Be like us Brits and measure short distances in metric, long distances in Imperial, yet struggle to convert between them.
GPS navigation gets frustrating. It's either metric "turn left in 4km" when all road signs and speeds are in miles, or imperial "turn in 200ft" when you have no idea how long 200ft is.
I never understood the use of yards for exits over there, but the hardest part was figuring out what my GP meant when he said I needed to lose a couple 'stones'... C'mon, you can't expect me to learn imperial, metric, and whatever the hell that is.
I'm already stuck having to be able to convert between elephants and F-250's because my homeland REFUSES the metric system, now I have to study geology just to figure out how unhealthy I am (actually was, I've lost 40lbs since then).
Stones are imperial. There are 14 pounds in a stone. Obviously it's the right unit for people's weight because who wouldn't want to share the weight of a human equally seven ways, eh?
Yeah, people talk shit about Americans using Imperial, but Brits are so fucked up. At least we consistently use one shitty system. Brits are constantly switching between the two, and sometimes even using outdated systems no one else uses. Like, why the fuck do you use stones for body weight, but pounds, ounces, and grams for different measurements of weight? Be consistent at least.
To be fair, kilometers make a lot more sense to me, as an American. However, everything is written in miles, and everyone speaks in miles. Estimating distance for me is easier in metric, but it isn't really acceptable.
(I play milsims, which is why I'm more used to it. Most Americans have almost zero experience with metric.)
Hey I’m going to have to ask you to censor that word. There’s American children on this ap! We can’t have them going to the playground and repeating that kind of language.
Are there children on this app though? Seems like they’d rather be on TikTok or whatever. Unless they are some edgy ML tankie contrarian maybe. In which case, expose to the metric system and nsfw content is the least of their problems.
They might realise that the metric system is much better than the stupid Imperial system, and this could make them fell guilty that their forefathers were ignorant bozos. Republicans hate it when children learn about the errors of their forefathers.
Their forefathers were actually in favor of the metric system. The US is an original signatory to the treaty of the meter, it's the official unit of measure for the government and military, and we were on the brink of getting switched over when Republicans decided they didn't want to spend money on the final conversion and education, despite it being a popular enough notion that it was used for advertising. (The two liter bottle became popular when they used the popularity of metric to sell plastic pop bottles).
The fervent attachment to imperial is weirdly recent.
Fun fact: there's quite a lot of countries that use "mixed metrics", with no real rhyme or reason for what uses old ancient imperial and what uses new shiny metric
UK - Miles for long distances, switch to meters for distances less than a mile, always use km in air and sea. Milk in pints, petrol in liters, water in ml, beer in pints. Human heights in Feet Inches, building heights in Meters. Human weights in a unit even Americans don't use anymore (Stone), animal weights in kg/g.
This is such a cool example of how some recursive algorithms have a closed form. We all know that there's a simple equation to plug miles into to get kilometers, but we don't talk about how the Fibonacci sequence has a closed form. This is so cool.
Closed form means it can be written out as a specific, finite set of instructions that work the same regardless of what the input to your function is.
For Fibonacci, it is most commonly defined in its recursive form:
f(0) = 0
f(1) = 1
f(x) = f(x-1) + f(x-2) for integer x > 1
But using this form, computing a very large Fibonacci number requires computing all the numbers before it, so it’s not the same finite set of instructions for every number, it takes more computation to generate larger numbers.
However, there is a closed form formula for generating Fibonacci numbers. Using this formula, you can directly compute any large Fibonacci number without having to compute all those intermediate steps. It takes the same amount of work to compute any Fibonacci number.
f(x) = (a^x - b^x)/√5
a = (1+√5)/2
b = (1-√5)/2
(Note that a and b here are constants; I only wrote them separately to avoid a mess of nested parenthesis)
For an example of something that doesn’t have a closed form, we do not know of a closed form for generating prime numbers. There are several known algorithms for generating the nth prime number, but they all depend on computing all the previous prime numbers, making it very difficult to compute very large prime numbers (in fact, how generating large primes is actually done is by making an educated guess and then checking that it’s actually prime). Discovering a closed form formula for prime numbers would have a huge impact on mathematics and cryptography.
Thank you. So does that mean that the Fibonacci can help us because just like the miles-km algorithm it is closed form, so we can use it to compute a single number, and at the same time it gives us similarish results because of coincidence?
or add half and then 10% (because it’s 1.6km to the mile): easier than multiplying decimals or large numbers by 6, and the inverse is 0.6mi=1km so easy to remember both ways (same thing but don’t “add” just start from 0)
I used to remember because space (Karman line) is 100km or 62mi up. I guess it helps to be a space nerd for that one. Kind of just figure 1.6 going the other way.
Cool! I wish I would have known this in the 70's when Canada changed over from British Imperial units to the Metric system. Maybe this is the incentive needed to push the usa into the rest of the metric system world!
