What is your preferred measurement scale?

[Bill Jobe]

Didn't notice it mentioned. The firkin.

[glenn bradley]

Wow, over 90 posts. No wonder we can't decide

[Charles Taylor]

To stir things up a little more, when I started out I was taught degrees minutes and seconds as primary measuring for all angles.

About 15-20 years ago, everything started changing to decimals of degree. One of my math teachers said a heptagon (7 equal angles) is 51° 25’ 40”8 (Or 51° 25 minutes 42.8 seconds) or 51.42857°

So, do you like using degrees minutes and seconds or do you like using degrees a decimal?

And sure there is the metric radian(which is another ball of wax)

We could go 'round and 'round on this.

In the workshop, I use degrees and tenths. Arc second precision is beyond my abilities, and besides, any tools or instruments I have in the shop that can report fractions of degrees use tenths or hundredths.

Back at my high school & college job with a land surveyor, we expressed bearings and angles in degrees, minutes, and seconds...but there were conversions to and from decimal degrees to do the computations.

In my software career I know that the math libraries use radians, but values may be accepted and output in any number of units--radians, degrees (with three or four different ways to describe the fractional portion), mils, "semicircles", etc.

I think in degrees or radians, as the problem dictates. (In my workshop, there is never a problem that calls for radians.)

[Jim Becker]

Wow, over 90 posts. No wonder we can't decide

It's unlikely there will be a consensus anytime soon in this forum on what is a very subjective thing. But I think that most would be fine with the idea that for personal work, it doesn't matter what measurement scale one uses as long as they are consistent and committed to it. I think that most would also agree that for collaborative efforts, one system needs to be embraced for the project...mixing measurement systems at the same time can be, um..."interesting".

I will make a personal speculation that at some point in time, metric will gain more visible hold in the US since it's already deeply embedded in industry and science and has been for a long time. (Relevant to woodworking, I went to make an adjustment on my US-manufactured CNC machine yesterday and note that all the fasteners are metric) There will still be personal resistance, but I think it's inevitable that the global community will actually come together on this. It may not be in many of our lifetimes, but...I think it will happen.

[Steve Demuth]

So, do you like using degrees minutes and seconds or do you like using degrees a decimal?

And sure there is the metric radian(which is another ball of wax)

I think in radians pretty automatically, but they are not really metric, even though the are by far the most common alternative to degrees - radians are the mathematically "natural" way to think about angle measurements, and thus what is used in nearly all scientific calculations. Gradians - the "metric" unit of angle that the French tried to foist on the world along with the decimal week, and meter, never caught a great following. The only person I've ever known to insist on them was a French software engineer with a military background. Everybody else I've ever had occasion to discuss the issue with, used degrees as we do.

[Matt Mattingley]

I think in radians pretty automatically, but they are not really metric, even though the are by far the most common alternative to degrees - radians are the mathematically "natural" way to think about angle measurements, and thus what is used in nearly all scientific calculations. Gradians - the "metric" unit of angle that the French tried to foist on the world along with the decimal week, and meter, never caught a great following. The only person I've ever known to insist on them was a French software engineer with a military background. Everybody else I've ever had occasion to discuss the issue with, used degrees as we do.

and this is my problem. Sin coefficient of 45° is .7071.... A lot of calculations and conversions have been put to bed since 1986. 86 was the biggest poopsy year that ever had to be recovered from.

[John Gulick]

We are creatures of habit. I don't think the US will ever change.

[Chris Parks]

We are creatures of habit. I don't think the US will ever change.

Whether you want to admit it or not it has already started and big industry has already done.

[Bill Jobe]

We are creatures of habit. I don't think the US will ever change.

But she'd better be light on her feet. (or is that foot.
Nah. That's eons away. Or, 6yards.

"A product of Midwest shcooling."

[Mike Kreinhop]

Sin coefficient of 45° is .7071....

You would receive an eraser at full speed from one of my math professors for not writing "sine". As she would say, a sine without an "e" is just a sin. "SinX" is good, the "sine of x" is good, the "sin of x" is an invitation to be a target of her accurate and painful chalkboard missiles.

[Mike Kreinhop]

My unit of measurement at work and home is metric. After being stationed in Germany for almost 21 years, accepting the metric system was not optional. Our architectural and engineering drawings from U.S. sources must be metric, as components that make up or go into our facilities must be locally sourced. In my own shop, everything is metric.

The transition from Imperial to Metric was easy, but I don't remember when the transition was complete. When I'm back in the U.S., I have to mentally convert inches to millimeters when I'm looking at tools or hardware.

[Curt Harms]

That's my problem with middle sizes in metric. I can easily visualize 10mm because I use metric hand tools a lot. I can easily visualize a meter because it's basically a yard plus a bit. I can easily visualize a kilometer, which is just over half a mile. I cannot even begin to visualize 152mm. The best I can do is convert it in my head and see that it's six inches.

If I figure 300 mm = 1 foot (close enough), 150 mm = 6" 75 mm = 3" etc. etc. But yeah, unless we use it every day it's not going to "feel natural".

[Halgeir Wold]

I've been working in an environment where metric and imperial goes hand in hand... By occupaion I'm an EE, and grew up with binary, octal and hexadecimal..

[John K Jordan]

...and grew up with binary, octal and hexadecimal..

High 00000101. I was immersed starting about $2F years ago.

JKJ

[Rob Luter]

Decimal Inch. Almost 40 years of Engineering work has burned it deep into my head.