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I use metric for distance. It's more functional and easier to use.
Meter. Cm. Mm. (But not km that much.)
They’re just jealous we don’t have to use decimals on our thermostats
I see where you are coming from and I agree that the big advantage of the metric system is not specifically conversion or anything in particular, but in general that everything fits together due to the coherent units and ratio.
How often do y’all convert your measurements? It’s not even a daily thing.
It's not literally an active daily task, but the effortless conversion benefits your mental image of measurements in general and you don't even have to think about the conversion in the first place. I do not think you are unique in this though. When you live in a place that uses the imperial system (sorry for assuming. Correct me, if I'm wrong), your personal benefit of using the metric system is limited in your daily life.
but in general that everything fits together due to the coherent units and ratio
Isn't what you call coherent units and ratio just another word for conversions?
How do you differentiate them then?
I actually do conversions on the regular but than again I live in Europe so I use the metric system and all conversions are base 10 so it is super easy. Take distance for example:
I’ve never once had to convert feet into miles, and I can’t imagine I’m unique in this.
100% this. Look, imperial may be silly, but some of the arguments for changing to metric are also very silly. Things are usually at a mile scale or a foot scale, and I don't really need to go between the two.
And sure, converting between different units is convenient in metric, but how often do you have to do that? So you can easily tell me how many liters of water would be needed to fill a giant, square kilometer fish tank, but who needs to do that? What grade school math problem are you living in?
I do stuff like this all the time. Like if i bought a pool i wanted to estimates how much water it needes to estimate all the follow up costs, if i am cooking something i often switch between kg and g, if am measuring things i switch between cm, m and mm depending on what i am currently measuring all the time. E.g. i needed a new working plate in my kitchen, i wanted it precut to fit exactly in after moving some cabinets while still aligning the sink. The whole space was measured in meters, but the individual cuts were all measured in milimeters. I was able to do all of that in 5 minutes with one piece of paper for sketching and my head. (And it fitted down to the milimeter in the end).
Or e.g. in my last appartment we had an weird electrical water heater that didn't work that well. I was able to easily estimate the extra cost it procured by estimating water volume, temperature difference and electrical price, most annoying par was converting from joule to calories because it is not base 10. (would have taken >3years so not worth it for me)
If things are usually at a mile scale or a foot scale. Why do yards exist?
The best arguments for metric is that you get to travel slightly faster for an equivalent speed limit (100 kph > 60 mph) and only needing to own one set if wrenches
Imperial came about as a system of units by measuring "everyday" things, and it remains pretty good for that. When you step outside the everyday, then it absolutely sucks - science deals with a lot of things that are too small, and engineering deals with a lot of things that are too large.
When I used to work in the water industry, working out how much chlorine is required to dose a hundred million litres of water per day at 0.5 mg/l, and therefore when I'd have to place an order to refill our fifty tonne storage tank, is easy enough to do in my head. If we were working in imperial, I'd have converted it to metric first and then estimated it.
On the other hand, metric calculations for pressure suck. If I weight 160 lbs and my bike tires are at 80 psi, then I have about two square inches in contact with the ground. If my car weighs 2500 lbs and its tires are at 30 psi, then each tire has about 20 square inches in contact with the ground. If I wanted scientific accuracy, then sure, I'd do it in metric, but I'd check the end result in imperial.
There's near enough five thousand feet in a mile - if you need more accuracy than what you can do in your head, do it in metric with a calculator.
Tbh I have never had to think about the pressure of my tires that way. I pump the bike tires until I feel they are hard enough, and cars come with stickers in it that display the recommended tire pressure for them. 0 calculations needed.
But if I had to calculate pressures:
The lb<->psi conversion only works on 1G environments.
Yes, most pressure calculations occur on 1G environments, but in that case 1kg=9.8N. which is basically 10N.
If my car has 3000kg of mass, it weighs 30kN. Now the math is just as easy as lb<->psi. With the bonus addition that I can easily differentiate "kg of mass" from "N of force" instead of "pounds of mass" from "pounds of force".
I haven't really been trying to convince people to switch, but I have been telling people I've switched to metric for at least temperature (so far).
And that's less to conversation about how it's just objectively better than fahrenheit in literally every single way, except familiarity. Which given that any switch in life would have that problem, I see that as a non-issue.
Scales should never be based on arbitrary things, or creatively-decided things. They should have a concrete, absolute, and objective thing they're based on, and keeping it based on a certain number for scales of units is better than 12in to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, etc.
It doesn't necessarily have to be base 10, but given that's what it society uses, that's probably best for us, but any base will do, as long as it's consistent.
I'm fairly certain the only reason we don't know the things Fahrenheit was based on is because he didn't write it down.
While Celsius is based on something real (the freezing, and boiling points of distilled water at sea level), it's not something that someone can measure at most locations? Fahrenheit has the same issue, mind you, the only calibration point it had that's always measurable is the average body temperature, which is also inconsistent, as anyone who's tried getting pregnant will know.
At the end of the day anything we base a temperature scale on could be considered arbitrary, though modern Fahrenheit is also based on freezing/boiling water, we just put the points at 32 and 212 (180 degrees between) instead of 0 and 100 (100 degrees between). AFAIK the reason the freezing point is at 32 was because the original 0 point was based on the freezing point of a brine solution? Either way, point is now they're both based on the same thing: When a specific uncontaminated liquid changes phases at on specific parts of the planet that don't exist in a lot of countries