Imperial Nonsense
Discussion
eezeh said:
Yes but saying that asides from height and weight of myself (which i credit to my parents) I measured distances in meters, weights of everything else in grams, kilos, fluids in litres etc.
I asked because my sons learned only metric but think of their own measurements in Imperial. eezeh said:
Having only ever been taught metric it was quite an adjustment switching over to imperial for work. 
Stll remember back in 86 starting my apprenticeship on the railway, the very first thing we had to learn was imperial measurements. All but 2 of us (who were 1year older) had been taught metric at school. Not much use in the world of work back then.....................................I was working in imperial at school but in 1970 the move to college brought the new SI units, ie Metres and millimetres. We were taught they were the two alternative units, not centimetres or decametres.
So why is every bit of furniture, parcel sizes etc advertised in cms, depth of snow in cms. Feck off it's mm. or since we are in the UK inches!
So why is every bit of furniture, parcel sizes etc advertised in cms, depth of snow in cms. Feck off it's mm. or since we are in the UK inches!
Pistonheads and no-one has yet mentioned Whitworth 
I love this bit from the Wikipedia entry:
I love this bit from the Wikipedia entry:
Wikipedia said:
The widely used (except in the US) British Standard Pipe thread, as defined by the ISO 228 standard (formerly BS-2779), uses Whitworth standard thread form. Even in the United States, personal computer liquid cooling components use the G1⁄4 thread from this series.
The Leica Thread-Mount used on rangefinder cameras and on many enlarging lenses is 1 17⁄32 in by 26 turns-per-inch Whitworth, an artifact of this having been developed by a German company specializing in microscopes and thus equipped with tooling capable of handling threads in inches and in Whitworth.
The 5⁄32 in Whitworth threads have been the standard Meccano thread for many years and it is still the thread in use by the French Meccano Company.
Stage lighting suspension bolts are most commonly 3⁄8 in and 1⁄2 in BSW. Companies that initially converted to metric threads have converted back, after complaints that the finer metric threads increased the time and difficulty of setup, which often takes place at the top of a ladder or scaffold.
Fixings for garden gates traditionally used Whitworth carriage bolts, and these are still the standard supplied in UK and Australia.
The Leica Thread-Mount used on rangefinder cameras and on many enlarging lenses is 1 17⁄32 in by 26 turns-per-inch Whitworth, an artifact of this having been developed by a German company specializing in microscopes and thus equipped with tooling capable of handling threads in inches and in Whitworth.
The 5⁄32 in Whitworth threads have been the standard Meccano thread for many years and it is still the thread in use by the French Meccano Company.
Stage lighting suspension bolts are most commonly 3⁄8 in and 1⁄2 in BSW. Companies that initially converted to metric threads have converted back, after complaints that the finer metric threads increased the time and difficulty of setup, which often takes place at the top of a ladder or scaffold.
Fixings for garden gates traditionally used Whitworth carriage bolts, and these are still the standard supplied in UK and Australia.
A Winner Is You said:
I was always very confused about how Fahrenheit works until I was told to think of it as a percentage of hot - eg 40 is not a lot of hot but 90 would be. Still makes zero sense why you would use it today though.
Logically, Fahrenheit makes pretty much as much sence as Celsius. Neither is the SI unit and both have their zero point based on something rather arbitrary. You could argue that Celsius is slightly more sensible because it shares its unit delta with the SI unit, but it's still pretty arbitrary. I suppose at least converting between Censius and Kelvin is fairly trivial. kambites said:
Logically, Fahrenheit makes pretty much as much sence as Celsius. Neither is the SI unit and both have their zero point based on something rather arbitrary. You could argue that Celsius is slightly more sensible because it shares its unit delta with the SI unit, but it's still pretty arbitrary. I suppose at least converting between Censius and Kelvin is fairly trivial.
Fahrenheit is really practical. You set zero at the freezing point of equal quantities of ice, water and ammonium chloride. What could be simpler?DickyC said:
The US standardised their weights and measures using the British system. Later on, when the British standardised, the system had changed and this is why the units are at best similar.
US Congress passed the Metric Bill in 1866. They just don't want to rush things.
They've made a start.US Congress passed the Metric Bill in 1866. They just don't want to rush things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_19
kambites said:
A Winner Is You said:
I was always very confused about how Fahrenheit works until I was told to think of it as a percentage of hot - eg 40 is not a lot of hot but 90 would be. Still makes zero sense why you would use it today though.
Logically, Fahrenheit makes pretty much as much sence as Celsius. Neither is the SI unit and both have their zero point based on something rather arbitrary. You could argue that Celsius is slightly more sensible because it shares its unit delta with the SI unit, but it's still pretty arbitrary. I suppose at least converting between Censius and Kelvin is fairly trivial. 
Rain and therefore groundwater tends to freeze at close to zero, and water is a key constituent of things that we regularly freeze, such as food. Yes, I know, these things aren't pure water, but that's rather pedantic; the freezing point of rainwater and water in fruit and veg is so close to zero that it makes no difference to most people, particularly seeing as the temperature at the ground, or freezer shelf, will be slightly different to what we measure anyway. -32, on the other hand, is way off any of those everyday measures.DickyC said:
eezeh said:
Yes but saying that asides from height and weight of myself (which i credit to my parents) I measured distances in meters, weights of everything else in grams, kilos, fluids in litres etc.
I asked because my sons learned only metric but think of their own measurements in Imperial. I grew up with both - my parents and grandparents taught me pounds, ounces and stones, but at school I learnt metric. From a young age I thought that imperial was just stupid. How can I possible relate 1 pound of butter to 4 ounces of sugar, to 10 stones of me, 4 hundredweight of motorbike or 1 ton of car? None of it relates to the other and the conversions are numbers like 16, 14 etc. The arithmetic required to do anything with those measures is crazy.
Metric just uses the same base that we count in: decimal. So just like I know that 10 is a tenth of 100, I immediately know that 2.3kg is 2300g and that 250kg is 0.25 tonnes. How many pounds in a quarter of an imperial ton?
grumpy52 said:
As the vast majority of the driving public didn't have a metric education they default to imperial.
The vast majority of width restrictions are signed in imperial but I do wonder why most of them are 6' 6" which is the nominal for a 2m conversion .
Really?The vast majority of width restrictions are signed in imperial but I do wonder why most of them are 6' 6" which is the nominal for a 2m conversion .
I'm 43 and we never did anything in imperial at school, everything was metric.
UK life expectancy is 80. Assuming people drive until they die, this makes the average driving period is 64 years (80 minus 16). This makes the median age of a driver is (64/2)+16 = 48.
Therefore, claiming the "vast majority" were educated in imperial is clearly false. At best it is a slight majority. However, if people over 48 were educated in metric, then it isn't a majority at all.
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