Apple calculator:
390mm --> 1 foot 3 3/8 inches
150mm --> 5.91 inches
240mm --> 0.79 feet
What are you doing Apple? You're drunk. 0.79 FEET? People don't even measure like that in the US.
14 inches --> 1 foot 2 inches
That's Obviously what I wanted 🤦♂️
For people who don't get any of this, Americans use:
* Inches and fractions for "small" things: 7½ inches, 15¾
* Feet and inches for "large" things (like more than 2 feet): 6 feet 2 inches, 30 feet 7¼.
* Thousandths of an inch for tiny things: 38 thousandths, off by a 'thou.
* 1 foot 3 3/8 inches is valid but uncommon, people typically just say 15 and 3/8ths
* 5.91 inches is weird, converting from millimeters (not hundredths of a mm) you probably best round to 5 and 15/16ths which at least is on a tape measure
* 0.79 feet is just malarkey
In England we measure speed with furlongs per fortnight.
It's a rather bizarre mix of units here - the transportation systems interchangeably uses kilometers and miles, some shop owners by principle refuse to use kilograms and insist on "pounds" (without realising a "pound" is defined in law using grams and that there was like a dozen of "pounds"), fuel efficiency is measures in miles per gallon, but it's a different gallon from the one used in the US. In general, the whole units situation is nothing but a confusing dick contest.,,
You just blew what I knew about English measurement out of the water. I know people there fought the change to metric, but had no idea they still were.
It sounds as though it is an the illusion only the USA and Myanmar accept the 'backwards' measurements Caleb is talking about, the reality is people are still people. Thank goodness they are. Individuality is better for countries as well as people.
I prefer feet and inches like I think Caleb does (as well as the right answer from his Apple), but I prefer pounds, shillings, and pence to that insipid EU metric system. At least when a mechanic is asking for a toolset here in America (like sockets/wrenches), the question is still, "English or metric?" The same as there's no American language, there's no American measurement system. We're doing fine without either, England and America are inexorably linked, even if England tends to wander off the trail a bit.
@cjd
I don't have any religious or emotional attachment to any of these unit systems. F
rom purely practical point of view I find scalars such as "30 feet 7¼ inches" impractical for calculations as you need yet another layer of conversion to decode these fractions.
I have just tested, and even wolframalpha.com is unable to decode this as a valid distance. It can convert 30' 7" but gets lost at that fractional part.
@kravietz
There’s no decoding.
Tell a carpenter to cut a board adding numbers with fractional parts of 0.1875” and 0.6875” and he’ll either put down his saw and grab a calculator or the calculation will break his train of thought. He stops thinking about what laps over what and how it fastens to the wall.
Tell a carpenter to cut a board adding lengths with fractional parts 3/16” and 11/16” and 3 + 11 is 14 so half = 7 so 7/8”. That takes a heartbeat and he never stops thinking about what he’s doing.
As far as Wolfram, I don’t know the program you’re talking about but their Mathematica was written in Lisp. Lisp has rational numbers as part of the base language, add a rounding function and you won’t see 17/125 as an answer. It’s hard to believe their new version can’t do fractions or doesn’t let you add functions.
My calculators for doing plan takeoffs and such are all from Calculated Industries which has been making fractional calculators since the ‘80s. Just set it for accuracy 1” down to 1/64” and Bob’s your uncle. Lots of other people make them.
@cjd