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2:38 pm
February 12, 2010
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DenisG
| | Saarbrücken, Germany (GMT+1) | |
| Member | posts 69 | |
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Hello again,
I'm sorry to bring up an unpleasant topic, but what is the guideline on the metric vs. imperial system issue? As far as I understand, US engineers should be able to do both. I know for sure that the vast majority of european engineers (and others too, I guess) can't, me included. Apart from the fact that the metric system is clearly superior to the imperial for technical purposes, perpetual unit conversion is very error prone (I don't need to remind anyone why Mars Climate Orbiter was lost.)
So, two proposals:
- use only metric units (my personal favorite!)
- always provide both representations of a value (in discussions/calculations/drawings)
Note that in software, there must be an agreement on which system to use.
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2:51 pm
February 12, 2010
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jarrod
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I second proposal 1 (use only metric units). The metric system is more intuitive in every way, and almost everyone is familiar with it.
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7:54 pm
February 12, 2010
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Luke Maurits
| | Adelaide, Australia | |
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I am violently opposed to the use of anything but the metric system!
Of course, this really only applies to software, manuals, etc. In casual conversation on the forums I sometimes use imperial units simply because the first figure I could find for something on Google happened to be in imperial and I don't know how to convert from, say, psi to Pa, in my head. That kind of thing is no problem but anywhere which is "official" or centralised or anything like that should absolutely be metric.
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Main CLLARE workgroups: Mission Planning, Navigation and Guidance. I do maths, physics, C, Python and Java.
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8:49 pm
February 12, 2010
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Rocket-To-The-Moon
| | Altus, Oklahoma, USA | |
| Member | posts 685 | |
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As an American I am 100% for using metrics in all technical areas. This is something that we discussed very early on (first week type discussion); the decision was unanimous back then also.
I will admit that I tend to throw around imperial units sometimes when I am trying to get a grasp of the scale of things, but that is only for the benefit of those of us who are familiar with it.
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Main Workgroups: Propulsion & Spacecraft Engineering
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8:51 pm
February 12, 2010
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Rocket-To-The-Moon
| | Altus, Oklahoma, USA | |
| Member | posts 685 | |
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One other quick input.
Would it be worthwhile to have an official conversion table that can be used in cases where something accidentally gets done in the wrong units?
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Main Workgroups: Propulsion & Spacecraft Engineering
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9:40 pm
February 12, 2010
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Luke Maurits
| | Adelaide, Australia | |
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| posts 1483 | |
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I am not sure this would be worth while when there are so many Javascript converters out there on the web. Even google can do basic conversions (although it can't handle pressure, unfortunately, at least not psi <–> pa).
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Main CLLARE workgroups: Mission Planning, Navigation and Guidance. I do maths, physics, C, Python and Java.
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9:58 pm
February 12, 2010
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Rocket-To-The-Moon
| | Altus, Oklahoma, USA | |
| Member | posts 685 | |
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Post edited 10:01 pm – February 12, 2010 by Rocket-To-The-Moon
My thought was to have something that is CSTART's official table of conversions so that we have a certain known decimal accuracy. It could be dangerous to use a mixture online converters because each may return slightly different results depending on the accuracy with which they perform the calculations.
It is really a simple matter of picking on conversion table or website and stating that it is the official CSTART table. There is no need for us to complie our own table. Off the top of my head Wolfram|Alpha would be my choice.
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Main Workgroups: Propulsion & Spacecraft Engineering
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10:18 pm
February 12, 2010
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Luke Maurits
| | Adelaide, Australia | |
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| posts 1483 | |
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This is a fair point, I am inclined to agree now.
We should even be able to fairly easily find somebody who is able to make a brief Javascript interface to the table, which will be more reliable than having people do their own conversions given an "exchange rate".
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Main CLLARE workgroups: Mission Planning, Navigation and Guidance. I do maths, physics, C, Python and Java.
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4:16 am
February 13, 2010
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DenisG
| | Saarbrücken, Germany (GMT+1) | |
| Member | posts 69 | |
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I'm not sure wheter an "official" conversion tool is necessary. For every calculation, one needs to be aware of the needed precision anyway, and the person who does the calculation has to make sure the used numbers are precise enough, also after conversion.
I'd also like to make you aware of Wolfram Alpha.
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6:17 am
February 17, 2010
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Rizwan
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Metric all the way.
Also just came across this. http://www.convertcenter.com/
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