Time *is* metricized (long) - Saab General Bulletin Board - Saabnet.com
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Time *is* metricized (long)
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Posted by BlaaSaab [Email] (more from BlaaSaab) on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:17:26 Share Post by Email
In Reply to: I'll hop on board when time is metricized, AeroBaron, Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:31:29
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The SI base unit of time is the second, and in scientific fields it's common to hear smaller divisions like milliseconds or nanoseconds. Units like hours, days, weeks, etc. are simply used for convenience to avoid dealing with unwieldy numbers like 604.8 kiloseconds (what we know as one week). The relationship of time to the Earth's orbit and rotation is important to society, yet it's not absolute because they continue to drift little by little.

The same can be said of most other English units as well - the foot as a unit of length based on a body part is useless because everyone's bodies are different. The pound as a unit of weight only applies if you're dealing with Earth's gravity. An ounce of weight is only equal to a fluid ounce if the substance in question has the density of water.

Anyone who is trained in a scientific field has to learn all sorts of unit conversions in order to make sure an equation can actually be solved correctly. Some of the ones for English units are absolutely ridiculous because no one knew how to relate things to one another when those units were first defined (for example, 1 horsepower = 33,000 feet*pounds/minute). And let's not forget having to convert fractions to decimals all the time. Remember the case of the NASA probe that smashed into Mars because of a mixed-up unit conversion?

The world is becoming ever more complicated, and an antiquated unit system is only holding us back. Sure, it may seem handy for everyday use, but as the official units of a first-world nation, our English/US system is laughable. And yes, I do read my speedometer in MPH, but I'd so much rather we finally joined everyone else and switched over.

posted by 216.37.1...

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