Topic: Solution: How to shift the decimal - page 2. (Read 17610 times)

I really need to observe several instances of average, non-mathlete Joe Blows discussing such calculations in metric in real life, without the aid of pen-and-paper or some device, to see the frequency and types of errors commonly made.

While I expect the error rate to be somewhat less, I suspect it's not as close to zero as we're being lead to believe.

non-US point of view: imperial units suck badly.
you cant calculate with them because they dont match the numbering system and you have to remember the numeric relations between them one by one because they are all different.
with metric units there is exactly one thing to remember: the number 10. bonus points if you know kilo-, dezi, centi-, milli- etc. which are kinda hard to forget with words like century and stuff.

i do understand why its not easy to get rid of imperial units. but objectively, they still suck.
what you forget when you dismiss all those example calculations is that in the metric system they arent just easier - they dont exist at all. because it fits the numeric system you just add zeros. thats something any moron can do. so there really are a lot of everyday calculations that are much easier in the metric system.

You have the right to your opinion, and I'm sure that 'inertia' has much to do with it, but my point stands.  Americans use the American Standard by choice.  I was taught the metric system in school, and I'm sure that you were also.  I used metric during my military career.  I do know how, and so do most Americans who managed to graduate high school.  And many products in the grocery store are in metric, and that doesn't tend to trip anyone up, either.  So it's not all a matter of 'what we are used to'.  Again, there is not a single case of a nation moving to metric because the public voluntarily did so in the absence of some kind of government edict.  Not a single one.  And your examples, although intresting, aren't exactly representative of real world problems.  Why would you need to know how many inches are in a mile quickly?  They are two vastly different scales, and are thus almost never used in the same context.  Which is exactly true with "how many cm in a km?" which I note that you didn't ask.  How many cups in 3 gallons?  Well that would be 6 half-gallons, 12 quarts, 24 pints, 48 cups in three gallons.  No calculator necessary.  See how that works?  How many troy ounces in a ton?  That's a rediculous question from the start, since not only is troy not an American Standard measurement, they are in entirely different scales and wouldn't every be used in the same context anyway.  Again, "how many grams in a kg" isn't a comparable question.  How about how many grams is in 7 metric tons?

And how many cubic inches in a cubic mile?  Are you serious? 

Are you trying to imply that you wouldn't need a calculator to do this in metric?  I sure would need one.

My opinion, as a U.S. resident, on the imperial vs. metric thing:

Metric is superior for most modern uses, particularly technical processes, which are in abundance now. The resistance of construction workers to metric seems primarily due to inertia and sheer stubbornness.

That said, part of the resistance is innate, in that for simple, hands-on things, the human mind doesn't do well with base-10. As a species, humans have a superior number sense to animals, but we still have difficulty mentally manipulating more than several discrete units at a time without the aid of abstract supports like pen-and-paper, dividing the units into sub-groups, familiarity with a base-10 number system (read: being good at math), the incentive of needing to do complex multiplication/division, etc.

As sad as it is, over a century of universal government schooling in western society doesn't seem to have done very much in making the mathematically average-or-below human (the masses) good at math, never mind liking it enough to care about it beyond the immediate.

This is why phone numbers developed as they did: in the US, a base number of 7 digits, broken into a 3-digit, often-repeated portion and a generally-unique 4-digit portion. Add the 3-digit area code for rare cases.

It's also why most forms of coinage have units beyond dimes (0.1) and pennies (0.01). No matter how much societies may claim to love metric (despite having to be forced into it,) don't expect quarters and half-units to go away anytime soon on their own. Breaking things into halves, quarters, and sometimes even thirds is just always going to be easier for the human mind than breaking it into units of 0A... er, 1010... uh, that is, 10.


TL;DR - Metric is superior for most uses in modern society. But don't completely knock the imperial system (or other similar ones;) its emergence made sense, and it's still easier for many (most?) people to use. As annoying as that may be.


(I wonder if most of the controversy would have died out long ago if math textbooks simply made a point of drilling the concept of half, third, quarter and such, visualized "metrically," into students early on. One-half=0.5, one-third=0.333, one-quarter=0.25, etc. Yeah, you'd think coinage and simple familiarity would be enough, but... people hate math.)

Not everyone in the US hates metric.  I personally find it very useful and easy to use. 


Anyone claiming imperial system is "easier" is full of shit.

Quick (no calculator)
how many inches in a mile?
How many cups in 3 gallons?
How many oz in a ton?  (sucker I mean troy ounces, -2 pts for not asking for clarification)
How many cubic inches in a cubic mile?

vs

How many mm in meter?
How many cL in liter?
How many grams in a kilogram?
How many cubic nm in a cubic meter?

