Measurement conversion help

[Baguhan]

I need someone to check my measures.  I am using an online calculator that converts inches to mm and vice versa.  However, if measurements in inches are given like "5 and 7/8 inches," how do I express "7/8"?  Do I put in 5.875?  Is 5 and 1/4 = 5.25?  Is 5 3/4 = 5.75?

Just need to make sure I'm converting correctly.  Thanks!

[Venom]

Yup, that would be the way.

most converters won't accept say, 6-1/2, it will read as 612 inches.

[Baguhan]

Obviously 6 1/2 = 6.5 inches...

Thanks for confirmation.

[sagrzmnky]

Is 5 and 1/4 = 5.25?  Is 5 3/4 = 5.75?

Yes

[goody]

 

[JJ]

Amazing 

[Baguhan]

I do apologise if this was too basic for you guys but had to make sure I was doing it correctly.  Thanks!

[sagrzmnky]

Well, you know,
We here in the U.S. are still living in the stone age of the measurement world so please forgive us but we don't like change. 

[Sandman]

IIRC-

The U.S. inherited our antiquated standard measurement system from.... ENGLAND???

"English units are the historical units of measurement used in England up to 1824, which evolved as a combination of the Anglo-Saxon and Roman systems of units. They were redefined in the United Kingdom in 1824 by a Weights and Measures Act, which retained many but not all of the unit names with slightly different values, and again in the 1970s by the International System of Units as a subset of the metric system. In modern UK usage, the term is considered ambiguous, as it could refer either to the imperial system used in the UK, or to the US customary system of unit. The common term used in the UK for the non-metric system is imperial units or imperial measurements, since they were used as a standard throughout the British Empire and the Commonwealth"
   -Wikipedia


(Couldn't resist)

Mark (aka "Sandman")
Seattle, WA

[Baguhan]

Lol, myself, I'm very much used to inches, I can easily visualise stuff expressed in that way. Measures in cm or mm is still a bit confusing, so I just had to ask to make absolutely certain.

[GunMan]

I wonder how you guys in the US or UK do when it comes to physics (I'm studying physics). All formulaes and theories are based on the metric system, that must be a nightmare for you folks using imperial units.

[Ripley]

It's actually the other way around: the ISO system is based on the laws and formulas. That's why we have very few constants. In the imperial system, just about every physics formula has a constant. The price you pay for being stubborn 

[sagrzmnky]

Well I am an Automotive Technician and every car on the road since the early 90's has every nut, and bolt in metric. We really don't even need to keep any "inch" tools in our box anymore. Most of the metric stuff crosses over anyway. For instance, the 9/16 socket and 14mm are the same. Along with the 5/16 and 8mm and so on.

[JJ]

Well , the inches parts we stil need, i finaly got my stick bolts from a Harly Davidson dealer !! I didn't want to drill my original SSC to metric. And the funny thing is that because the F16 has inches measurements , i started now to add the screws and countersuncks with inches distance ...

[Sandman]

RE: mixing up units can be an expensive mistake- Just ask Lockheed Martin!

Hey Gunman-

Having English and Metric units does cause problems here in the 'States.  NASA lost the Mars Climate Orbiter Spacecraft Sept 23, 1999 because programmers mixed up English and Metric units- All their formulas were correct, but using the wrong units led to inaccurate results, causing the crash of this spacecraft!  Using the correct units IS VERY IMPORTANT when making calculations!  Garbage in, garbage out

Mark (aka "Sandman")
Seattle, WA



"NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because one engineering team used metric units while another used English units for a key spacecraft operation, according to a review finding released Thursday... For that reason, information failed to transfer between the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team at Lockheed Martin in Colorado, and the mission navigation team in California. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft."  -CNN  Sept 30, 1999

"NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter was lost in space last week because engineers failed to make a simple conversion from English units to metric, an embarrassing lapse that sent the $125 million craft fatally close to the Martian surface, investigators said yesterday." -Washington Post, Oct 1, 1999