What does this measurement mean

[santaman2000]

UK is fully Metric. Only older people still are used to the Imperial from the old days.

US and a couple other countries are not yet there

Is beer in the UK not sold by the pint anymore then? How's the speed limit listed now?

I'm an idiot, i was just thinking of distance measurement (mm,cm,m,km)
Out of those i'v never heard of angstrom at all and didn't know farad was a measurement. Heard of farady and his cage of course

No, you're not an idiot. Those are indeed examples but not something we'd think of in everyday conversation. At least one of them (Hertz) is not even different from the non metric (cycles) Just a different name.

 

[Janne]

mmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[Robson Valley]

sunndog: it's one of those "need to know" kind of things. Lots of it, you and I have never used.
Even metric prefixes had to be agreed upon. Stuff like atto- and femto-

People are still bitching about the accurate measurement of a meter.
Because liter is derived from that and using water, so is the kilogram.

When the Systeme Internationale (metric system) was agreed to and many countries signed off on that,
there were a bunch of old names in the metric system that had to go, like Angstrom.
The temperature scale isn't correctly "called" the centigrade scale, even though it is 100 units.
You have to kiss Celsius' ring for temperatures.
Even so, old man Kelvin stayed in the club with his absolute temperature scale.
So 273K is the same as 0C. Sensible, huh?

Stuff like degrees, minutes and seconds of arc survived.

Angstrom is 0.1 nanometer and damn handy as a unit of measurement in electron microscopy.
The danger these days is that young researchers read the old scientific literature, see 10A as a measurement
and may be incapable of translating correctly as 1.0nm.

I do believe that there are people who are genuinely disturbed by the prospect of becoming bilingual for metric and imperial.

I was living in Melbourne when the Aussies began to shift to the SI metric system. It was sudden.
One morning on the radio, the weather guy said it would be a fine day with a temp of 17 Celsius.
Moment of silence.
Then he asked: "Do you want to know what 17C is like? Go outside."
Too funny.

 

[Robbi]

+ 1 well said Sir.

I certainly know those things, and many of my aquaintance do as well. I can perfectly well visualise, accurately, dimensions in either imperial or metric or a mixture of both. It's been a constant source of wonder to me that so many folk have problems with it all; I think it's a mindset thing.

The old system was never illogical, just different, same as our old monetary system. One of those wonderfully quirky things about being a native of these blessed islands!

 

[Janne]

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[Robson Valley]

Like I said: there are disturbed people who are frightened by the possible ability to be bilingual.
The poor sods have been hammered in to the peg-hole to expect one thing and one thing only.
They scream and natter in the fear of the new. The old is not erased.

Macaroon understands how convenient it is to be fluent. So do I.

 

[Janne]

Mmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[sunndog]

sunndog: it's one of those "need to know" kind of things. Lots of it, you and I have never used.
Even metric prefixes had to be agreed upon. Stuff like atto- and femto-

People are still bitching about the accurate measurement of a meter.
Because liter is derived from that and using water, so is the kilogram.

When the Systeme Internationale (metric system) was agreed to and many countries signed off on that,
there were a bunch of old names in the metric system that had to go, like Angstrom.
The temperature scale isn't correctly "called" the centigrade scale, even though it is 100 units.
You have to kiss Celsius' ring for temperatures.
Even so, old man Kelvin stayed in the club with his absolute temperature scale.
So 273K is the same as 0C. Sensible, huh?

Stuff like degrees, minutes and seconds of arc survived.

Angstrom is 0.1 nanometer and damn handy as a unit of measurement in electron microscopy.
The danger these days is that young researchers read the old scientific literature, see 10A as a measurement
and may be incapable of translating correctly as 1.0nm.

I do believe that there are people who are genuinely disturbed by the prospect of becoming bilingual for metric and imperial.

I was living in Melbourne when the Aussies began to shift to the SI metric system. It was sudden.
One morning on the radio, the weather guy said it would be a fine day with a temp of 17 Celsius.
Moment of silence.
Then he asked: "Do you want to know what 17C is like? Go outside."
Too funny.

