• Liz@midwest.social
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    4 months ago

    1/16 of an inch is slightly smaller than a millimeter, you’d just end up using a millimeter or half again as your tolerance limit.

    The big issue with imperial is all the fractions and strange conversions. On more then one occasion I’ve caught myself mixing up eighths and quarters, because my brain views them more as concepts then as numbers. Which is bigger, 11/16 or 3/4? Now, you’ll get the answer, sure, but you had to think about it and it goes against the natural intuition that larger numbers are bigger. Compare that with, which is bigger 0.6875 or 0.75 and it should be trivial to see which is easier to learn and use.

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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      4 months ago

      0.6875 is basically a meaningless concept to me when I try to picture it in my head and what if you need to add ot to another dimension? It’s as easy to work 4 decimal places in your head. .75 only works because I automatically convert it to 3/4. Maybe it’s just something that comes with experience but I don’t have trouble with knowing what’s what. If your not sure you can always make the denominator equal and figure it that way. 3/4=12/16 for instance. Easy math to do in your head.