Don’t get me started on measurements of wood which is a bastardised rounding of converted imperial sizes

Isn’t wood measured before it dries out and shrinks? Or something.

That’s backwards too, surely? If he’d filled up with UK gallons he’d have too much fuel?

It was us gallons to litres, it turns out;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/3199429.stm

Forget the the plane, what about the Mars Climate Orbiter?

In 1999 a 125 million dollar satellite probe smashed straight into Mars because the contractors mixed up metric and imperial measurements. 😯

“A NASA review board found that the problem was in the software controlling the orbiter’s thrusters. The software calculated the force the thrusters needed to exert in pounds of force. A separate piece of software took in the data assuming it was in the metric unit: newtons.”

— http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/11/1110mars-climate-observer-report/

I use KM’s. All OS maps are in KM’s, so makes sense to set bike computers up in KM…

+1

The Canadians use a mixture of Imperial and Metric too.

Those on the Gimli Glider found out how ‘interesting’ the confusion between imperial and metric can get.

It’s just another way in which the UK insists on being different (despite it costing us) like driving on the other side of the road compared to the majority of the world.

How does driving on the ‘other side of the road’ cost us compared to the rest of the world?

Yes some cars on the continent/US are cheaper than they are over here but usually this is driven by local taxation regulations or differing regulations relating to vehicle construction quality.

It could be argued that, driving on the same side of the road as one of the biggest car producing countries (Japan) and one of the biggest emerging economies (India) is a good thing.

Love this from the Gimli Glider page: “the cockpit warning system sounded again, this time with a long “bong” that no one present could recall having heard before.”

To paraphrase Broken Arrow: “I don’t know what’s scarier, losing all the engines, or that it happens so often there’s actually a bong for it.”

Isn’t this the kind of thing that dogged the Concorde and Eurobus engineers ? That, and the constant smell of garlic.

But seriously I have held the line for years living in the UK, always talking in meters, kgs etc. It’s mostly do-able, except for driving, but anyways I prefer to express driving in time units e.g. Fort William is 3 hours away.

And on that note, when will somebody metricise time ?? This whole 60 mins/12 hours thing is ridiculous !

Time is actually one of the few non-metric things that makes a degree of sense. 60 has lots of divisors (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30), making it a really good choice for something you want to divide up easily. And we can’t really do much about the number of days in a year. At least it all goes metric when you get to seconds.

It’s a common problem, I’m a machinist and the amount of drawings I have to work with that contain metric and imperial dim’s is a right pita.

not to mention sheet thicknesses in SWG where the number get higher as the material get thinner 😕
always found it oddly satisfying though that 1.6mm = 1/16″ = 16swg give or take a gnats……….

Does imperial have anything smaller than an inch?

It’s all very well using fractions of an inch, but that gets a bit long winded when you get to micrometres or nanometres.

Does anyone use microinches? (aka “imperial bawhair”)

microinches

micor implies a ‘thousandths of’ which is a bit too metric, isn’t it?

GrahamS – 16th of an inch.

Well sure I guess we are stuck with 365.25ish days per year….

And 28-30 days per month.

But why 24 hours ?? Why not 10, with 100 minutes in each. A minute would have to be longer of course.

Although as Douglas Adams rightly pointed out – time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.

Oh and I forgot, barleycorns, 3 in an inch.

Oh and I forgot, barleycorns, 3 in an inch.

Excellent. How many barleycorns in 200 microns?

about 1750 yds in a mile

QED

GrahamS – 16th of an inch.

Don’t forget the smaller one, thou.
As in thousandths of an inch like what proper engineers who make stuff from metal would use.
So there you go, the metric part of a decimal unit.

thou As in thousandths of an inch

Aka one thousand microinches (?in) 😉

Do people genuinely use those? Any engineering work I’ve done at that level of detail has been metric. I guess maybe they might use those units in the States?

yes, people still use it and not just in the states. it’s a common tolerance specification.
i work in an industry where the raw material our machines process is measured in microns, but the equipment we manufacture to process it is manufactured in the US, and therefore built using imps.
we often get the question ‘are you ISO 9000 compliant’ 😆

Cougar
Isn’t wood measured before it dries out and shrinks? Or something.

Probably something like that but I’ve never worked out how a nominal 2″ (50mm) thickness can be 44 or 47mm.

Anyhoo I reckon we should follow the ancient Egyptian lead and go back to base 12, as it appears that they originally devised the 24 hour day.

Or how about light seconds? 🙄 😉 😀

the equipment we manufacture to process it is manufactured in the US, and therefore built using imps.

Must make a right mess. 😉

(cheers for the answer – never seen them used in practise in my field but figured someone must)

Anyhoo I reckon we should follow the ancient Egyptian lead and go back to base 12, as it appears that they originally devised the 24 hour day.

Base 12 actually makes a lot of sense, mostly cos 12 can be divided by 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 whereas 10 can only be divided by 2, 5 and 10.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal

Probably something like that but I’ve never worked out how a nominal 2″ (50mm) thickness can be 44 or 47mm

Isn’t wood measured before planing ?

