Cheese said:
... semiconductor field for 30 years.
Having said that, metrification in the semiconductor field was still just giving lip service to your vendors. Everything was designed in imperial and then “translated into metric” to give the customer a warm fuzzy and to sell a contract. It’s called dual dimensioning.
We are where we are because we’ve given this whole metrification issue lip service and have never fully embracedthe change to metric. We’re pretty much at a stalemate at this time as far as the US is concerned.
I'm known folks from that industry who mirrored what you said, still inch. But I've also known people from that industry when talking on the subject said they did everything in metric. Must be multiple semi-conductor industries .... [big grin] One works in nanometer fab, the other nanoyard fab [wink]. I think it's like a lot of things, 2 people can work in the same industry but depending on where you work, experiences can be very different.
tallgrass said:
I live in the "sciences". I am an ME and work at a place called JPL. Some science happens there I am told. ;D I often think this conversation has more to do with religion and politics than "science". The evangelism is amazing. the mentioned NASA mistake was human error, not an error on metrix inferiority. Unless you want to discuss the failure of EXOMARS, or Beagle or others? It is a long list. Yes, I was there during that time period. Still am..... We put lots of up there and even have left the solar system, voyager, using the standard system. Developed all the propulsion systems using it, on and on. So please spare me the idea that it does not work.
Agree the mars climate orbiter just showed the importance of everyone working to the same systems/specs and being very clear in what you are working in, not an issue of either system. NASA is much more like what I work in, a lot of core components that were designed decades ago, explosive bolts, standard igniters, engines, RTGs, etc, so yeah, you are going to have a lot of inch stuff. It's also what makes change hard. No one wants to be the one to make the change, and their case isn't without merit. And in isolated specialized parts, there is no big need to change them. I've known folks who worked on probes and such, and yeah they idea of using metric made no sense to them, they would say similar things "I worked on the pioneer probes and they are still going, inch is fine". They just didn't see that while it's perfectly true they work, that isn't a basis for not changing and standardizing to the here and now, not commonality with something decades old. Industries with active stuff decades old that has been qualified/certified/tested/etc don't want to change. Whereas say the car industry did full conversion very fast. They are made globally, there was just no way not to change. At some point though, stuff NASA works on will get into a situation where it's time for a new design, then take the list of stuff above, will they stick with inch because of the old stuff was, or convert. That's where so many industries run into issues. Design a new explosive bolt for payload rings and now it's a metric bolt. People will say they can't because it won't be able to be used on the old hardware, or that they will have to update and re-qualify X number of drawings and parts. Others will look at it and say "hey, we don't want to keep dealing with inch stuff sprinkled thru stuff". Which will get a response of "design the whole of the new thing in inch", and then there will be much arguing. Then a few years in the new thing gets cancelled anyways, so then the cycle repeats a few years later.
I also agree, it is a rather religious issue, people don't like change or giving up something they know. This applies to many things.
when it comes to the fence on routers, I use standard. For the simple reason it is easier to work in 64th in fine adjustments. Especially if it is in terms of a rotary scale. Or reverse engineering existing geometry. I have a Shaker fetish. Nothing falls on a mm hash mark. If you want to put it into metric it is simple 3rd grade math and you decide what your tolerance for error is. In this both systems are identical.
