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US finally giving boot to official foot measurement
Change is afoot for the official measuring stick used to size up big places in America.
The reason? There are actually two different definitions of the 12-inch measurement known as a foot.
Some land surveyors use what's known as the U.S. survey foot. Others use the definition that's more accepted by the broader world: the international foot.
The difference between them is so tiny that you can't see it with the naked eye on a 12-inch ruler. But over big distances, it matters. So, to reduce the chance for errors and confusion, the federal government has announced it's finally giving the boot to the survey foot.
The international foot is the smaller one—adding about an eighth of an inch of difference when measuring a mile. That means the United States is 28.3 feet wider when measured using the international foot instead of the survey foot.
The change started in 1959, when the federal government mandated that everyone use the international foot but allowed surveyors to keep to the old U.S. survey foot for a while. That temporary reprieve has lasted 60 years, but it will finally end in 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology announced in October.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16 2019, @12:11AM (3 children)
cant divide base 10 easily. base 12 (inches in foot) can half/quarter/third into full numbers which is very handy for building.
16th/64th inch for the same reason.
that's why its still used, base 10 is just as arbitrary as base 12.
(Score: 3, Touché) by pe1rxq on Monday December 16 2019, @12:41AM (1 child)
So.....you want everyone to suffer just because some builders are either bad at math or just plain idiots?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16 2019, @03:43AM
no im telling you why its still used.
baseing is arbitrary the math is the same., you should use whatever makes the job easiest.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday December 16 2019, @06:51PM
People have universally employed the decimal system for numbers. One might argue that the duodecimal system would have been a better choice, but given that the decimal system is here to stay, it is reasonable to adapt the measurement system to that.
That said, a measurement system based strictly on the factor 12 would still be much more reasonable than the mess that are the US customary units.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.