Empirical units?

Question

Okay, i just started college, and was forced to take Physics 2A in order to be able to take 1A later.

Now i am not new to Physics, i learned and loved the subject for an entire year and scored a 4 on the AP exam, so know that i am not an idiot who needs to start at base-level, my school just didnt care and made me take it anyway

so first day's homework assignment was easy, but i couldn't help but notice everything was in American units....

WHY?

Why use Empirical? it is pointless and useless, metric is easier to convert within it's own system, if you go on an international level and measure things in ft, you will get laughed at and to top it all off, Metric is not so confusing when it comes to weight and mass.

Does anyone know why my professor is teaching in Empirical?

Do all college professors teach Empirical?

Ah yes, Imperial woops XD

anyway it's not the text that is using it, in fact the text is the exact same book i used in high school, it is the out of book questions my Professor assigns.

thanks for catching my mistake skeptik

Answer 1

Just an aside, but I think the term you're thinking of is Imperial units, not Empirical.

But anyway. I think the first section probably uses Imperial units because most of the students have been using them almost exclusively all their lives. It gives them an introduction to concepts without confusing them right off the bat with unfamiliar measurements.

If you look further into the textbook, you will most likely find that it switches to metric. After likely spending an entire chapter on familiarizing the student with the metric system, and why, as you already know, it's better suited to the task. Possibly even in your very next chapter.

Answer 2

SAE or Imperial units have been used in the states since inception. It is the dae facto standard. The US did try to transition to metric but it failed.
Please be aware that they are still used in the scientific community in USA. The most memorable example being the Hubble space telescope which had the lens ground to the wrong shape because of confusion in what units are being used. It was a multinational project. They did work around the issue by putting a corrective lens on the end I think. However it just goes to show that even rocket scientists can mess up when they assume (makes and "a-ss" our of "u" and "me").

Answer 3

I think you mean Impirial (as in British) units. Empirical means that it's derived from physical measurement. In that sense, all units are empirical.

I think most physics professors in college teach in SI units, since that's the system that is used by the vast majority of scientists. Introductory physics texts are also usually in SI. Sometimes theorists like to teach in Gaussian units, which are completely impractical but make the equations look prettier. So, why your professor is teaching physics with English units is a mystery... why don't you ask him?