If every measurement being a factor of ten of a smaller or bigger unit isn't going to convince Americans of the ease of metric then the Fibonacci sequence isn't going to convince them.
Tbh, the last sentence was just a silly jab at the imperial units.
I was mostly just making fun of the fact that you implied the Fibonacci sequence can be memorized, when it is infinite. I'm not saying that referring to it is simpler than dividing/multiplying by a constant, no.
US and Israel are the only places that still use Imperial. While older generations in Canada and UK will speak about weight in Imperial, the official unit system is Metric.
This is because fibonacci numbers approach golden ratio which is approximately 1,618033... and one mile is 1,609344 kilometres exactly.
Neat though
Definitely
PIN THIS
Nah, that's too difficult for USAians. They can memorize fibonacci numbers much more easily.
Be like us Brits and measure short distances in metric, long distances in Imperial, yet struggle to convert between them.
GPS navigation gets frustrating. It's either metric "turn left in 4km" when all road signs and speeds are in miles, or imperial "turn in 200ft" when you have no idea how long 200ft is.
I never understood the use of yards for exits over there, but the hardest part was figuring out what my GP meant when he said I needed to lose a couple 'stones'... C'mon, you can't expect me to learn imperial, metric, and whatever the hell that is.
I'm already stuck having to be able to convert between elephants and F-250's because my homeland REFUSES the metric system, now I have to study geology just to figure out how unhealthy I am (actually was, I've lost 40lbs since then).
Stones are imperial. There are 14 pounds in a stone. Obviously it's the right unit for people's weight because who wouldn't want to share the weight of a human equally seven ways, eh?
My kidney stones are imperial too.
Hefty. That's gonna hurt.
"I'm trying to lose 2 and a half stone" just sounds utterly deranged.
I think he might’ve been talking about an orchiectomy.
Yeah, people talk shit about Americans using Imperial, but Brits are so fucked up. At least we consistently use one shitty system. Brits are constantly switching between the two, and sometimes even using outdated systems no one else uses. Like, why the fuck do you use stones for body weight, but pounds, ounces, and grams for different measurements of weight? Be consistent at least.
The idea the average Joe even knows of them... (edit: was thinking of Fibonacci, but even km are in doubt these days)
Well i was taught about kilometers in school, though i can't speak to today's curriculum...
To be fair, kilometers make a lot more sense to me, as an American. However, everything is written in miles, and everyone speaks in miles. Estimating distance for me is easier in metric, but it isn't really acceptable.
(I play milsims, which is why I'm more used to it. Most Americans have almost zero experience with metric.)
Hey I’m going to have to ask you to censor that word. There’s American children on this ap! We can’t have them going to the playground and repeating that kind of language.
Are there children on this app though? Seems like they’d rather be on TikTok or whatever. Unless they are some edgy ML tankie contrarian maybe. In which case, expose to the metric system and nsfw content is the least of their problems.
Unfortunately the us system has the word “imperial” so tankies can’t stand it lol
They might realise that the metric system is much better than the stupid Imperial system, and this could make them fell guilty that their forefathers were ignorant bozos. Republicans hate it when children learn about the errors of their forefathers.
Their forefathers were actually in favor of the metric system. The US is an original signatory to the treaty of the meter, it's the official unit of measure for the government and military, and we were on the brink of getting switched over when Republicans decided they didn't want to spend money on the final conversion and education, despite it being a popular enough notion that it was used for advertising. (The two liter bottle became popular when they used the popularity of metric to sell plastic pop bottles).
The fervent attachment to imperial is weirdly recent.
And are units are tied to metric system as well.
1 inch is defined as exactly 2.54. That’s what an inch “is” in America.
That’s why I liked my joke. We just hate the words themselves
🦅🦅🦅
Fun fact: there's quite a lot of countries that use "mixed metrics", with no real rhyme or reason for what uses old ancient imperial and what uses new shiny metric
UK - Miles for long distances, switch to meters for distances less than a mile, always use km in air and sea. Milk in pints, petrol in liters, water in ml, beer in pints. Human heights in Feet Inches, building heights in Meters. Human weights in a unit even Americans don't use anymore (Stone), animal weights in kg/g.
Really? Do people walk around in the UK and say "I weigh 11 stone"? "I lost 3 stone on this diet"?
Yessir, stone and lbs usually.
So 12 stone 8 for example. 14lbs to the stone.
Canadian here, I watch some UK fitness shows, can confirm.
Canada another that does the Mixed Metrics, but with entirely different sets of arbitrariness
Yeah man, it's fucking nuts
Yeah, but does the kilometer have a cool origin like the mile? Checkmate math nerd.
Yeah but earth is wobbly and imprecise so now we define the meter as "the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second"
That'a a cool definition. I wouldn't call it an origin though, that would still be the Earth measurement through Paris, which is also cool.
On ten-thousandth. The circumference through the poles is ~40,000km
over land or straight line?
