Britons moving towards 'Royales with cheese'?

[Zaleukos]

While I see the (one-time) difficulty in conversion to SI/metric I really dont see what the advantage of sticking to the imperial system is, besides not having to break old habits. Being able to use decimals is so freaking convenient...

1.89m=1m 89cm=189cm makes sense.
6ft 3inches =(?)inches = (?)feet just doesnt to me as a continental.

It may seem like this merely is a problem in science, but isnt it makign things unnecessarily difficult in everyday life as well?

[shamrock_uk]

Funnily enough, I try and use the 'decimal argument' on my parents and it doesn't work! They just don't see it as a problem - they can work out the rough figures and that's enough.

[JrKASperov]

Originally posted by Ilander: You did indeed get me...us physicists use some kind of metric system...most of the time...and the rest of the time we use what's most convenient, whether that be measuring time in meters, length in seconds, mass in electron-volts per c^2, and sometimes in just electron-volts...

Ofcourse, as a physics student myself I've run into these things enough. Yet, every unit you name can be broken up into SI units(you know it, I know it, this is for the laymen). The experimental physicists here in Utrecht use something they've invented on their own called the space angle. It's just like the angle for a circle, but then in 2d on a sphere. (can you guys follow me here? [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

[Ilander]

haha...

I find that as a physics student, I use mostly SI, and then some other, more strange units, as you've said...but in my non-scientific life (yes, it's slowly disappearing ), I use old imperial measurements all the time. I think about things in quarts and in gallons, and in miles, feet, and inches...and miles are quite convenient units in that it's the distance you go when traveling a reasonable speed in a car in one minute...so, when you don't live in the city, the amount of miles to a place is pretty close (as opposed to kilometers) to the amount of minutes it takes to get there.

Not that that's a very strong argument for keeping the system, but it's about the best, practical use I can think of.

[True_Moose]

I look at what I use in Canada, a supposedly metric country, and it's pretty...random. I mean, I know my height and weight in imperial, but on my driver's licence it's in metric. I can't estimate speed or distance in anything non-metric. And yet weight and metric do not work well together in my mind.

See, Ilander, I see it a different way. I have no problem getting from place to place because average driving speed is about 100 km/h. So, I can look at someplace that's 150 km, and bam, it's about an hour and a half away. I guess it's probably cuz I'm used to it. And it's also way more convenient for dealing with midrange distances (like distances to walk and whatnot.)