Imperial vs Metric

[D1042 Western Princess]

And it's not a case of not being able to convert  metric to proper measures, but having NO interest in enforced metrication for political reasons in the UK.
I'll say no more on that because I promised not to get political on this site.

How is this still a political issue? Does anybody seriously advocate abandoning SI units in science and engineering? Even UKIP aren't that daft!

Cheers, NeMo

Under British law it is ILLEGAL to use other than Imperial measures. The law dates from the 11th century and has never been repealed, therefore any NON IMPERIAL units of weight or measure used in the UK are illegal.
That's what makes it a political issue.

[mod]This information has been split as it was totally irrelevant to the original topic[/mod]

[railsquid]

Not a lawyer, but pretty sure an existing law does not have to be explicitly "repealed", and newer legislation covering the same area will supercede it by default. Just saying, like...

[georgehgv]

And it's not a case of not being able to convert  metric to proper measures, but having NO interest in enforced metrication for political reasons in the UK.
I'll say no more on that because I promised not to get political on this site.

How is this still a political issue? Does anybody seriously advocate abandoning SI units in science and engineering? Even UKIP aren't that daft!

Cheers, NeMo

Under British law it is ILLEGAL to use other than Imperial measures. The law dates from the 11th century and has never been repealed, therefore any NON IMPERIAL units of weight or measure used in the UK are illegal.
That's what makes it a political issue.

This is the 21st Century, so leave the quill and the chains and furlongs where they belong in history, imperial and metric measurements have and I guess will be used side by side for years to come, in my entire working life spanning 45 years plus sheet materials have been sold in mm, timber also but still people refer to 8x4 sheets and 2x1 framing Imperial will last for as long as individuals remember and use them I reckon, Law or no Law, Repeal or otherwise.

[DesertHound]

Most places don't sell imperial screws for my Poole Farish chassis these days, but wherever I go in the world, I insist on asking for a pint ... they always know what I mean, even if they do bring me 500ml 

[NeMo]

Under British law it is ILLEGAL to use other than Imperial measures. The law dates from the 11th century and has never been repealed, therefore any NON IMPERIAL units of weight or measure used in the UK are illegal.
That's what makes it a political issue.

My query isn't about the law. But about real, practical applications of the SI system*. Within science and engineering SI is now ubiquitous, and anyone under the age of 50 will have been taught essentially nothing but the SI system in maths and science lessons. The benefits of using the same SI measurements are vast, not least of all because the Base 10 system works nicely with mathematical applications on computers such as spreadsheets and calculators.

Other than making people over the age of 50 feel happier, I can't think of any single practical reason why switching back to Imperial measurements makes sense.

In fact maintaining some older units, like calories and miles/hour, cause problems for science teachers. Joules are what's taught in school for the unit of energy, they're what's used in modern physics, and they fit nicely with other standard units like Newtons, kilograms and metres (i.e., one joule is the energy used exerting one Newton across one metre). But calories... for a start there's two of them, a physics one based on doing work and a nutritional one, the latter being a thousand of the "small" calories. So right there you have the confusion between a calorie you'd use doing an experiment and the calorie you see on a food packet. This confusion carries on with miles (nautical versus statute), gallons (including UK and US gallons), tons (again, US versus UK varieties) and so on.

Everyone on the planet agrees on what joules, metres, etc. should be (putting aside discussions on the best way to define them, which have varied as technology has improved).

Of course I don't have a problem with buying beer in pints or road signs with miles on them. Customary units in situations where precision isn't important is fine. But expecting schools to teach two sets of measurements is not realistic**, especially when one of them isn't compatible with decimals so can't be processed with a calculator or spreadsheet.

Over to you, D1042... why should Britain go back to miles, feet, pounds and British thermal units? What practical advantages would there be?

Cheers, NeMo

*What the layperson often calls the "metric" system, though they're not the same thing
**It's hard enough teaching the average British teenager a single set of measurements.

[Caz]

I used to stick my head in the sand but after moving to Spain I had to start using metric and now find it really easy to use and visualize.  It is so much better than using something like 63/64ths etc.  Think the distances took longest to assimilate as a mile was a mile but now kms are just as easy. 

