Metric and Imperial or should I pick just one?

[.matthew.]

I have a better relation with Celsius than I do with Meters.

Yes, plus Celius makes so much more sense than that other weird one that must not be named

 

[Boaz]

IMO, it doesn't matter what scientists, governments, or nations of your target audience uses... what would your characters use?

Agreed. What about Chinese Imperial units? Ancient Egyptians and Israelites both used cubits, but they were different lengths. Before the French introduced the metric system, they used feet... but their feet were a bit longer than the English feet. What do your characters use?

The important thing isn't the unit of measurement, but what that unit of measurement conveys to the reader. This includes considering the setting and what fits the setting. If you were writing a medieval story and your characters were using meters it would feel "wrong" to many readers.

As an American not working in the medical field, hard sciences, nor the military, I intellectually understand the metric system... but I don't have any real practical knowledge. I kind of convert meters to yards to understand. But getting to longer distances, I don't have a clue as to the distance of 500 kilometers... I mean I'd guess it's around 300 miles. I do not know at all how much one kilogram is.

What I'm trying to say is that if your audience is supposed to not really know the distances, then use li, or furlongs, or fathoms, or cubits. If your audience should really understand the distances, then use precise terms that they know.

 

[Pyan]

The important thing isn't the unit of measurement, but what that unit of measurement conveys to the reader

Absolutely.
It's interesting that as an extremely general rule*, SF stories tend to use metric measurements (The ship came to a stop 10,000k from the edge of the atmosphere) whereas Fantasy tends to Imperial ( The yeoman's bow was a good six feet long), archaic ('Tis still a couple of leagues to the city walls, Sire') or made-up-by-the-author ('I'faith, my lord, I could throw the Cr'aggor at least 25 yms with one hand!')
Is there a feeling that metric is more futuristic than Imperial, or does the use of Imperial or archaic provide a 'softer' feel to the fantasy? Either way, using the 'appropriate' measurement system adds an almost unconscious depth to the narrative.

Oddly enough, though, probably one of the the most used measurements in hard SF is neither - a light-year is neither metric or imperial per se, but stands as a distance in its own right.**

*I'm sure there are exceptions, but when I say extremely general, what I mean is actually extremely general...
** If you really want to baffle the reader, use parsecs - everyone knows the Han Solo quote, but I'll bet 99% don't know how big it is...

 

[Overread]

Pyan the Parsec in Starwars is a great example. At no point in the film do we learn how big a parsec is, we have no quotation for how fast any of the ships go in numbers in relation to each other. Yet by the way Han boasts and the others react and talk about the ship we get the idea that the Falcon is FAST. Perhaps not as he boasts "the fastest in the Galaxy" but certainly faster than the average ship of its class and size. Having a massive engine at the back of course helps reinforce this point.
In fact we don't need to know how long a parsec is, its a world building detail that is important for the creator to know so that they can maintain consistency within the setting, but for the viewer its not all that important to follow the story.

Personally I do find that metric feels not so much futuristic but modern and onward. So if I see it in fantasy stories it feels wrong because part of my mind is going "but it was only invented and put into general use within my lifetime".

 

[Pyan]

And if you didn't know what a parsec is, you'd think it was a measurement of time, going by the quote. It took some frantic reconning in the later films to explain away the probable error made by George Lucas back in 1977...

Interestingly, EE (Doc) Smith used parsecs almost exclusively in the Lensman stories, written (mainly) in the 1930s. Was this an early example of 'futuristic' measurement to emphasise the scientifiction-ness of the story?

 

[Alex The G and T]

I've been in general agreement that, so called Hard Science Fiction should use metric measurements, as scientists do; and Fantasy should use whatever measurements fit the tone of the writing: Furlongs, Bowshots, Day's Rides, Leagues... Make some up.

*****

I knew what a parsec is, mostly. Seen the term used, in Science Fiction, often enough; but @pyan s and @Overread s comments got me wondering how long the term has existed and what, exactly, is it.

So I found this interesting:

"The parsec unit was probably first suggested by the British astronomer Herbert Hall Turner in 1913.

"A parsec is obtained by the use of parallax and trigonometry, and is defined as the distance at which one astronomical unit subtends an angle of one arcsecond[1] (1/3600 of a degree)

Parsec - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Danny McG]

If it's science fiction set in space then of course we use Imperial.
I know this from Star Trek TOS.

 

[DLCroix]

Hi all. I am new here, but IMO I think it depends on the context (historical, for example) and your target reader. Although I understand that to measure altitude feet and miles are used for the sea. In fact, a sailor talking about kilometres would look weird. I guess.

Yes, it is good to rely on the fandom's historical database. And in Star Trek they are heirs to the terrestrial culture, then it's fine.

Even if it is the case that a non-terrestrial species speaks of another measurement system, I think you can use it as a resource for one human character to translate it to another in terrestrial terms (basically that translation is for the reader).

 

[Joshua Jones]

Hi all. I am new here, but IMO I think it depends on the context (historical, for example) and your target reader. Although I understand that to measure altitude feet and miles are used for the sea. In fact, a sailor talking about kilometres would look weird. I guess.

Welcome to the Chrons!

And yes, I completely agree with you on this. Ultimately, I don't think its so significant a matter that it would cause a problem with either direction one goes, but we writers do rather like obsessing over such things don't we?

 

[Parson]

For me, it's the opposite - which might be due to my background with computer management. I have a better relation with Celsius than I do with Meters.

My sense is that you are in a substantial minority here. Meters are used even here in the States as the standard unit for track and field. Kilometers are used in signage and speedometers as a secondary. Tools, especially new ones, use centimeters and millimeters extensively. So it would be quite surprising if more people did not have some sense of distances using the metric system. But temperatures are nearly never given in Celsius here.

It's interesting that as an extremely general rule*, SF stories tend to use metric measurements

I agree with this. In fact, I think you could build a very good case that anyone who reads much S.F. at all, must have at least a passing understanding of metric distances. --- So if you are writing a S.F. book I wouldn't hesitate a moment to use metric.

 

[DLCroix]

It's terrible! But what can we do? Sometimes after repeating a word in my mind, it starts to lose its meaning as if it were disintegrating. Has it happened to you? But I suppose that is the writer's job, to try not to miss any detail. However, this causes a problem, it distracts you from what you are actually writing.

And yes, I completely agree with you on this. Ultimately, I don't think its so significant a matter that it would cause a problem with either direction one goes, but we writers do rather like obsessing over such things don't we?

 

[Cydramech]

My sense is that you are in a substantial minority here.

Yeah, um.... about that, I could've told you as much. No sense necessary. :/

 

[msstice]

10,000 km
-or-
10,000 km (6,000 mi)

I would say, it depends on a number of things. Overall, the second form looks very journalistic. Newspapers and magazines will use both together to try and reach both classes of audiences. So, if you are going for that kind of dry formal tone, this will work. Is this a narrated book, or a book written in the third person? Is it set in a time when such measurement units will be understood?

When I think about this question, in a hard sci-fi context (which I think is your context) I'd use one set of units and stick with it. Using a second one parenthetically seems a bit awkward to me. In a non hard sci-fi context, I would try to use more relatable units, like sizes of common objects or landmarks. Depending on the context of the people in the story, other units might be used. In a make believe world, you could probably come up with your own unit system.