when measuring everyday things, our ancestors devised units based on
everyday things. a foot is about the size of an adult man's foot. i
can picture that in my head.
a meter, on the other hand, is the distance travelled by light in a vacuum
during 1/299792458 seconds. picture that in your head. i dare you.
that is why we americans have a dual-unit system.
for very precise scientific measurements, we use (and have for some time)
SI units.
but for day-to-day layman's measurements, we stick to the tried and
true system derived from thousands of years of experience.
i hope that clears it up for some of you.
posted by TheThirdCross on Saturday 23rd September 2006, 20:51:00
In every day life you don't need to know what 1m exactly is (the
distance travelled by light in a vacuum during 1/299792458 seconds). When
you use them, 1m is 1m, nothing super in it. I really don't have
anything against imperial system, only that the metric system is much
easier to use like when converting cm to m and to km.. But we've
really had enough of this now!
And, as it seems to be a pattern, you miss the point entirely.
I'm sure I can imagine what a meter looks like, maybe that
platinum alloy thing in Paris or whatever, but what he's saying
is that as an arbitrary distance, there isn't much to compare it
to, without a ruler or much experience with it, just as having the
Celcius scale tied to the boiling temperature of water at sea level
often has little relation to how hot it feels during the day.
So what's the [/irony] supposed to imply? That it is ironic that
you can picture a meter without aid? Wouldn't that imply
something bad about yourself?
addendum to the SI vs. Imperial units debate
