this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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I was born in the US and have switched by myself. My brother thought I was weird until one day we went to the hardware store.
I needed to buy a 15/64 in drill bit, but they didn't have it. So then we thought, fine, maybe we can use the next closest size...
...
Except WTF is the next size up or down from 15/64??!!! Neither of us could figure it out. Internet wasn't great. Sales people didn't know. We left because we weren't sure what to buy.
In metric, it's trivial. 5mm drill bit, 4mm is smaller, 6mm is bigger.
After this, he stopped thinking I was a weirdo for using metric measurements. But he still uses imperial because murica.
Also, interesting, I learned that he thinks imperial units were invented by the US. I told him they were British units and I stopped caring about British units in 1776, but he didn't seem to believe me.
16/64 is 1/4. Your next size up is a quarter inch. Is it intuitive? Maybe not. Is it really that hard? Only if your educational institutions have also failed you.
There's lots of great reasons to switch to metric. Inability to do basic fractions isn't one of them...
For the record, it would be 16/64, or, 1/4
Nope! It'd be 6mm, then B gauge (6.045mm), then 1/4" (6.350mm). And that's not including things like over/under reamers and such.
(Sorry, I've been watching too much Blondihacks lately.)
Everyone has trouble with something that's basic for someone else - we just have different skills. If these fractions are too confusing for a significant minority of people, then that's a good reason to switch from fractional to decimal.
Except In this specific case, it's about measurements for tools. Fractional is far more practical for construction than decimal for tooling.
But somehow the brother is convinced, despite the fact that they left the hardware store without the bit they needed!
What does he think "imperial" means? "federal"?
To be fair the modern USA is imperialist, we just don't call it that because imperialism is no longer considered a good thing.
How old is he ? Little kids are hard to convince.