Hacker News Reader

Comment by emilga | Hacker News Reader

It's the same thing with foreign units of measurement (in, ft, F, stones, etc.).

Although I know there is a one-to-one mapping between meters and feet, I only grok a measurement given in meters.

There's probably some conditioning behind this: every day you are reminded that a pack of salami is 200g, while a pack of flour is 1kg, and so on ... so that for each measurement you just access your library of memories that relate the number to some previous experience.

Since a similar dictionary does not exist for the foreign units you learned in an artificial setting, and since your brain does not auto-update all your past memories based on the new info that 1m=3+3/8ft, you are left with words that are all understanding and no emotion.

View on HN

Coming from the metric systems, I've been starting to learn the US measurements, eg. I have memories and know how much is "a pound of meat".

I still don't get cups or the fluid measurements though, except that 12 oz a beer bottle and 16 oz is a medium soda bottle (medium in European terms).

Coming from a country that uses litres and millilitres, European centilitre paper cups just look plain weird. It's certainly the most appropriate unit for the task, but I'm just not used to it.

Some imperial measurements are pretty random (1 mile = 1720 yards, 1 yard = 3 feet?), but many of the commonly used ones are just based on fractions or convenient values instead of everything being base 10.

Maybe this will help with the fluids. Looking at a table of fluid measurements, it is easy to see it is just a base 2 system.

2^-1 oz = .5 oz = 1 tablespoon

2^0 oz = 1 oz = 1 oz (2 tablespoons)

2^1 oz = 2 oz = 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons)

2^2 oz = 4 oz = 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons)

2^3 oz = 8 oz = 1 cup (16 tablespoons)

2^4 oz = 16 oz = 1 pint (2 cups)

2^5 oz = 32 oz = 1 quart (4 cups)

2^6 oz = 62 oz = 1/2 gallon (8 cups)

2^7 oz = 128oz = 1 gallon (16 cups)

I think it is quite beautiful in a way. That doesn't explain why we have 12 oz beers though.

You have a bit flipped in 2^6, it should be 2^6 oz = 64 oz

1 mile = 1760 yards

Really, ALL imperial measurements are pretty random.

For me the worst would be temperatures in Fahrenheit !

My own mapping is between meters and yards, and slightly overstates the metric distance. Since it comes from distances of races--200 m, 400 m, etc., is is only so usable for smaller measures.

> one-to-one mapping between meters and feet three-to-one

I know the feeling.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com