Still the metric system uses too many symbols! And the beauty of the inch is that the foot and yard are based on the number 12, the inch itself is based on the number 10. The point that you missed it is that the inch system uses fewer numbers to get to the same place.[/quote]

You missed the point being that with 12ths and 36ths you get into irrational numbers when converting to decimal (base 10). But why would you even have to do this? How often are you going to use 1/12 or 1/36? Do the same thing with metric and you come out the same way. You go from feet to inches like this; 1' 2.250 just as 1/36 of a yard is 1., what is irrational there? If humans had evolved with 12 fingers and we used a base 12 system I could agree with you.


I am not at all inclined to believe our measuring system is based on the number of fingers or toes we have.



Interestingly you get into irrational numbers every time you make an effort at fractions using metric, exactly why 12 is the better number to work with than 10. A yard is 3 times 12. The impressive part is that you won't admit that the extra numbers and the m, cm and mm added make metric unnecessarily clumsy. The metric system doesn't actually use fractions which are pretty useful overall.




Not sure how yards are based on the number 12 though? From Wikipedia:

Originally Posted by
The introduction of the yard (0.9144 m) as a unit of length came later, but its origin is not definitely known. Some believe the origin was the double cubit, others believe that it originated from cubic measure. Whatever its origin, the early yard was divided by the binary method into 2, 4, 8, and 16 parts called the half-yard, span, finger, and nail. The association of the yard with the "gird" or circumference of a person's waist or with the distance from the tip of the nose to the end of the thumb of King Henry I (reigned 1100–1135) are probably standardizing actions, since several yards were in use in Britain. There were also Rods, Poles and Perches for measurements of length.



I say the yard is based on three times 12".


The meter is based on a truly odd distance!


Paris Panthéon

As a result of the French Revolution, the French Academy of Sciences charged a commission with determining a single scale for all measures. On 7 October 1790 that commission advised the adoption of a decimal system, and on 19 March 1791 advised the adoption of the term mètre ("measure"), a basic unit of length, which they defined as equal to one ten-millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator.[19][20][21][22] In 1793, the French National Convention adopted the proposal.[12] Witty! See if you can find anything commonly available that comes close in real life.




So you have a system where fractions are not used coherently, where a millimeter is .0393, a bit more than 3/8ths of a tenth of an inch, a CM is .393 is a bit more the 3/8ths of an inch and them jumps to a meter which is a bit more than a yard. Big gap. Note that when getting into really small tolerances say down to .001 the metric equivalent is .0254mm, now which would you prefer to add or subtract? I often made parts for helicopters with tolerances as small as + or - .0003 which is .00762mm, once again which would you rather add or subtract when setting the offset in a CNC machine?

Last edited by rickt300; 06/23/19.
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