NASA's Betrayal: Going Metric

This has been a long awaited move, one that makes perfect sense and iws a clear step foreward towards having all the humans untied together.

Well, it seems that the court of public opinion has reached a verdict: be like everyone else or be left out. The only benefit of standardizing measurements is monetary (IMF). Oh, and I guess there's that "one global government" benefit which is a lot easier if everyone is on the same page and "it's so easy a caveman could do it." NASA is the one place that NEEDS a base 12 system. It's not a popularity contest, folks. In order to do their job efficiently they don't need to be hampered by mathematical calculations that are not beneficial to them. Precise calculations are imperative to the job they do and converting to a system that is less efficient FOR THEM makes NO sense. Can you say billions of dollars wasted? What does that convert to in metric?
It's a moot point anyway. The decision has already been made by people higher on the food chain than any of us.

I think its a good move on Nasa's part.

The next logical step is to have all of the US switch over to metric.

I would also be fine with going from fahrenheit to celsius.

But gallons to liters.....maybe.

I'm going to ask where all this talk about a base-12 system just came from and why everyone has suddenly lept on it. Imperial is not base-12. It's not base anything. Time is not base-12, it doesn't crop up in astronomical measurements, and is actually not used in any kind of measurement at all. There's no such counting system used by humans for anything noteworthy. Please research these things before tossing them around as fact.

[edit on 19/1/2007 by Thousand]

Sorry, the candescence of your infinite wisdom shadowed me into thinking the main unit in space-time measure was the "light year".

Definitely a /second function. With 60s/60m/12X2h/365.25d

Originally posted by bothered
Sorry, the candescence of your infinite wisdom shadowed me into thinking the main unit in space-time measure was the "light year".

Definitely a /second function. With 60s/60m/12X2h/365.25d

The main unit in astronomical measure is a light year, yes. How it factors in to base-12 is the question I'm asking.

Well, let's see. 12 months in a year...

Seriously though. The base 12 was just a convienience at the time of time standardization that led to a measurable, acceptible unit. The hour. 2 sets of 12 in each day. 12a to 12p.

If I recall my history (which I probably don't that well), they tried 10 months/year at first. But this led to improper times of seeding and harvest. So they padded it out a little here and there. We wound up with 12 months in the year.

Here's a link:
en.wikipedia.org...

...
The origins of our current measurement system go back to the Sumerian civilization of approximately 2000 BCE. This is known as the Sumerian Sexagesimal System based on the number 60. 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour - and possibly a calendar with 360 (60x6) days in a year (with a few more days added on). Twelve also features prominently, with roughly 12 hours of day and 12 of night, and roughly 12 months in a year (especially in a 360 day year).
...
[edit on 1/20/2007 by bothered]

[edit on 1/20/2007 by bothered]

Besides going metric NASA, on their next infrared space telescope, is also going Open Standard based software.
NASAs software plans for the James Web Space Telescope

This is a good plan as in the past there were problems with different vendors using incompatible software.

Its easier for the US which has a history of using both measurements to go Metric than the other nations to go Imperial.

Besides NASA is one of the few science organistions remaining on IMPERIAL.

Metric system is SIMPLER and BETTER. Get it?

Originally posted by bothered
Well, let's see. 12 months in a year...

Seriously though. The base 12 was just a convienience at the time of time standardization that led to a measurable, acceptible unit. The hour. 2 sets of 12 in each day. 12a to 12p.

Well yes, but that's not base-12. That's just base-10 arbitrarily broken into 12 unit lengths. A base-12 counting system uses 12 as its radix rather than 10, and repeats at 12 indefinitely. If there were 12 seconds in a minute, 12 minutes in an hour, 12 hours in a day, and 12 days in a week, then yes, it would be a base-12 system. A claim can be made that the frequent multiples of 12 makes it a base-12 system, but that falls apart at any length of time greater than a day, and just one exception breaks the rule.

Consider these:

Base-2 (binary)
0 - 1 - 10 - 11 - 100 - 101 - 110 - 111 - 1000 - 1001 - 1010 - 1011 etc

Base-8 (octal)
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 20 etc

Base-10 (decimal)
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 etc

Base-12 (duodecimal)
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - A - B - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 1A - 1B - 20 etc

Base-16 (hexadecimal)
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - A - B - C - D - E - F - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 1A - 1B - 1C - 1D - 1E - 1F - 20 etc

So for these 5 number systems, the number, oh, say, 137 is represented as:

Binary: 10001001

Octal: 211

Decimal: 137

Duodecimal: B5

Hexadecimal: 89

Notice a trend? In order for a system to be Base-n, it must stop and carry into the next column when it gets to n. Therefore, time and imperial measure are not base anything, because they have no set radix. Metric does: 10

The reason I bring this up is it is very important to have your terminology right, especially when dealing with fringe topics. It can be very easy to lose someone in an explanation if both sides are hearing the same thing but thinking differently.

