Metric vs. Imperial: Who Strikes Back?
With today’s falling dollar it seems that America is losing the trade war. Is that a conspiracy?
Hell yes! It’s a conspiracy of crippled bureaucrats forcing the nation to use the ancient measurement
system ascending from the days of the British Empire.
How many pounds-per-square-inches are there in a typical 2-litre car engine? Why pay in dollars-per-gallon
and not using the more logical dollars-per-liter or shillings-per-gallon?
The biggest problem with imperial system is its lack of consistency. Do you know how many different versions
of a pound are floating around? Don’t be surprised: it’s over a dozen! In England they used to measure distance
in miles and yards, while the Americans are accustomed to miles and feet. Can you easily and precisely convert
one into another on the road while driving a car? Can you even tell how many yards and how many feet a mile has?
And don’t forget there’s more than a single version of a mile out there! How many yards are there in a square
that contains an acre? At the same time, there’s only one kilogram and only one meter.
So shall we convert to metric, or do we keep that quirky way called imperial for the fun of it? The Brits themselves
had switched to metric long ago, the US being more imperial than the ex-empire itself. Shall we pull the trigger and
vote for the meters and kilograms instead of miles and pounds?
Not necessarily. I have a better suggestion. There is another widely used system that we shall all switch to instead
of using the imperial or decimal measures. We’re all well familiar with that system right now, and have been using it
since the beginning of time. I’m talking about the system that is based on the power of twelve, also referred as
duodecimal. Sounds unfamiliar? Not at all! We’ve got a power of twelve in geometry: there’re 360 or 12x30 degrees in
a circle. We have 60 seconds in a minute, which is 12x5, and 60 minutes in an hour. How many months in a year? A dozen.
There are 24 hours in a day, or 12x2. There’re 12 inches in a foot and 5280 feet in a mile, which is 12x440. We even
count chicken and eggs by the dozen!
Why switching to duodecimal? It’s more natural for a human being. It’s more convenient to use as it can be easily and
naturally divided by two and by three. Finally, our ancestors were using it for centuries with great success. Let’s all
switch immediately!
Are we going to survive? I don’t see why not! There are tons of free products and online services such
as http://www.ghostcalc.com/ or even Google calc that can easily convert measurements into any other system.
They’ll help us survive through the first few years, and after that we will all benefit from using the natural
and easy measurement system!
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