[Agrippa]

If we went fully metric (which I would support) it would have huge cultural
implications, having to change such things as

500 miles by the Proclaimers
16 tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford
A thing called love by Johnny Cash
The Charge of the Light Brigade poem
Terror at 20,000 feet movie
The League of Gentlemen
The Merchant of Venice (Pound of flesh)
The names of The Yardbirds, Michael Foot, Miles Davis

That's enough silly changes (Ed)

[JasonBz]

I mainly use Imperial measures and have to use my inbuilt "ready reckoner" to convert most things in the Builders Merchants etc
Its not that I'm "metric illiterate" just that  I can instinctively visualise say a piece of 2x4 or an eight of an inch - though I must say millimetres are a bit handier than some of the more obscure fractinos of an inch Then again that is what he thou is for.

Use of Metric was legalised in this country in 1897 via the 1896 Weights & Measures Act.

Interestingly perhaps, WO Bentley used the metric system on his cars from day one

[Sprintex]

If we went fully metric (which I would support) it would have huge cultural
implications, having to change such things as

500 miles by the Proclaimers

"I would walk eight-hundred-and-four-point-six-seven-two kilometres, and I would walk eight-hundred-and-four-point-six-seven-two more . . . "

Doesn't really trip off the tongue does it?


Paul

[DesertHound]

NeMo

I agree with most of what you say and I think metric has an advantage over imperial, predominantly because of the "divisible by ten" factor, which is far easier for people's brains to cope with.

That said, we are where we are because of history. In my industry (aviation) we predominantly use metric, although feet are used for altitude measurements (except for one or two countries in the world) and if we wanted to move away from nautical miles then we'd have to completely rethink how we measure the earth, since it's inexplicably linked to minutes of latitude.

I'm not saying metric isn't the way forward, but in certain applications we have imperial for a very good reason, normally to do with how a system was built, and changing that system just isn't practical.

Where it is practical, I imagine we'll continue to shift to metric, which is fine by me.

Dan

[martink]

Mixed units are in common use in aviation worldwide - altitudes are in feet (except for Russia & China), long distances are in nautical miles, while short distances such as runway lengths are in either feet or meters depending on local rules.

The International Space Station uses imperial units throughout, though participating countries can use some very odd metric values for their parts.

Specialised fields have their own peculiar units, though these are often just multiples of metric units: Angstroms, Barns, SNUs, etc.  Digital electronics goes even further and warps the metric system so that kilo is defined as 1024 instead of 1000.

And we as modellers need to be fluent in both systems since old plans, maps and other documents can be in imperial, often including older units like chains for curve radii.  And don't forget our bastardised hybrids like 2mm to the foot.

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from!

[Malc]

Digital electronics goes even further and warps the metric system so that kilo is defined as 1024 instead of 1000

Not any more. The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The International System of Units (SI) defines the prefix kilo as 1000 (103); therefore one kilobyte is 1000 bytes. The unit symbol for the kilobyte is kB.

[Agrippa]

.

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from!

If you have more than one standard are they all standards?

[DesertHound]

Martink

Even the Russians now use feet above transition level (whereby altitude is referenced to a standard atmosphere of 1013 hectopascals).

So let's call it 1.5 countries ... China and "Russia by half" 

I keep meaning to look up what the North Koreans use! 

Dan

[MalcolmInN]

This information has been split as it was totally irrelevant to the original topic

Quite right too ! 
The only problem is that someone said they hated Slugs and Poundels , , , I dont know who or where and have not the stamina to go looking 

But for my 3/6d :-
I had to start off with slugs and stones and hundredweights and etc and ,, was very happy when we were converted to cgs unit working - phys, chem and math started to make sense !
Then we were converted to SI, didnt see the need mostly  but it was easy, usually just a shift of the decimal and a change of name.
But then the thought police moved in and removed bits of one's anatomy if one didnt use meaningless units like "Hertz" instead of the self-contained "cycles per second" (that any child can understand), Newtons and Pascals instead of xxxx and yyyyy ( go on, quickly now, without thinking fill in xxx and yyyy lol )

Another effect of being as old as I am -
in the lab I am quite happy with 20deg C but not sure if it is warm/comfortable enough to go and sit outside in the garden and watch the birds until I am told it is above 75F !

Heho, the tangled webs we do weave, just a min. I'll go ask CharlesI what his position is , , , ooops.