how about we all agree that the best system is american units with metric prefixes. After all it is obvious that it takes an hours to drive 318 kilofeet
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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What’s that in centimiles?
6,000 cm
See? This is why I like our system the best. It just got those nice even numbers. 318 kf = 6000 cm, easy peasy.
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I love the smell of Kilofeet in the morning 😂
Technically the metric system is "the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce" as per the Metric Conversion Act of 1975.
You're just also allowed to use lbs and feet and stuff and most people do.
The versions of imperial measurements the US uses are even defined in terms of metric units, so they're less a completely separate measurement system these days and more just a weird facade on top of metric, even.
Screw that, we'll make them use Metric. BY FORCE!
Yep, that's what Napoleon did...
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Regan also never bothered to reinstate Imperial standards at the bureau of weights and measures (because it would have cost a small fortune). So our units are officially defined by the their metric counterpart. Legally speaking an inch is 2.54 centimeters.
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Silly Americans, you could be measuring your winnies in GIGAMETERS and yet decide to keep using the kings thumb as a reference for it*
Me with a 1.0x10^-11 GIGAMETER weenie: 😎
Those aliens have 3 fingers. A decimal system to them is like a system based on 14, 196, 2744, 38416, ... would be like to us - probably worse than US Customary
14, 196, 2744, 38416, … would be like to us - probably worse than US Customary
I mean if they had a base 14 numerical system then a base 14 measurement system would make perfect sense.
Contrary to that, the US does use a decimal system for numbers while the various units in the US customary system do not have any common base.
humans have used base 8 count the gaps between your fingers, base 12 count the joints on 4 fingers with your thumb, and base 26 by using lots of body parts.
They have 3 fingers on each hand and 2 toes on each foot. 10 total.
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Base 12 is way more logical than base 10, I bet aliens would think we're stupid for counting in base 10 just because we have 10 fingers, my opinion on this is infallible fight me
Base 12 is as arbitrary as base 10 and we don't know what aliens would think nor should we care. Base 16 makes more sense because it is 2x2x2x2 instead of 2x2x3
A base based on 2^x makes the most sense since it's easy to do conversions between bases that match that template. So base 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc. The limit would just be how many symbols can be easily remembered and instantly recognizable (need 32 symbols for base 32).
why is 12 better
12 is more divisible than 10. 10 can only be cut into 5's and 2's, 12 has 2, 3, 4, and 6.
Similar reason why 360 deg is a full circle and time is kept in 12s and 60s.
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The Egyptians and Babylonians counted in base 12. They did so by counting each section of the fingers on one hand with their thumb (4 fingers, 3 sections each = 12).
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I feel like this is my wheel house.
There are so many baseless radixals in the comments.
When I find a wood working video on YouTube from the states it blows my mind how anyone can not just adopt metric “This is 5” 4/57 and we need to cut it to 5” 5/45 and a half” bzzzzzzz.
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Every time anyone talks about this, I feel obligated to inform them: there's also a counting system that's not based on ten, and it's way superior. Do people know about it? Most don't. The Wikipedia page stupidly calls it the "ten-plus-two" system, and there have been heated arguments there with the dumbasses who refuse to change it to the logical name. That's how stupidly-biased people are towards the ten-based system.
You make a "metric" measurement system based on 12-based counting and then everyone wins. Everyone. It'll never happen of course.
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