The imperial system is beyond stupid.  We just stick with it because of inertia. 
The romans thought their number system was pretty smart until some-one realized hey we have 10 fingers so humans think naturally in base 10  (of course so do aliens with 2 fingers).

I mean if the Imperial system is so great why didn't we extend imperial units into things that existed only in modern era?

I mean we have bits per second, kilobits per second, megabits per second  <- OH NOES.  WE ARE USING THAT SOCIALIST METRIC SYSTEMZ

Why not
16 bits per jigger bit (also for added fun bits are never expressed as discrete unit only as fractional jigger bits,  int data type oh that is 5/8th of a jiggerbit.  DUH)
12 jggerbits per fartobit
5280 fartobits per milobit.

Quick if the file is 20,000 jiggerbits and your internet connection is 0.8 milobits per second then how long will it take to download?  Even if you were lame enough to do the math do you really think it is easier than using SI prefixes for data storage and speed?

I like the idea but it should never be unclear that 1 BTC is 1 whole bitcoin. Changing the way you view your wallet balance should be made easy so that it could be in BTC, mBTC or uBTC. I suggest changing the default to mBTC at first because uBTC is simply not relevant for a very long time.

uBTC sounds good. There have been similar plans proposed, with different wording. I still think it's to early to start talking about those kind of numbers though.

I know a lot of engineers, many I'm related to.  The truth is that engineers use it only because their employers require it, most of them don't really like using it either.  The *only* architect that I ever encountered that used metric, by choice or otherwise, learned very quickly why his peers did not; construction workers hate using metric units, and will go out of their way to make their employers' jobs harder.


There is no case of a population voluntarily moving to metric in the absence of government influence.  None.  I don't blame Europe for getting together for a common standard, because their imperial units were all screwed up and different from one another; but base 10 units only work well on paper, not in the human mind.  Most of the American standard units are based upon halving of larger known units, thus base two.  It's easier for the human mind to visualize halving and quartering of larger units than one-tenthing, which has much to do with why the American public never embraced the Metric Standard.  

Then price it as 337 mBTC.  If the user wallet has 80,000 mBTC (80 BTC ~= $7700)

He has 80,000 mBTC.  The wallet says 80,000 mBTC.  You store says 337 mBTC.  He pays you and ends up w/ 79,663 mBTC.

when funding the wallet you could price the exchange rate a lot of different ways.  1 mBTC = 9.7 cents or $1 USD = 10.2 mBTC.

I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around this. Let's say, for sake of argument, the exchange rate is 1 BTC = $97.42 USD. The average potential user upon looking at that would simply pass on the whole Bitcoin idea. If they didn't then, they will once they see that selling or buying a $32.89 USD item equates to 0.337610347 BTC. The average person has trouble adding 1/2 and 1/4, let alone reintroducing them to a decimal system that they abhorred in high school. Personally, I wouldn't mind buying and selling items at that price, or any other, with Bitcoin, but funding a wallet via USD after it reaches some price point creates a sticker-shock-syndrome, even for me to overcome.

~Bruno~

I personally agree with all that (although I'll use btc instead of BTC in casual dialog.)

And the satoshi thing. Sounds weird. I'll use it as little as possible.

For some reason, this leaped out at me. I think that, ASAP, all bitcoin clients should start displaying 3 decimal places minimum instead of just two. I think this has a few powerful benefits:

1) Avoids confusion or conflation with dollars, or most other fiat currencies for that matter.

2) Prepares for any future move to millibitcoins, by making the currency shift more obvious (0.070 BTC becomes 70.000 mBTC, which will be visibly superior to 0.07 BTC becoming 70.000 mBTC.)

3) Helps just that little bit in showing the superior divisibility of bitcoins.

I guess the best option is the name change suggestion mentioned in this thread. Currently, one core unit is called a Bitcoin. When that becomes to cumbersome, a new name will manifest itself, oppose to the use of uBTC or a chain of other letters down the pike.

Having lived through a currency moving by two decimal points, I can assure you, it's a mess. It's much "cleaner" to move the decimal point in thousands, rather than hundreds.

I've been re-reading this thread, and found that the following post echoed my sentiment here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.687780

Given the recent events I think we should postpone the shift. 

After some considerations I want to revise parts of my original idea. Your criticism convinced me that we should never change the meaning of BTC. I now agree that using SI prefixes when necessary seems to be the best choice. (m should be enough, using u was a bit too optimistic on my side).

Thank you for your criticism, it really improved my views on the issue! 

OK, thanks very much.

It'll be fine, although, you should definitely make backups, just in case!

%appdata%\bitcoin\wallet.dat, backup that file. It's the important one.

(It might be %appdata%\roaming\bitcoin\wallet.dat, can't remember what %appdata% points to)

Dumb question here — how do I do that without losing my current wallet contents and transaction history etc? Do I just install the latest client version over the top of the existing one?