Isn’t wood measured before planing

it is.

I’m always tempted to ask for the missing 3mm or so in a plastic bag for the rabbits – ‘As I’ve had to pay for it anyway’

Base 12 actually makes a lot of sense

I completely agree.

I’m usually Ok with all of this stuff – except temperature, when relating to weather.

I have to express ‘warm/hot’ days in deg F and in the winter I use deg C when its cold/freezing. Weird.

Or how about light seconds?

That’s a bit unwieldy. You want light-nanoseconds, one of those would be about a foot.

Or, attoParsecs – one of those is about 3cm. Then we could measure speed in attoParsecs per nanofortnight.

I’m usually Ok with all of this stuff – except temperature, when relating to weather.

Temperature is the one that always throws me, I just have no frame of reference for Fahrenheit whatsoever.

The other countries who drive on the right have done so to be in line with the US.

Not sure, wasn’t it Napoleon who set that precedent over here? Something to do with being ambushed?

My father in law gave me a set of tiny sockets to go on a leatherman tool – handy for bike stuff he thought, except when I came to use them I found they were imperial. FFS.

Temperature is the one that always throws me, I just have no frame of reference for Fahrenheit whatsoever.

The rough calculation scale is:
-40 degrees C = -40 degrees F
0 degrees C = 32 degrees F
16 degrees C = 61 degrees F
28 degrees C = 82 degrees F
100 degrees C = 212 degrees F

61 and 82 are easy to remember cos they’re the reverse of the equivalent C temperature (16 and 28). F is still a pointless system though.

What’s that in Centigrade? 😉

F is still a pointless system though.

+1

km for the win.

Rule #24

Not sure, wasn’t it Napoleon who set that precedent over here? Something to do with being ambushed?

Think you may be confusing the historic reasoning behind why in the UK we travel on the left.

In days of yore a knight/gentleman always carried his sword on his left and drew with his right, this makes it awkward to attack someone who is on your right. Therefore to show they had no ill intent when a strangers approached to pass each other on a path/trail etc they would pass right shoulder to right shoulder.

If, on the other hand, someone approached to pass by your left shoulder it could be assumed they may have nefarious intention and you would be in a better position to defend yourself.

Left-handed folk were, and still are, the spawn of Satan of course and aren’t considered at all.

In fibre optics, (some) Americans measure distance in kilo-feet.

Feel sorry for the Irish. Whilst in the UK we have miles outside km on our speedos, it’s not worth it for the car manufacturers to have km outside miles on speedos (just for the Irish), so they just get km. Makes driving in the UK interesting.

sword on his left and drew with his right, this makes it awkward to attack someone who is on your right

Eh? Surely it makes it EASIER to attack you if you are on my right? If you are on my left I’d have to draw and then spin around..?

Eh? Surely it makes it EASIER to attack you if you are on my right? If you are on my left I’d have to draw and then spin around..?

The traditional style of swordplay in England when the idea of travelling on the left arose called for the first attack after the sword is drawn to travel cross body from high right to low left. This is mainly as a result of the heft of swords (two-handed greatswords) of that period and the reliance upon gravity to assist in initial blows. We’re not talking dainty swordsmanship here, rather good old lumps of English bludgeoning steel.

In addition to greatswords, knightly (or arming) swords (with a small shield known as a buckler) were also in use and were often carried when travelling dismounted. As the buckler was the primary means of defence (knightly swords being single-handed weapons) and was also carried in the left hand, by leaving the right side ‘open’ to passers-by they were displaying trust in fellow travellers. Anyone not displaying such trust in return would, as previously mentioned, be considered potentially hostile.

Don’t get me started on measurements of wood which is a bastardised rounding of converted imperial sizes

Isn’t wood measured before it dries out and shrinks? Or something.

Timber dimesions (2″x1″ etc) are the ‘off-saw’ sizes – the size of the cross section as its first sawn, so rough straight-out-the-sawmill 2×1 timber is 2″x1″ after those first cuts, but if its dressed / planed / regularised in any way (which removes material) then that the nominal size is still given – so something sold as dressed 2×1 is actually more like 1.75″ x 0.75″. These days, however, the sizes are usually given in metric and the dressed sizes are usually the actual planed size of the timber.

In length though timber is sold in metric units that approximate to imperial (8ft , 12ft, 16ft), but rounded down to the nearest 10cm, so a nominally 8ft plank will be 2.4m rather than 2.44m Its annoying as lengths are sold like this but sheets are still in full imperial sizes, so if you are making something from full sheets and full lengths, all you lengths are 4cm too short.

Something that I get frustrated with is little unit conversion widgets on computers, phones etc that only handle imperial units expressed in decimal, which is a bit nuts – if I want to convert 5’7″ to metric i have to enter it as 5.58333333333…..

So Napoleon only wanted to be different? Or was a response to the change in sword style or liklihood of ambush from the side?