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
As soon as various engineering and scientific disciplines started to get interconnected, it became critical to develop a common frame of reference. SI units are such frame, as they are defined based on specific physical constants rather and this would explain why the scientific world uniformly converted to SI.
You probably *could* build an atomic clock based on the notion that Cs-133 wavelength is 1" and 268/1000" but that's not very practical nor portable.
@kravietz
It doesn’t matter if you do your calculations in feet or meters, you know perfectly well no one’s suggesting to always use fractions, abandoning base 10 or decimal point numbers.
When solving a single math equation, people mix decimals, rational numbers, and symbolic placeholders for numbers however it tickles their fancy. No standards committee should force them to do otherwise, you should use the system that makes the problem solvable or easiest.
@cjd