[sdiy] Metric vs imperial, was: My new Moog 960 sequencer clone module project.. slowly but surely ..

[sleepy_dog at gmx.de]

let me add to what I posted below,

the example of *time* was mantioned as an "especially good" example.
To me it really looks like the only valid example of the whole lot -
when it comes to things being inherent and not just cultural bias.

And it seems obvious why, what is different with time vs. units of
length or weight:
Humans have at best rough relation to those latter two measurements, as
there is a lot of variation in sizes and proportions among humans
themselves.
There are at best ballpark sizes people roughly can relate to.
There is no inherent intuition about a pound, hell, 100(?) years ago
different US states couldn't even agree what a pound is exactly.

But every human is affected directly by days (circadian rythm), and has
a conception of years, seasons, and there is even some folk wisdom that
ascribes certain properties to individual months which seem to have some
statistical reality to it (in central/north europe April seems to have
especially fluctuating whether, hence the April fool jokes: Hang your
shirt out to dry in the nice weather, and 20 min later it rains - haa haa!).

Whereas using one such day, dividing it by an arbitrary number like 24 *
3600, and multiplying that by a big number, to get the requested
MegaSeconds, means absolutely nothing to a human.


- Steve


Am 11.11.2020 um 20:18 schrieb sleepy_dog at gmx.de:
> Am 11.11.2020 um 19:48 schrieb Ingo Debus:
>>> Am 11.11.2020 um 16:28 schrieb thresholdpeople via Synth-diy
>>> <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>:
>>>
>>> And hell, aren't nearly all electrical component pin spacings in
>>> standard?
>> These days the pin pitch of many ICs is 0.5 mm. Metric connectors
>> (FPC connectors for instance) are also very common.
>
> Even my Peavey amp, an US product, connects its boards with 2.0mm
> spaced pin connectors, for some reason :)
>
> This idea of
>   1) a system that has specialized for-purpose units that are
> intruitive to humans vs.
>   2) one that translates well between orders of magnitude sounds like a
>
> false dichotomy,
>
> due to cultural bias. Same for cable widths etc.
>
> We over here buy cables with 0.75mm² cross section, none of this AWG
> nonsense, it's fun, try it some time.
>
> Everyone knows what 1mm is, or 1cm, or 10 or 30 or 50 or 75 cm -
> current King's forearm length not required at all.
> Also what 1 km is. Or how many x 1m² your appartment is big. Or to
> volumes, a liter aka cubic decimeter, or 1m³ for lager volumes.
> And imagining the in-betweens between orders of magnitude is actually
> feasible without head-aches - actually it's just smooth and a no-brainer.
>
> Thus, in fact, these, in the minds of the everyday person, *are*
> "specialized" for-purpose units, which happen to be *also* easily
> convertible without thinking between orders of magnitude.
> When someone measures his fingernail width with a caliper he does not
> think of it as 0.6*10^-3 m, he thinks millimeter.
> But when it becomes necessary, one can think of it that way and
> conversion to make several things the same unit is childsplay, often
> you do it right in your head for a bunch of things.
>
> Not to forget, not only among each other these orders of magnitudes
> are aligned the same way - they also are all aligned with the frickin
> numerical base-10 system everyone, including Don, is using - hah!
> That's what I call a *sane* system.
>
> The idea that metric wasn't any good "for engineering" sounds as
> preposterous as saying that air wasn't all that good for breathing, or
> water for boiling eggs.
> Ask a mechanical engineer here what he thinks of that proposition.
> Especially one who deals with designs where the smaller realm
> interfaces with the larger realm, just for the size units not being
> arbitrarily partitioned.
> And then you add, to the length units, also forces, torque etc -
> metric is not only not "bad" for this, it's super duper for this.
>
> This just never gets old, and I am not sorry :D  (even though it is
> meant to be fun and makes some cultural assumptions of itself)
> https://i.imgur.com/MQ7LVC3.jpg
>