John Michell summarized the case against the metre (and, by extension, other metric and "SI" measurements) as: it doesn't measure anything.
This is why metres - their decimal divisions and multiplications - are almost useless to think with; whereas many of the Imperial measures are very well suited to inner work: each being a measure of some thing relevant - whether inches, feet, furlongs... or leagues.
[The league ought to be revived, as being the distance an average person walks in an hour. Of course, you need some artificial device for measuring hours - which have no natural correspondence!]
For examples: Understanding the height of everyday objects in feet and inches, or weight in stones and pounds... These are far superior to the metric substitutes.
(Although I don't understand why Americans have abandoned stones - so that peoples' weights are stated given in very large numbers of pounds! This goes absolutely against the common-sense spirit of Imperial measures.)
My favourite instance is the acre as (roughly) defined as how much land could be ploughed in a day - thus an acre in areas with light sandy soil might be several times larger in area than an acre in heavy clay soil; and this difference broadly reflected the agricultural value of the land.
It strikes me that metric measures have only replaced Imperial to the extent that people have stopped being aware of their environment, and ceased thinking about things for themselves.
And have instead handed-over their thinking to machines and computers - devices that just tell us stuff in arbitrary, abstract and incomprehensible terms...
And we are intended uncomprehendingly to submit and obey (and, nowadays, people nearly always do...).
The one bad non-SI measure - which has, significantly, spontaneously (by popular lack-of-demand) been abandoned almost everywhere - is Fahrenheit, which (significantly) is not Old English in origin.
The Fahrenheit doesn't measure anything (in ordinary experience) whereas its more successful rival, the metric (but not SI) measure of Centigrade is rooted in the freezing and boiling of water.
Yet a Centigrade is - as typical of such abstract decimalizations - the wrong size for everyday usage: been too big, too coarse, a measure; so that in practice half degrees Celsius (or less) must be used.
The practical men who devised Imperial measures would have subdivided the difference between freezing and boiling into a larger number of degrees (maybe twenty-four?); and probably in accordance with what was most useful for the usual everyday purposes of measuring temperature - which occur in the lower half of the range.
Note added: By my understanding, however, all mathematics, arithmetic, geometry, number-systems &c are abstractions that remove us from direct (i.e. relational) participation with reality. Just that the Imperial measures are less abstract, more rooted in human experience... It is a matter of degree, not a qualitative distinction. But there will be no Measures in Heaven!
Fahrenheit gives us 180 degrees between freezing and boiling which, as you say, gives us a more convenient small interval, and analogizes with the 180 degrees of the semi-circle. Instead of basing zero at freezing, zero is set somewhere below such that all temperatures encountered in England may be described without ontologically suspect negative numbers. The use of 'forties', 'fifties', 'sixties' breaks the scale into convenient bands for daily weather.
ReplyDeleteThe major error is having set freezing at 32 instead of 30. Fahrenheit comes within two degrees of perfection.
As proof of Fahrenheit's poetic superiority, I note nobody ever penned a country song called 'Sunny and 23.5'
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZwVvwp8i-M
@Crosbie. But it doesn't measure anything...
ReplyDeleteRead this on a meme recently:
ReplyDelete100F = really hot outside, 0F = really cold outside!
@Ron - Not in my part of the world... very hot starts at Much less than 100F!
ReplyDeleteIt is fashionable to scoff at backward America for declining to embrace the metric system. It's been my observation that such scoffers invariably tend to be men of little brain, and no discernment.
ReplyDelete@Bruce
ReplyDeleteFair enough although in terms of extreme temperatures I think most UK places ranged between about 5 and 95F in recent decades which fits rather well.
@Stephen
Yes they swallowed the argument that metric simplifies everything. But in reality with metric adopted one has to learn *two* systems rather than one! Even BBC recipes use both grams and ounces.
Fahrenheit constructed his scale to have the normal human body temperature at the maximum and a cold winter's day(apocryphally) at the minimum, but he quickly expanded it to include the freezing and boiling points of water, which in part explains their odd positions. So in origin at least, it was human centered.
