Tons:
British Imperial, Bhoins? That's what sort of ton I was talking about, as I said.
Volume:
Pints are 20floz where I come from, but a quart is still 2 pint and a gallon is 4 quarts.
Conversions:
I disagree that people don't convert from smaller to larger units. I often find myself converting when a scale I don't think is appropriate for the physical scale being measured has been used: mm in furniture, for example, I convert to centimetre in my head, because it matches the scale better (300mm kitchen units for example in a 5mx4m room). And if you take that into imperial, you have 24inch units, with inch clearance in a 15ftx12ft room. And you have to work out how many square feet of floor tiling you need. There are conversions done all the time. Pints to gallons (possibly via quarts) will happen all the time in the bulk milk industry. And that will need converting into ton for transportation.
How about lengths less than 1 inch? Measured in fractions, yes? Quarters, halves, eighths, sixteenths and thirtysecondths?
Real easy to add up, especially for people who don't even begin to understand fractions, and there're plenty of them about.
Time and angle:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/units.html
The SI unit of time is the second. Hours, minutes and days are 'units accepted for use within the SI'
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/outside.html
Ditto degrees and arc-minutes and arc-seconds. The SI unit of (plane) angle is the radian.
Mass/weight:
I'm sorry, but you don't seem to be reading what I've said. Measuring mass is the
only thing that makes sense (when we're talking about how much of something there is). The fact that we can use something's
weight in a known gravitational field to determine its mass is a consequence of the invention of spring balances. And the confusion of mass with weight is a relict of ancient pre-Newton world models, maintained by our broad inability to experience a world where mass and weight are not inextricably proportional for a given object.
"...I hear things like KG of thrust on a regular basis..."
You can't blame this system for this misuse. If people are sloppy about the difference between mass and force, then no system of measurement is going to
make (I avoided using the word 'force, there...
them to draw the distinction. At least SI
has different units for mass and force, or, at least, I've never heard anyone distinguish between the 'pound' used for thrust and the 'pound' of cast iron used to balance out my apples on an old fashioned grocer's scale when I was younger.
Hodgepodge:
You can't blame the SI system for the current hodgepodge of units in people's heads. Yes, I still measure how far I drove over Christmas in miles, the speed limits are in mph, and I use feet and metre largely interchangably. Doesn't mean I think Imperial is better. Science uses SI for good and valid reasons of interchangeability, and common usage should follow. Ooh. Just thought of a conversion: How much does a pint of water weigh? It's not 'a pound'. In looking up the answer, I found this:
http://www.ofb.net/~jlm/oracle/oracle.365.10
I am entirely at liberty to say it's better because I can multiply by tem. Countries with decimal coinage systems seem to think so too, for the most common arithmetical operation conducted in any country. How is it 'better' to have various multiples of 3, 2, 8, 12 and 1760 for smaller units to scale to the larger? How is even 'as good' a system?
"...I do understand the Metric or SI system. I understand its supposed strengths...."
I really don't think you do. You have a solid grasp of how far a km is, and how much a litre is, perhaps, but have you ever converted energy per second for however long into total energy expended, using imperial measures? And then seen how easy it is at any scale in SI?
Scalability and interoperability make the SI a
system that works better
across the whole of human experience and observation, from femtometre on up than using Imperial measurements which
don't have a system.
New system:
Only of use if the old one is broken, and the people who use the system the most (scientists) don't seem to think it is. The only way you'll poularise a base 12 counting system is by getting the human species to sprout an additional digit on their extremities. We count in tens because we're lazy.
) and why it isn't being taken to the "Political Pulpit" as the proper forum for it. Thanks.
