Re:It's time for the US to use the metric system
by Fjolsvith on Tuesday May 30, 2017 @01:01AM
(#14443074)
Well, I suspect the construction industry isn't going to start calling an 8'-2x4 board a "2.4384 meter 50.8x100.16cm board" anytime soon.
Re:It's time for the US to use the metric system
by Doxin on Tuesday May 30, 2017 @10:31AM
(#14445624)
no, you'd call it a 5 by 10 by 200 piece of wood. Having '2 by four' as a common term is an american thing. Over here you just talk about the size of the wood. in any case you'd call it a 5-by-10. Wood from the store isn't properly dimensioned anyway, and the metric system has this neat thing where it goes in steps of 10 (mostly) so you can pick a unit that's scaled usefully.
I work in furniture manufacturing in the US. All the hardware we use is metric, many tools are metric and all CNC machines are programmed in metric.
Really the only time I ever have an issue is when I get European hardware that has "helpfully" Americanized the units. Which means arbitrarily rounding the dimensions on the spec sheets to be pretty looking.
I assume that it is the same in most US manufacturing industries. Does it really matter if the industrial base uses different units than people use in day to day life?