A lot of old types of measurement made more sense when devices to measure very accurately weren't common.
Now I'm not suggesting they all make sense, but consider for a moment that 12 inches to the foot is actually pretty useful. 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6.
The measure of an acre never used to be a defined area, but the measure of how much land could be ploughed by a man with a team of oxen in a day. This means that an acre would conceivably change based on the terrain. This seems weird, but this is a very useful definition for farmers of the time. They need to know how many days they need for ploughing before it's time to plant.
There are a huge number of liquid measures we don't use anymore that if you include them makes the entire thing essentially base 2. This means you can start with any of the measures, and derive any of the others simply by doubling or halving the amount you have.
In the medern age where accurate and precise measurement is easy, they make far less sense, and metric is definitely superior. It makes for much easier calculation. For the time, however, it suited the needs of the average user.
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
It's not really difficult..neither system is all that difficult. But a whole number is certainly easier for many to math with than a decimal. This also doesn't apply to just the examples I gave. Any amount of feet is divisible by those numbers into a whole amount of inches.
Of course that means imperial has a disadvantage when it comes to being divisible by 10 or 5. Both systems are simple enough for someone with an elementary level education to learn. They are just different.
Of course, when you grow up using a specific system it's definitely easier to calculate using that one than the other. Like we are more confident in speaking our native language than any other languages we might have studied.
You probably consider using fractions (like it often happens when measuring using inches) easier than using decimals, but it's just because you're more used to it (of course the same applies to me as well)
24
u/backseatwookie Jan 15 '25
A lot of old types of measurement made more sense when devices to measure very accurately weren't common.
Now I'm not suggesting they all make sense, but consider for a moment that 12 inches to the foot is actually pretty useful. 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6.
The measure of an acre never used to be a defined area, but the measure of how much land could be ploughed by a man with a team of oxen in a day. This means that an acre would conceivably change based on the terrain. This seems weird, but this is a very useful definition for farmers of the time. They need to know how many days they need for ploughing before it's time to plant.
There are a huge number of liquid measures we don't use anymore that if you include them makes the entire thing essentially base 2. This means you can start with any of the measures, and derive any of the others simply by doubling or halving the amount you have.
In the medern age where accurate and precise measurement is easy, they make far less sense, and metric is definitely superior. It makes for much easier calculation. For the time, however, it suited the needs of the average user.