Lol this is actually a recurring argument I have with a friend. Both of our opinions never end up budging.
For most applications 1/3rd of a meter does not need to exist. Like if I buy a wardrobe they'll say it'll be 180cm tall, 240cm wide, etc. What's 180cm in inches? 70 and ~43/50th. Which makes no sense, nobody is going to measure forty-three fiftieths of anything, ever.
And so your wardrobes are not 180cm tall but like 6 feet. Which is 182cm and some decimals. Which again makes no sense, in most contexts it makes no sense to transcribe units 1 to 1.
It's the same trap people fall into when they give you stuff from pounds to kilos. They'll say "I weigh 167 pounds (or 75.15kg)" but like, we would just say 75 kilos. Nobody cares about the 150 grams. Or like in recipes, "add 4 ounces of oil, which is 113.398 grams" okay so 110 grams.
We just measure stuff differently because our units work differently. For more precise stuff, the metric system allows not only to go into decimals (I don't see how measuring to 3.33333 is a bad thing when the imperial system doesn't allow for that much granularity), but also has a name for each of those decimals. You see 33.3333333333 centimetres, but ultimately in most applications you would stop at 33.333 or 33cm, 3 millimetres, 3 micrometers and 3 nanometres.
My friend's go-to argument is that for canvas for example (she used to paint), you "couldn't" divide it in thirds if you wanted a margin, if it was metric. That's because canvasses in the US are measured in inches. In the metric world they're measured in centimetres, which means your canvas will measure say 12 centimetres or whatever. And then you can divide that 12cm in thirds and get whole numbers. And if your canvas was 8 inches wide you couldn't divide that in thirds either anyway.
Sure mathematically, they are the same, I won't argue that. I'm talking about just doing the math in your head quickly. Base 12 units, like inches in a foot, are divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, whereas base-10 units are only divisible by 2 and 5. Mental math becomes very easy if you need 1/3, 1/4, or 1/6 of something. I am a proponent of switch all numbers and units to the duodecimal system.
Dividing by 12 is "only" useful precisely because you don't have anything smaller than an inch, except fractions of an inch, of which only so many exist. We can keep adding decimals as needed in the metric system although it's not really a situation we routinely come across. In such a case though calculators aren't difficult to find these days. Like if I need a plank cut in 8 sections at the hardware store I can ask them to cut it for me. I can even ask them to cut in in 9ths and we'll just throw away the little piece that remains (though I'm sure this is possible in imperial too).
The granularity of the metric system also allows for things such as 12cm (or 12m or anything else) to exist, which effectively also allows us to divide them by the same factors you mentioned. Like if my painting canvas was 12cm tall, then I could create margins in thirds, fourths, sixths, etc. I could also just measure them from the side and make them whichever size I want down to 1 millimetre.
edit: nevermind my first conclusion. I think dividing by factors of 12 is a "shortcut" of sorts due to the "rigidity" of the imperial system (when it comes to feet and inches). It's easier to say "I need this cut in thirds or sixths". In metric, I would say "I need this cut to 1.25m or 1.5m" because it entirely depends on the overall length of what I'm measuring. And that length can be 150cm, 160cm, 170cm... which imperial doesn't really transcribe well.
Lol this is actually a recurring argument I have with a friend. Both of our opinions never end up budging.
For most applications 1/3rd of a meter does not need to exist. Like if I buy a wardrobe they'll say it'll be 180cm tall, 240cm wide, etc. What's 180cm in inches? 70 and ~43/50th. Which makes no sense, nobody is going to measure forty-three fiftieths of anything, ever.
And so your wardrobes are not 180cm tall but like 6 feet. Which is 182cm and some decimals. Which again makes no sense, in most contexts it makes no sense to transcribe units 1 to 1.
It's the same trap people fall into when they give you stuff from pounds to kilos. They'll say "I weigh 167 pounds (or 75.15kg)" but like, we would just say 75 kilos. Nobody cares about the 150 grams. Or like in recipes, "add 4 ounces of oil, which is 113.398 grams" okay so 110 grams.
We just measure stuff differently because our units work differently. For more precise stuff, the metric system allows not only to go into decimals (I don't see how measuring to 3.33333 is a bad thing when the imperial system doesn't allow for that much granularity), but also has a name for each of those decimals. You see 33.3333333333 centimetres, but ultimately in most applications you would stop at 33.333 or 33cm, 3 millimetres, 3 micrometers and 3 nanometres.
My friend's go-to argument is that for canvas for example (she used to paint), you "couldn't" divide it in thirds if you wanted a margin, if it was metric. That's because canvasses in the US are measured in inches. In the metric world they're measured in centimetres, which means your canvas will measure say 12 centimetres or whatever. And then you can divide that 12cm in thirds and get whole numbers. And if your canvas was 8 inches wide you couldn't divide that in thirds either anyway.
Sure mathematically, they are the same, I won't argue that. I'm talking about just doing the math in your head quickly. Base 12 units, like inches in a foot, are divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, whereas base-10 units are only divisible by 2 and 5. Mental math becomes very easy if you need 1/3, 1/4, or 1/6 of something. I am a proponent of switch all numbers and units to the duodecimal system.
That's the same reasoning my friend gives me haha
Dividing by 12 is "only" useful precisely because you don't have anything smaller than an inch, except fractions of an inch, of which only so many exist. We can keep adding decimals as needed in the metric system although it's not really a situation we routinely come across. In such a case though calculators aren't difficult to find these days. Like if I need a plank cut in 8 sections at the hardware store I can ask them to cut it for me. I can even ask them to cut in in 9ths and we'll just throw away the little piece that remains (though I'm sure this is possible in imperial too).
The granularity of the metric system also allows for things such as 12cm (or 12m or anything else) to exist, which effectively also allows us to divide them by the same factors you mentioned. Like if my painting canvas was 12cm tall, then I could create margins in thirds, fourths, sixths, etc. I could also just measure them from the side and make them whichever size I want down to 1 millimetre.
edit: nevermind my first conclusion. I think dividing by factors of 12 is a "shortcut" of sorts due to the "rigidity" of the imperial system (when it comes to feet and inches). It's easier to say "I need this cut in thirds or sixths". In metric, I would say "I need this cut to 1.25m or 1.5m" because it entirely depends on the overall length of what I'm measuring. And that length can be 150cm, 160cm, 170cm... which imperial doesn't really transcribe well.
Counterpont: I've never heard of anyone using metric time. That is in base 12 (or 24, or 60, but that's just multiples of 12).
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Yeah, so a duodecimal system, which can be divided by many factors is easier to do mentally.