Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

Re:Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in Ame... by _ZeD_ on Saturday August 09, 2014 @02:38PM (#8157628)

You miss the base-10 point: you can switch in zero time from 240cm to 2.4m and vice-versa, as you can switch in zero time from $2,40 to ¢240 when you expect ¢60 in return. And you can totally ignore the "2", and focus on the "40" part, if you care about the precision, in zero time, and switch back to a global view.

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Re:Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in Ame... by kazagistar on Saturday August 09, 2014 @07:03PM (#8158263)

The real problem then is our counting system. If base-12 is the most convenient, then we could count in base 12 too. That, however, is clearly never going to happen, so we are stuck with the less efficient base 10 system.

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Re:Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in Ame... by vacri on Saturday August 09, 2014 @08:33PM (#8158437)

The other thing is that if everything is in powers of 10, then complex calculations are done that require multiple units, it's much easier to calculate. You don't need to keep a dictionary of 'conversion factors' to have these complex calculations make sense.

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