reached his second fixed point when the water-ice combination stabilized at "the thirty-second degree." His third fixed point was "found as the ninety-sixth degree and the spirit expands to this degree when the thermometer is held in the mouth or under the armpit of a living man in good health."
After Fahrenheit died in 1736, scientists calibrated his model of thermometer using 212 degrees, the temperature at which water boils, as the upper fixed point. When the Fahrenheit thermometer was recalibrated, normal human body temperature registered 98.6 rather than 96.
Panama uses an odd mix of both. Distances are in Kilometers, temperatures are in Celsius, beer is in ounces (volume) and gasoline is sold in U.S. Gallons. A persons wt. and ht are measured in kilogram and meters, but food may be in ounces and pounds or grams and kilograms. It doesn't seem to make much difference, in day to day living no one really cares and in cooking most measurements are relative to each other and therefore arbitrary if you stick to whatever base you are using.
My work is kinda sorta scientific in nature, but oddly, we use both. When you have to use them you learn them. For anything difficult or that is used less often I wrote out a trusty excel spreadsheet to do my conversions. And the things that are really important are almost always figured first in relative numbers (ie: molecular wts. and combining wts. and stuff) so there it makes no difference at all until we get to the point where we have to decide how much we want to make.
In short, both systems have their pluses, and if you have to use them, you learn them or starve.
Leo
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Consistency. It's only a virtue if you're not a screwup.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunatley it kills all its pupils. - Hector Berlioz
"No matter where you go, there you are." - R. Young
Under the metric system, you can drive faster - 100 instead of 60. The only problem is that everything moves further apart. Even though I drive faster, it still takes the same amount of time to get to Toronto.
In Canada, there isn't as much of an obesity problem since the metric system came in to effect. In Canada, a person who weighs 113 comes in at a hefty 250 in the U.S.
I would say NO, and the reason is why??? Why should we change just to appease the rest of the world?? Yeah, I know it sounds a bit arrogant but just who started the measurement thing anyhow? This is a question because I really don't know. Is metric any better then Standard measurement? Is it any more accurate? I mean what would be our motivation to change? Just because the rest of the world is doing it is not justification enough. Hey, if the rest of the world jumps off the earth does not mean the US should too. The rest of the world can keep the metric system, I see no benefit.
just my opinion.
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What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. --Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. --Robert Louis Stevenson
Wow. That sounded astoundingly stubborn, but whatever. Something I noticed a lot with the American view. 'We shouldn't change, because we don't have to. Wether it makes good sense is irrelevant'. Having the right to keep an outdated system doesn't mean it's the correct choice. (realise that I'm not trying to stir up .... stuff. This topic effects my daily life, far beyond that of most, so I'm strongly opinionated when it comes to this topic.)
The benefits of Metric are many. For one, yes, the rest of the world has switched. The US staying with standard measurement holds the rest of us back, especially to the north.
Constant converting is such a pain, and it directly effects my life and job. Not just converting between systems, but within itself. We all count in multiples of ten, but the outdated system of counting to twelve, simply to have to break it up into tens again, is foolery. A vicious circle. Fractions? Why? Decimals are more accurate, (ask any machinist), and are linear. 1.7656 will always be 1.7656, from the designers head to the fabricators hand. 1 49/64 just complicates it by forcing you to convert it to decimal in order to make the measurement usable, or put it in linear perspective. Or even converting to the nearest common fraction.
Now, when it comes to the general public, it doesn't have much bearing, which I realise is where most who are pro standard are coming from. But the truth is, only about 10% of the time are those people using standards of measurement. Industry and its proffesionals are the ones using measurement day in and day out, 24/7. If you want to say "I'm 5'-9", and 195lbs." then by all means go ahead. That's the way I do it. But when it comes to work, at any level of engineering and fabrication, metric is the system that adds up. Literally.
So, if the public doesn't like the idea of a switch to metric, fine. That doesn't force them to use the system. But I strongly believe that industrially, the nation should catch up and stop speaking Latin in an English world.
I feel the U.S. should go metric. To me, it just makes sense. The U.S. is supposedly a world leader, yet we use a system that's outdated and confusing to many. Go metric, I say!
Wow. That sounded astoundingly stubborn, but whatever. Something I noticed a lot with the American view. 'We shouldn't change, because we don't have to. Wether it makes good sense is irrelevant'. Having the right to keep an outdated system doesn't mean it's the correct choice. (realise that I'm not trying to stir up .... stuff. This topic effects my daily life, far beyond that of most, so I'm strongly opinionated when it comes to this topic.)
The benefits of Metric are many. For one, yes, the rest of the world has switched. The US staying with standard measurement holds the rest of us back, especially to the north.
Constant converting is such a pain, and it directly effects my life and job. Not just converting between systems, but within itself. We all count in multiples of ten, but the outdated system of counting to twelve, simply to have to break it up into tens again, is foolery. A vicious circle. Fractions? Why? Decimals are more accurate, (ask any machinist), and are linear. 1.7656 will always be 1.7656, from the designers head to the fabricators hand. 1 49/64 just complicates it by forcing you to convert it to decimal in order to make the measurement usable, or put it in linear perspective. Or even converting to the nearest common fraction.
Now, when it comes to the general public, it doesn't have much bearing, which I realise is where most who are pro standard are coming from. But the truth is, only about 10% of the time are those people using standards of measurement. Industry and its proffesionals are the ones using measurement day in and day out, 24/7. If you want to say "I'm 5'-9", and 195lbs." then by all means go ahead. That's the way I do it. But when it comes to work, at any level of engineering and fabrication, metric is the system that adds up. Literally.
So, if the public doesn't like the idea of a switch to metric, fine. That doesn't force them to use the system. But I strongly believe that industrially, the nation should catch up and stop speaking Latin in an English world.
Total agreement here. It's a pain in the backside when you have to convert, especially when the conversions themselves can tend to be questionable. For example, in school they tell us 28.30 grams equals one ounce but if you use that to figure out a measurement in baking, the baked goods are spoiled since an ounce is actually 28.3495 grams. Baking is a precise science in itself. One missed measurement will throw off everything. And, they can't seem to agree on ounces with caviar either since they label a 30 gram container as 1 U.S. ounce....Go figure
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