Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Metric or imperial?
- Thread starter The Grood
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The Grood said:
I would argue that Megahertz is imperial.
Metric to me is all base ten so 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day would seem more imperial. Swatch beats, on the other hand, I would consider metric....
I know that the SI unit of time is the second, but the whole non-base 10 doesn't seem metric to me....at that rate neither do bytes... 8-bits to a byte... that seems more imperial as well...
Just thought that since most of the computer industry started off in the US in the 70's/80s, didn't these guys have imperial measurements for performance/capacity etc.
Like 'a yard of speed' or 'an ounce of memory' or something:
'Wow, my new officebox system packs three yards per second and nine pounds of memory. Cool!"
If so, what happened to them?
Like 'a yard of speed' or 'an ounce of memory' or something:
'Wow, my new officebox system packs three yards per second and nine pounds of memory. Cool!"
If so, what happened to them?
I want my microprocessor speeds measured in furlongs per fortnight, and I'll wager that I'm not the only one.
atszyman said:I would argue that Megahertz is imperial.
Metric to me is all base ten so 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day would seem more imperial. Swatch beats, on the other hand, I would consider metric....
I know that the SI unit of time is the second, but the whole non-base 10 doesn't seem metric to me....at that rate neither do bytes... 8-bits to a byte... that seems more imperial as well...
reason for that is because computer are base 2.
Base 10 and base 2 dont really line up much at all. Now base 4,8 and 2 all line up really nicely but it because they area numbers in base 2.
I personally thing it still metric. in selling computer parts like hard drive it is all base 10. So you lose al ittle bit when ti translated back to base 2.
Computer specification are in base 2 because digital logic is all based around base 2 math. This is very fundamental, logical and for good reason. It has nothing to do with metric vs. imperial.
Anyway, I wish imperial would just go away. I can't figure out why the US insists on hanging on to it. I work in a machine shop, and to me a 9/32" socket wrench simply isn't more intuitive than a 7 mm wrench. Afterall, it's much easier to figure out that 6 mm is a little less than 7 mm, but if you ask me the relationship between 5/16" and 9/32" I'm going to have to sit and think for a minute to figure it out. But if you ask any of the other people in the shop, they'll say that metric confuses them and only imperial makes sense. Huh!?!?
Anyway, I wish imperial would just go away. I can't figure out why the US insists on hanging on to it. I work in a machine shop, and to me a 9/32" socket wrench simply isn't more intuitive than a 7 mm wrench. Afterall, it's much easier to figure out that 6 mm is a little less than 7 mm, but if you ask me the relationship between 5/16" and 9/32" I'm going to have to sit and think for a minute to figure it out. But if you ask any of the other people in the shop, they'll say that metric confuses them and only imperial makes sense. Huh!?!?
Trust me, it gets much worse when you have some people working in mils (milliinches) and others in millimeters. (40 mil is about 1 mm.) But the names are so similar that confusion is sure to arise.mduser63 said:
B
Imperial measurements are all base 10 too.. There's 12 inches in a foot, not B inches, or 1100 inches. The varying units for each measurement just line up oddly. The numbers are still in base 10.
It would be nice if we could all agree on one system, but the switch-over would be a real pain.
P.S. Doing physics in imperial is evil. Slug? There's a reason they invented metric.
There's 12 inches in a foot, not B inches, or 1100 inches. The varying units for each measurement just line up oddly. The numbers are still in base 10. It would be nice if we could all agree on one system, but the switch-over would be a real pain.
P.S. Doing physics in imperial is evil. Slug? There's a reason they invented metric.
Actually the biggest non-base 10 "problem" with imperial measurements is their reliance on fractions which are more base 2 than base 10. Going back to mduser63's examples.cait-sith said:The numbers are still in base 10.
5/16" = 01010/100000
9/32" = 01001/100000
The denominator tells you how many bits you need, while the numerator tells you the bits themselves... There's a reason that most of the time we deal with fractions that are 1/2^n.
B
mduser63 said:
simple to anwswer you next question. People are lazy (this is world wide people are lazy) and the US poplulation is not going to switch very fast. The poplulation knows Imperial. Everything we use is that way and as a whole we not as fimilure with metrec. I like metric for doing caclulation but at a glace I dont know the lenth of a meter but I know the lenght of a foot and can eastimate the size of things really easy in imperial cannt do that in metric because I dont use it offen enough messerment wise.
Switch the poplulation will take generations and slowly doing it because it just takes a while to cause it to happen. A lot of things are dual messured in the US and everything is sold with both imperal and metrec on it.
Here in the UK we're pretty much metric (like the rest of the EU). Apart from using miles on all our road signs (and pints for beer and milk).
Most people under the age of 30 here don't understand imperial measurements anymore anyway.
Most people under the age of 30 here don't understand imperial measurements anymore anyway.
Timepass said:
Not only how to measure in metric, but how to spell it too
I would suggest that the US change to metric after all the old people are dead
But seconds is the base unit, so a hertz which is per second is both imperial and metric. An example of a hertz-like unit that I would consider imperial is rpm.atszyman said:I would argue that Megahertz is imperial.
Metric to me is all base ten so 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day would seem more imperial. Swatch beats, on the other hand, I would consider metric....
I know that the SI unit of time is the second, but the whole non-base 10 doesn't seem metric to me....at that rate neither do bytes... 8-bits to a byte... that seems more imperial as well...
Is km/h a proper metric unit? I'm guessing not.
gekko513 said:
If I'm not mistaken, the "correct" way is to use meters per second, ie. mp/s. But I pretty much only see that if there's scientists involved.
IJ Reilly said:
Furlongs is pointless in processor speed, since they are usually sitting still when used the Furlongs would be zero. However cycles per fortnight would be a valid speed for computers....
My computer runs at 1.8144 Peta-cycles per fortnight....