[edit on 22/1/2007 by Thousand]

Well, I don't recall saying base, but modulus. There's a difference.
Saying it's "broken down" into, and modulo are about the same thing.

This is called "clock arithmetic" and if you search you _may_ find more info than I did on a brief search. Here's an excerpt form Wolfram's website:

mathworld.wolfram.com...


...
For example, in arithmetic modulo 12 (for which the associated ring is ), the allowable numbers are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. This arithmetic is sometimes referred to as "clock arithmetic" because the additive structure here is the same as that used to determine times for a twelve-hour clock, except that 0 is often replaced, on a clock, by 12. Example calculations in arithmetic modulo 12 include statements like "11+1=0", or "7+8=3", or "5*7=11" although the equal sign is commonly replaced with the congruence sign in such statements to indicate that modular arithmetic is being used. More explicitly still, a notation such as

11+1=0 (mod 12)

is frequently used.
...

[edit on 1/22/2007 by bothered]

iori, I understand where you are coming from.
Change is often hard. Especially when living in a country the size of the U.S., and things have been done a certain way forever.

The older we get the more our neuron paths get stuck, so it seems, and change is harder.

But I can understand why they are doing it, the rest of the world it seems, practically uses Metric, and perhaps they want the younger generation to get used to the Metric system.
Especially in this day and age of convergence, and communications.

Personally, Im now getting used to both. But I have lived in Europe for 2 years.
Sure it takes time, and if you live in the U.S. where you dont have to use it, can really be a deterrent to want to learn.

dont despair, all is good. Some say that the metric system is actually easier to learn...we will see.

Peace

dAlen

I was never taught the imperial system.

I use both feet and miles, metres and kilometres. Stones and kilograms.
Here, road signs are in miles and miles per hour. 30 mins down the road they are in km and km/hr - dopey politicans predicted chaos when the republic introduced the metric roadsigns - not been a problem whatsoever - people are brighter than alot of "experts" give them credit for.


I can attest that the the metric system is much more logical, and clear, calculations using it are much simplified in comparison to the metric system.



I also don't see the problem in integrating it to the US.

Teach physics/maths problems in metric. People will pick up how long a mile is by their normal life outside education. Same for feet.

If they don't they are too stupid to be worth much consideration - harsh, but true.

[edit on 23/1/07 by kilcoo316]

The education system across the US teaches both Imperial and metric. As an engineering student I had to know how to manipulate values from any number of measuring systems. As a NASA engineer we used metric almost exclusively across the board, the only exceptions being those who were interested in the environmental control & life support systems of the ISS* and those who were working legacy projects where the documentation and operational protocol went back decades.

* Those guys retained the Imperial system as the means of measurement because they make sense when referring to the human body e.g. 0F is very cold to a person while 100F is very hot. 0C and 100C have virtually no relevance in that sense. I thought it was silly but they insisted on it.

As for the Mars probe lost do to Metric vs. Imperial conversion, the problem was the vendor (Lockheed) didn't deliver the probe according to customer (NASA) requirements. This was during former NASA administrator Dan Goldin's reign in which he envisioned "faster, better, cheaper" spaceflight. Sometimes that meant things were inadequately tested, this being the case in this incident. Dan Goldin's name is mud within NASA to this day (and some even blame the culture he left in his wake for the Columbia accident).

[edit on 23-1-2007 by Space Guy]

Originally posted by Space Guy
This was during former NASA administrator Dan Goldin's reign in which he envisioned "faster, better, cheaper" spaceflight.

Just going slightly OT.

But anyone with any knowledge of projects knows that "faster, better, cheaper" is an impossible dream.

You can do less faster and cheaper, you can do a better job with more money and time etc etc. But you have to compromise one for the other. Managment hype gone mad!

iori_komei:

In your OP, you mentioned that you can't do the conversions. If everyone used the metric system, then conversions will be irrelevant. It won't matter on bit that 1 lb = 2.2 kg. All that matters is that 2.2 kg = 2.2 kg. Who cares how many pounds that is? That's it, no conversion required.