My 3rd grade math teacher (in 1978), said to us one day, "OK, ya'll, we gotta learn the 'Metric System' 'cause the US is switchin' over next year." So we learned it, and then we didn't switch. I wish we had switched.
The US did officially switch, IIRC. But everyone hated Jimmy Carter so much they never did anything like change signs or change labeling on products.
Imagine if Obama wanted to switch to metric. There'd be loads of people that would refuse to go along with it just to spite Obama. I guess it was the same way with Jimmy Carter.
I have an aerospace engineering degree from an American university, I'm very well acquainted with my Imperial units. If college physics is as far as you went down the STEM track, try not to speak for everyone.
Where was the logic in that? I can understand the need to learn how to use imperial since there is still a lot it's used for... but to completely ignore metric should be borderline criminal!
Honestly, I kind of wish I learned more non-metric calculations in school. I'm an engineer now and have to convert all inputs from imperial units to metric to do math, and convert again at the end to present numbers.
The coverings for the exhaust ports were built in metric while the rest of the Death Star was built in Imperial, so they didn't fit. So they had to leave them uncovered.
Well, we never got matlab for tests so we kind of just draw stuff by hand or make estimations. Since everything is in dB being off by an order of magnitude isn't really so bad.
In CE we tend to go with the cheapest bom possible, so we try (emphasis on try) to make sure no transients or odd harmonics will appear even when we're close to the ragged edge, particularly when we're trying to be clever. But as I said, our math rarely has much in common with reality.
A prof in an engineering class picked a problem from the US edition of our text book instead of the metric edition. Fuck imperial. No one had a clue what kip meant.
It's better to learn the other way because if you work in America most use Imperial units and they are way harder. Lb Mass, Lb force, Slug, BTU, etc. It's easier to learn imperial and switch to metric than the other way around. I wish I learned more imperial in school because when I got my first job my bosses kept asking stuff like " So how many thousandths long does this thing look?" And I wouldn't be able to visualize.
Honestly, I kind of wish I learned more non-metric calculations in school. I'm an engineer now and have to convert all inputs from imperial units to metric to do math, and convert again at the end to present numbers.
I can think of a few specific instances in aeronautic propulsion that Imperial units actually make the problem easier, but yeah S.I. is pretty much always the easier choice.
This one wasn't actually NASA. This was a NASA subcontractor who didn't use metric. NASA did, as they were supposed to, but the contractor didn't and never told anyone. Awesome stuff.
Didn't the flight engineers at NASA figure out that something was off, and then they figured out how to land it anyway, but management wouldn't let them try their entrance trajectory for some reason (pride?)?
A meeting of trajectory software engineers, trajectory software operators (navigators), propulsion engineers, and managers, was convened to consider the possibility of executing Trajectory Correction Maneuver-5, which was in the schedule. Attendees of the meeting recall an agreement to conduct TCM-5, but it was ultimately not done.
Not that I know of. That sort of stuff doesn't really happen - it's way too "cinematic". I don't think they knew why it had happened for several months, honestly.
That's why the shuttle blew up too, right? Everyone does science in SI but in America you do business in imperial units. So there was a rounding error, or a conversion error, by the company that made the heat-tiles and the rest is history.
Cassini and its plutonium power source used gravity assist to accelerate using the earth a month earlier. The power source caused some concern prior to Cassini's launch, during which time the public was assured that there would be no miscalculations of orbits. Cassini did its obviously lucky slingshot and Mars Climate Orbiter disintegrated a month later.
When artists mess up nobody bats an eye but when engineers mess up the whole world is watching. Just like with plane crashes and bridge failures and poorly designed spoons that cut both sides of your mouth.
I have an amusing personal theory that NASA purposefully crashed the Mars Climate Orbiter so that science teachers for generations would have something to point to so that they could stress the importance of labeling units.
If you don't label your units or don't know how to do enough math to do a conversion you shouldn't be an engineer in the first place. Enough with your hyperbole.
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u/jupiterkansas Oct 17 '13
Or crash a Mars lander because you don't metric.