Metric & Markets

[D'karr]

This thread is like a Seinfeld episode...

 

[Mircoles]

In the last 200 years 90-95% of the world community switched to metric from local measurement systems that had held (in Europe, the Middle East, and China at least) for several thousand years.

With the way you write this switch here, you make it seem as if these people chose to switch, which they didn't. They switched to metric because their governments made them switch.
If they had a choice, I doubt that any switching would have ever occured.

 

[Umbran]

It certainly would, but I'm interested in your experiences with each, and not at all in platitudes about how REAL SCIENTISTS can use anything.

It isn't a platitude, dude. In physics, you choose your units for functionality.

I mentioned using units in which the speed of light was 1, unitless. I wasn't kidding, or bragging - they are called Lorentz-Heaviside Units, and are those used most often when working with Relativity. Quantum mechanics has the idea of "renormalization", which is basically a (sometimes painfully complicated) reformulation of your units so that things that look like they are infinite, aren't.

Particle physicists almost never works in any units that would make sense in your grocery store - masses are given in their equivalent energies (in "electron volts" - the amount of energy an electron gains passing across a potential difference of one volt).

Your typical physicist often works in units that normal folk on the street are not familiar with - we convert back to SI or Imperial units when we need to talk about things with laymen.

Now, your mechanical and civil engineers - they're the ones you want to talk about the Imperial/SI divide.

 

[Nymrohd]

The only good reason I see for a country to change to metric or imperial, is if it affects its exports and trade relations positively to do so. I don't really see why any measuring system would affect my scientific calculations apart from increasing the chance that I make an error, in which I guess SI is somewhat superior since it is simpler, though again if someone is familiar with a different system it is not much of a difference.

I do see a point in everyone using the same system. It would be help standardize all manner of products and make them useable to a broader market. Not that that would necessarily good of course.

And honestly I see so much badly veiled chauvinism, or pointless elitism in this thread I'd rather see it locked. People just cannot behave in the net, can they? (Is glad he is no longer a moderator on a forum).

 

[Nymrohd]

As a civil engineer btw, I prefer SI but that is because I learned to measure space in SI and I mostly use building materials that use SI measurements. But if I had to work with materials or machinery that use imperial because it was cheaper or the only thing available (and this can and does happen) I'd just use the imperial, or the german specific measure unit noone else in the world has and hardly complain. Engineers are supposed to be practical people and practicality demands not indulging in mathematic aesthetics and abstract debate on potential reorganisations of extant systems. I'll care about this debate when it becomes cost effective to make such changes (and I would love to see someone make a compelling argument about how it would be cost effective to forcefully change every engine, machine, measuring organ or part into a non-existant system).
And AFAIK mechanical engineers switch between the systems all the time. They complain about it, but they get used to it.

 

[Nifft]

Now, your mechanical and civil engineers - they're the ones you want to talk about the Imperial/SI divide.

Ah, gotcha. So for you, there's no "intuition pollution", because the difference in scale between where you work and where you live is so great.

That's too bad. I generally trust scientists to be able to measure stuff, including "what's mentally easiest", in a relatively objective way.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Jhaelen]

I wouldn't mind the imperial system being used in D&D if the German translators hadn't decided they had to translate everything into the metric system. Since our group uses a mix of German and English source books (well, we have to since only a few are available in German) we also have to cope with a mix of metric and imperial units.

And this sucks. It requires calculating distances and movement rates back and forth and has sometimes caused misunderstandings.

Apart from that, I prefer the metric system, probably because it's the system that feels natural to me.

Note: We're still playing 3E and I skipped most of the thread, so my post is probably redundant...

 

[Umbran]

Ah, gotcha. So for you, there's no "intuition pollution", because the difference in scale between where you work and where you live is so great.

Not quite, as some of the various scales in which the work is done overlap. I don't have problems switching units because I do it on a regular basis - often into either Imperial or SI because I teach folks who haven't ever needed the more technically used units. If you do it often, there's no issue - it isn't like the human mind can't handle two or more sets of units at once, with a little practice.

That's too bad. I generally trust scientists to be able to measure stuff, including "what's mentally easiest", in a relatively objective way.

I think you missed the point. What is mentally easiest is what's most convenient for your purposes.

SI units are extremely useful for the civil and mechanical engineers, and scientists who work with things on the level of normal human experience in terms of sizes, masses, and temperatures. These happen to be most convenient because they are anchored in physical properties of materials that matter to their work.

For normal day-to-day living, I don't think it matters much whether you work in Ounces or Grams, inches or centimeters. They're all of the right scale, so when you go to the grocery, or try to measure an inseam, both systems give you numbers in the useful ranges for humans. Lacking a technical reason to choose one over another, what is mentally easiest is what you already use.

 

[Roman]

Particle physicists almost never works in any units that would make sense in your grocery store - masses are given in their equivalent energies (in "electron volts" - the amount of energy an electron gains passing across a potential difference of one volt).

You are using anachronistic and outdated measurements. This is not the Los Alamos era when nuclear/particle/quantum physicist were at the top of the world. In this era of progress and equality, you would better switch to using proper SI units, such as nanojoules and nanograms for measuring elementary particles!

Sorry for the snark - I couldn't help it. I don't actually believe that, of course, after all using electron volts is more natural at that scale than using the official SI units, but I just wanted to illustrate what the condescending attitute that is adopted by many proponents of the metric system sounds like to me, by applying it to something other than the imperial system of measures. I am saying this, in spite of the fact that I use the metric system in daily life and find it intuitive, because in my little country it has long been the standard and I grew up with it and nothing else, but I don't believe we should push to foist the system on other peoples.

 

[Roman]

To get this thread back on topic of units in RPGs:

I am from a country that uses the metric system only, but I do prefer the use of imperial measures in D&D for flavor reasons. The only imperial measure I have problems with is degree Fahrenheit. This is because both the scale and the base here are different from those in Celsius, so I actually have to do the conversion calculation each time.

Perhaps a decent compromise for most would be to include both types of measures in the English-language books. Maybe it would not be necessary for all units, but it would be helpful if this were done with Fahrenheit and Celsius, since the two have not just different scales but also different bases.