Helium Shortage has ended ...

[StefinSB]

As an Electronic Engineer I like Metric for somethings and hate it for others.
Fahrenheit vs Celsius is a prime example. It's easier thinking out certain engineering problems in Celsius because the freezing point of water is 0 and boiling point is 100 vs 32 and 212 in imperial. The flip side is that your losing almost half the resolution of the number if it's displayed without a decimal point. Another example is Bars VS PSI. I like the extra resolution that you typically get when displaying a reading in PSI vs Bars.

Now who the Hell came up with reading weight in Stones

If you think bar doesn’t reflect the resolution you desire, just use millibar. ;-)

 

[rjack321]

Because it’s more fun constantly trying to figure out if the Allen wrench in your stash is metric or imperial

can confirm, this is an epic pita

the print on them is tiny tiny and the engraving barely scratches the steel

 

[Robbyg]

If you think bar doesn’t reflect the resolution you desire, just use millibar. ;-)

 

[Angelo Farina]

Another example is Bars VS PSI. I like the extra resolution that you typically get when displaying a reading in PSI vs Bars.

The SI unit for pressure is Pa (Pascal), not bar.
1 bar = 100000 Pa = roughly 1 atm.
So the bar is just 'tolerated' in SI because it is a very practical unit, being practically the same as 1 atmosphere. This is particularly handy for scuba diving. The absolute pressure increases by 1 bar every 10 meters, so knowing the pressure of the gas you are breathing is very easy in metric units.
When doing scientific calculations, indeed, the value of pressure to be used in formulas has always to be in Pa, not in bar.
Sorry for derailing off topic...

 

[bubblemonkey2]

"Imperial," a.k.a. the English "system"--it's not even American!--hasn't made sense since the SI became standard worldwide.

If you're not diving in metric by now, you're either steampunk, or naively disserved by America's stupid decisions to be antisocial. Every day that Americorp refuses to retire the olde units, millions of children get dumber and more ignorant.

Back on topic: please stop wasting helium on open circuit! (while blaming party balloons)

 

[Manatee Diver]

If you're not diving in metric by now, you're either steampunk, or naively disserved by America's stupid decisions to be antisocial. Every day that Americorp refuses to retire the olde units, millions of children get dumber and more ignorant.

Besides modern children have nearly the entire world's knowledge at their fingertips. If they can't do simple conversions when they need to they are too dumb to survive.

 

[Angelo Farina]

The problem is deeper than just doing unit conversions, or getting used to decimal multiples and submultiples.
The problem is that the US metric system is physically incoherent, as the base units are Length, Time and Force.
1 Lb is a unit of force, not of mass as it is 1 kg...
The SI unit, instead, is physically coherent, as the base units are length, time and mass.
Using an incoherent measurement system requires to "patch" physical formulas adding a dummy factor, usually called gc, and numerically equal to the Earth's gravity acceleration for converting force to mass.
Example:
The first Newton law says that the force applied to a body is equal to the product of the mass of the body multiplied by its acceleration.
In SI we write this as:
F=M*a.
Force is in Newton, mass is in kg and acceleration is in m/(s^2).
In the US system, force is in lb-force and acceleration is in feet/(s^2).
If also the mass is expressed in lb-mass, the above formula becomes dimensionally wrong.
You fix it this way:
F=M*a/gc
The units of gc is lb-mass*m/(s^2)/lb-force and its numerical value is the same as g=32.17405 ft/s^2.
You can understand how the need of writing the formulas differently is a mess.
So it is not just matter of converting lb in kg, or ft to m, which is trivial.
All the formulas in your textbook need to be revised, for making them physically coherent...

 

[Manatee Diver]

All the formulas in your textbook need to be revised, for making them physically coherent...

Below the college level they are, they mention the base equation and the problem with pound as a unit and give an equation that works with pounds.

At the college level and above they are all in metric.

And the number of people that use equations like that (and not calculators) on a daily basis that aren't using metric is a number, that if it isn't zero, it should be.

 

[helodriver87]

"Imperial," a.k.a. the English "system"--it's not even American!--hasn't made sense since the SI became standard worldwide.

If you're not diving in metric by now, you're either steampunk, or naively disserved by America's stupid decisions to be antisocial. Every day that Americorp refuses to retire the olde units, millions of children get dumber and more ignorant.

Back on topic: please stop wasting helium on open circuit! (while blaming party balloons)

At the risk of totally derailing this thread, it's not as simple as just choosing to dive in metric. I work with metric in a professional capacity every day, so it makes more intuitive sense to me than to most Americans. I still find it easier to do the stupid little math tricks we have to convert between psi and cubic feet than to dive in metric. Not because it's a better system, it's not. But because imperial is so ingrained in the way I perceive and process the world. It's like I'm barely literate in metric. I know what all the units mean and how to work with them, but I only truly understand them by converting back to my native language of imperial. And I'm probably more metric literate than most Americans.

 

[Marie13]

I deal with pounds and kilos due to working in international shipping, also some metric for shipment dimensions. US Customs even uses kilos for HS codes that require weight to be reported. I listen to BBC Radio a lot so I have a fair idea of the C to F conversion. What makes me laugh though is when wind speed is reported in miles per hour on the BBC weather forecasts. Guess they’re still hanging onto that part of the imperial system.