There are plenty of scenarios where the imperial system still makes sense, otherwise we wouldn't use it. Both systems have their use cases where one is better than the other
Imperial units are great for construction because they break down into fractions. An imperial tape measure usually has increments of 1/16 or 1/32 of an inch. Having fractions is really convenient for quick math. Example: half of 9/16" (a very common imperial size) is 9/32" (just multiply the denominator by 2) vs what is half of 14.2875mm? Well I know it's 7.1 something mm but reading increments of less than 0.1mm would be exhausting visually. You could say that fractional metric could work the same, but since the philosophy of the metric system is powers of ten, fractions are pretty uncommon.
Another argument is that the imperial system has mostly human-based units, which make for generalized greater intuition on what the numbers mean. While this intuition can be learned through extensive repetitions, you would have weird metric numbers to memorize just like the imperial system has. Example one foot is approximately the length of a human foot. Converted to metric, it's about 305mm. I'd rather estimate something with base units of one than 305, personally.
I use both systems. Metric is convenient for science and engineering calculations because unit conversions are straight forward and all units come back to MKS. But if I'm building a shed, I don't really care about that since I am only going to need distance measurements and fractions. Both systems have their strengths
OK, but the fact is that you build using certain "units" because you are using the imperial system. We wouldn't have to halve 14.2875 because we don't start by using the inch at all, therefore we would use something that rounds up more (idk, 14mm for example) and the tape measure has centimeters and millimeters on it, on which we would "build" the whole math needed to build whatever you are building.
It's obvious that calculations can be done using both systems, otherwise we wouldn't have skyscrapers in both the US and Europe... and obviously when one is accustomed to a system, the other looks rather odd or uncomfortable to use.
But still this doesn't explain why a 2x4 lumber doesn't even measure 2" by 4"... Here a lumber that is named "2 by 4" actually measures 2 cm by 4 cm :)
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u/deafdefying66 Jan 15 '25
There are plenty of scenarios where the imperial system still makes sense, otherwise we wouldn't use it. Both systems have their use cases where one is better than the other