And yet the military uses "clicks"
0.54 nmi (nautical miles)
This is such a cool example of how some recursive algorithms have a closed form. We all know that there's a simple equation to plug miles into to get kilometers, but we don't talk about how the Fibonacci sequence has a closed form. This is so cool.
Wjat does closed form mean? Asking as a stupid botanist, sorry.
Closed form means it can be written out as a specific, finite set of instructions that work the same regardless of what the input to your function is.
For Fibonacci, it is most commonly defined in its recursive form:
But using this form, computing a very large Fibonacci number requires computing all the numbers before it, so it’s not the same finite set of instructions for every number, it takes more computation to generate larger numbers.
However, there is a closed form formula for generating Fibonacci numbers. Using this formula, you can directly compute any large Fibonacci number without having to compute all those intermediate steps. It takes the same amount of work to compute any Fibonacci number.
(Note that a and b here are constants; I only wrote them separately to avoid a mess of nested parenthesis)
For an example of something that doesn’t have a closed form, we do not know of a closed form for generating prime numbers. There are several known algorithms for generating the nth prime number, but they all depend on computing all the previous prime numbers, making it very difficult to compute very large prime numbers (in fact, how generating large primes is actually done is by making an educated guess and then checking that it’s actually prime). Discovering a closed form formula for prime numbers would have a huge impact on mathematics and cryptography.
Thank you. So does that mean that the Fibonacci can help us because just like the miles-km algorithm it is closed form, so we can use it to compute a single number, and at the same time it gives us similarish results because of coincidence?
To go from km to mi I always leaned “multiply by 6 and move the decimal one to the left”. So 6km is ~3.6mi. Or 10km is just about 6mi.
Yes. That uses the 3:5 ratio.
or add half and then 10% (because it’s 1.6km to the mile): easier than multiplying decimals or large numbers by 6, and the inverse is 0.6mi=1km so easy to remember both ways (same thing but don’t “add” just start from 0)
Thank you, will definitely use this now on
I used to remember because space (Karman line) is 100km or 62mi up. I guess it helps to be a space nerd for that one. Kind of just figure 1.6 going the other way.
Honestly divide by 5 and multiply by 8 usually isn't too difficult and just gives you the right answer.
I remember it by 200mph is 320kph.
glad I did not learn conversion in school. Nobody uses miles where i live
Interesting, but if I have to look up a conversion I’ll just look up the actual conversion rather than an approximation.
Why have brain when have computer
thanks to "AI" being in everything more and more computers are starting to perform worse than brain
The point is you don't have to look it up. Fibonacci is really easy to compute in your head.
I always used "a little more than half".
Works because ratio of km to miles is about the golden ratio.
isnt it easier to give them simple conversions 1mi=0.6km.
Might want to check your units.
It's rough estimation, a deviation of anything less than 50% is accurate enough for that
Edit: Ooh I thought you were trying to "um actually, it's 1.66", but I just realised they put 0.6 instead of 1.6
or for in your head maths: half + 10%
(though it’s 1km=0.6mi, 1mi=1.6km)
Cool! I wish I would have known this in the 70's when Canada changed over from British Imperial units to the Metric system. Maybe this is the incentive needed to push the usa into the rest of the metric system world!
If every measurement being a factor of ten of a smaller or bigger unit isn't going to convince Americans of the ease of metric then the Fibonacci sequence isn't going to convince them.
Ah yes, I always remember the Fibonacci sequence and totally wouldn't find it harder to calculate than just doing the conversion the regular way
/sarcasm
But woudn't you only need the 3 = 5 part?
"Remember"? Do you also remember all the digits of π?
It's defined as
F(0) = 0,F(1) = 1andF(n) = F(n - 1) + F(n - 2). Which makes more sense than imperial units.Or I could just do 1.6 km ≈ 1 mile whenever I need to convert from the standard that I use, Metric, to Imperial
Far far far simpler
Edit: I'm not American, I use sensible units, SI Metric
Edit edit: I do fully have dyscalcus, mostly only effects "scary" looking maths, so no, your suggestion doesn't help
I know from running that 5k is 3.1miles so I just go from there
Same!
Tbh, the last sentence was just a silly jab at the imperial units.
I was mostly just making fun of the fact that you implied the Fibonacci sequence can be memorized, when it is infinite. I'm not saying that referring to it is simpler than dividing/multiplying by a constant, no.
But you'd only need to do the conversion if you started with imperial units.
What if i don't want to
That's the spirit.
Give it the ol college "why?"
Neat!
5 to 8 is the far simpler pretty exact conversion.
I’m never going to visit the US or UK anyway.
US and Israel are the only places that still use Imperial. While older generations in Canada and UK will speak about weight in Imperial, the official unit system is Metric.
The UK still uses miles for vehicle speed and road signs
That's strange. I would have thought with proximity to the EU the UK would have all metric signs like Canada.
But the US has a global business empire. So you'll see the Imperial/Metric conversions all over the planet.
my upvote made 420 upvotes, coincidence?
I learned it in middle school