ReplyDeleteI tried to look up how temperature was measured in the middle ages, but only got pages of climate change propoganda for all my efforts.
Fahrenheit's upper endpoint is meant to be the human body temperature. But individual units of either Fahrenheit or Celsius, both defined as an arbitrary hundredth of their ranges (human body temperature to the coldest laboratory liquid at the time, and boiling to freezing), do not measure anything, as you say. Of the two though, a unit a Fahrenheit may be closer to the "smallest perceptible temperature difference". 68F to 69F is just enough to be noticeable. But a unit Celsius is too large and needs to be subdivided for human use.
ReplyDeleteA second is an arbitrary fraction of a range, but is close enough to the space between steps or heartbeats that it is extremely useful. It's a modern convention though to deal in days of perfect hours of 60 minutes of 60 seconds. In the ancient world, time started at sunrise and the sixth hour was always noon, and the twelfth sunset, with hours lengthening and shortening throughout the year. Modern digital clocks could recreate this very human timescale, should we ever choose to do so.
How do you feel about a "country mile"? While I'm asking, what do you think about a "New York minute"?
ReplyDeleteIn Finland where Fahrenheit was never used, I have never encountered anyone using half a degrees of Celsius when describing the weather or water temperature. I have never entertained the possibility that people could tell the difference between +17 and 17.5°. Decimals of degrees are of course used when measuring fever etc. Now that you have mentioned it, I believe I could learn to notice the difference in water temperature when swimming. But otherwise, the habit of thinking in degrees Celsius structures perceptions so that the temperatures between full degrees are not perceived.
ReplyDeleteFahrenheit is meant to be a 0 - 100 representation of the vast majority of temperatures humans will experience in nature. Anything substantially above or below this requires specialized equipment; even slightly outside of this range is probably going to be uncomfortable.
ReplyDelete@Pathfinderlight
DeleteI have lived most of my life in the Mojave Desert and it gets to (sometimes even a little over) 120 degrees Farenheit in the summer. Unless you consider things like "water" and maybe "occasional breaks in the shade" to be specialized equipment, I assure you nothing special is necessary to survive in that heat.
Obviously, heat stroke is a very real concern but as long as you aren't doing heavy labor in the sheer sunlight without hydrating you'll probably be fine.
I am frankly surprised that so many have come forward to defend Fahrenheit - it really isn't worth it.
ReplyDeleteOf all my sacred cows, Fahrenheit is the most bovine.
DeleteMark me down as a Fahrenheit defender! It’s so easy to use with respect to the weather and human experience. 80 is starting to get hot, approaching 100 is “hey it’s really hot, you need a plan” and the low end is similar - 30 is freezing, getting toward 0 is “hey seriously you need a plan for how cold this is.” Each degree change is perceptible to those who pay attention, and about in the middle at 55 is what most adult men consider an ideal outdoor temperature (while every woman is cold under 70).
ReplyDeleteI do candy making at high altitude and Celsius is nowhere near refined enough to make the necessary adjustments…so maybe I’m biased in favor of F bc the boiling point of water is for me a nice even 200F :)
Mark me down as conflicted. I would hate to build a boat in imperial although the real culprit might be building off blueprints. I loathe centimeters. Prefer my rain in points and inches. Am happy to tootle along in kilometers per hour (on land) but being a gentleman, reckon fuel consumption in miles per gallon. My favourite distance is a day: Four days walk, ten days sail. While 28 degrees is a pleasant enough temperature, I prefer my hot days to top the ton: Imagine if cricket was played in centigrade, the Don's batting average would lack its Zen like imperfection.
ReplyDeleteRev has left a comment:
ReplyDeleteA often forgotten strength of the imperial measurement system is it allows for both halves and thirds. The human eye is remarkably capable of finding a mid-point and third-points with a surprising degree or accuracy. Finer accuracy is achieved by simply finding a half or third again. Accurately measuring a tenth without aid is difficult. The early cathedrals for example were made with geometric methods relying on taking a rope then find halves and thirds, not on regimented measurements as we are used to.