← Back to context

Comment by gleenn

6 days ago

One of the Mars landers famously failed due to unit conversion errors from metric to standard.

I didn't know the imperial system was named "standard". Funny, cause its everything but standard both internationally and its definitions (which are not standard as based on SI)

  • Claiming something isn't standard because it isn't based on SI is entirely circular in the case of weights and measures.

    That said I wish the US would bite the bullet and make the switch. Mandating dual labeling on everything would be a great start. Then in 20 years we could narrow it back down to one.

  • I know you’re being snarky, but the US system is not “imperial” anyway. It’s properly “US Customary” but is often called “US Standard.”

Wasn't it (also?) the Ariane V flight in 1996? Oh, NVM, that was an overflow error.