Timeline for Imperial vs. Metric System
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 11:02 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Jan 23, 2017 at 3:29 | comment | added | Catalyst | @Michael and Pierre: one can use tonne to unambiguously indicate a metric ton. | |
| Jan 21, 2017 at 15:43 | comment | added | SRM | @dot_Sp0T "thus you should also strive for using SI units whenever you can." It also helps with educating us Americans. Seriously... I can't think in those units because they just don't occur much in daily life, so having to interact with SI units here is actually helpful, giving me story context in which they are used helps me visualize the unit scale. Over time, maybe the rest of the world can bring USA around. SI really is a better system, it's just not common for us. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 13:53 | comment | added | dot_Sp0T | @Frostfyre the average user is unlikely to post a question on WBse | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 13:50 | comment | added | Frostfyre | @MichaelKjörling True, but I would consider significant digits to only really matter in hard-science questions, where I would also advise using only SI units. The average user doesn't care if it's 4.44 C or 4.444 C or 4.44444 C. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 13:49 | comment | added | user | For whatever it's worth, I love it when people use unusual prefixes with well-known units. Megameters (or gigameters), femtograms, whatever. It adds flavor. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 13:35 | comment | added | user | @Frostfyre Then you better make sure the conversions are exact, at which point you introduce uncalled-for significant digits. To say that the temperature is 40 degrees Farenheit is not the same thing as saying that the temperature is 4.44 degrees Celsius (and even that is an approximation). You might not even know if the poster intended 40 +/- 0.5 degrees F, or 40 +/- 5 degrees F, which makes a huge difference when converting. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 13:33 | comment | added | user | @PierreLebon The problem with "ton" is that there are three kinds of them: short ton, long ton, and metric ton, each similar but slightly different from the others. You are thinking of metric ton, which is equal to 1 Mg (but is not an official SI unit). Using megagrams instead of ton avoids the risk of that ambiguity, which in the case of that answer can be significant (where the figures involved are on the order of three or four digit numbers of tons, or hundreds of thousands to millions of kilograms). | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 13:28 | comment | added | Drag and Drop | @MichaelKjörling, I get that kilograms is "too precise" in many case but thats why there is Tons, that as a nice conversion rate to megagrams | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 13:24 | comment | added | Frostfyre | We could also just use both unit systems (conversions, not mixed). That way everyone can understand the question/answer. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 13:16 | comment | added | Drag and Drop | I agree! We should burn people not using SI... that will encourage the best practice! | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 13:14 | comment | added | user | Not Worldbuilding, but I went as far as to use megagrams (Mg) in a recent answer of mine over on Space Exploration. (I could have used kilograms, but it would have implied a much too high precision.) Where authoritative data used imperial units (in that case, feet and feet per second; note that second is a SI unit!), I tried to use the authoritative numbers and offered conversions to SI for ease of reading for those not in the US. Personally I feel that's a reasonable compromise for questions where authoritative data exists. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 13:08 | comment | added | Tim B Mod | I agree. We should encourage people/default towards SI units, but if a question specifies something else there's no harm in using it. | |
| Jan 12, 2017 at 12:51 | history | answered | dot_Sp0T | CC BY-SA 3.0 |