I was cursing myself because i did know most of those you mentioned. Just as santaman said, not in everyday conversation and didn't spring to mind

I'm bilingual to a degree. mm/m/km....cm is the least popular here. We just use mm. Kids are starting to use cm though
Inches/yards/miles are no bother, the odd fraction of an inch will catch me out now and again through lack of practice. Mostly use fractions on vehicle fastners

Do you use things like CWT in america? (112lb/ a 'hundredweight')
I know lots of your liquid measures are different to ours. Gallon/pint/quart/fluid ounce, oh and tons

cant see us ever driving on the right (wrong) side of the road.
As a biker the left makes more sense to me. At a stop you put your left foot down...driving on the left that foot is towards the curb. Driving on the right that foot is into traffic

Only people over about 60 still talk in fahrenheit. I cant even spell it without looking lol

Overall metric does make more sense to me. Decimal measures are just so much more efficient than all those fractions. Esp for day to day use

 

[Robson Valley]

Canada is officially SI Metric. The conversion began in the mid-1970's and was done in a really sloppy, half-a$$ed fashion.
That's left our green grocers and butchers still (!!) double-labelling everything.
Made sense for international trade which means more than coast-to-coast confusion.

On this continent, most imperial measure has to be used in trade with the US.
I think they are the very last metric hold-out on the whole planet.

We used the Imperial gallon of 160 oz, based upon 4 x 40 oz quarts.
That's almost exactly 4.5 liters.
The Americans use a 32 oz quart for a 128 oz gallon.

CWT is unseen here. It's pounds of 16 oz up to 2,000 which is a ton.
No mix of 14 pound stone-things.

Left-hand drive, on the right side of the road, is no big deal. It's of major advantage to the majority who are right-handed.
Just depends on what you get used to. Getting into, or trying to get into the wrong side of a vehicle is good for a laugh.
The greatest danger I found was looking the wrong way for traffic before crossing a street.

 

[Janne]

mmmmmmmmmmm

 

[tombear]

I'm really not so sure metric has caught on in the UK despite it being official, We still think in miles not km, especially with regards to speed, we drink pints not half litres, shirts are bought by collar size or inches round the chest, ask most people including kids and they wear size 8s rather than 42s or what ever. For science and industry metrics the norm but for the rest, you have a quarter pound burger not whatever that is in grams etc etc amen. Ask some one their height and it's hardly ever in metric, I've never heard someone described as a strapping 183cmer.

So long as it's clearly marked what the measurements are it doesn't really matter. Bizarrely I think in feet, inches and millimetres, just about 1/25s of an inch! I personally do find imperial more natural, I walk, on level ground, with no load, at almost exactly 3 miles an hour, from nose to finger tip it's as near to a yard as makes no difference. Each to their own, it's when they don't specify it becomes troublesome.

ATB

tom

 

[John Fenna]

I'm really not so sure metric has caught on in the UK despite it being official, We still think in miles not km, especially with regards to speed, we drink pints not half litres, shirts are bought by collar size or inches round the chest, ask most people including kids and they wear size 8s rather than 42s or what ever. For science and industry metrics the norm but for the rest, you have a quarter pound burger not whatever that is in grams etc etc amen. Ask some one their height and it's hardly ever in metric, I've never heard someone described as a strapping 183cmer.

So long as it's clearly marked what the measurements are it doesn't really matter. Bizarrely I think in feet, inches and millimetres, just about 1/25s of an inch! I personally do find imperial more natural, I walk, on level ground, with no load, at almost exactly 3 miles an hour, from nose to finger tip it's as near to a yard as makes no difference. Each to their own, it's when they don't specify it becomes troublesome.

ATB

tom

Knives are inches long but millimeters thick ... Rucksacks carry pounds in weight but liters of volume ... fields are in acreage but rivers flow in cubic meters per second..
Life at 60 is very confusing!

 

[Macaroon]

Knives are inches long but millimeters thick ... Rucksacks carry pounds in weight but liters of volume ... fields are in acreage but rivers flow in cubic meters per second..
Life at 60 is very confusing!

What'll it be like at (hopefully) 80?

 

[Janne]

mmmmmmmmmmm

 

[santaman2000]

Ironically here it's a mish-mash. our bulk drink bottles (soft drinks) are in metric (a liter or a multiple thereof) but most of us still refer to them, as quarts. Pet food is still labelled in pounds but the number of pounds per bag make it obvious it was packed somewhere metric.

As RV said, we have no "stones." It's 16 ounces per pound and no measure between a pound and a ton (2000 pounds for a standard ton ----- more for a "long" ton, and less for a "short" ton)

Is flight altitude in the UK still measured in feet? Is Flight Level 320 (32,000 feet0 or Flight Level 360 (36,000 feet) still prescribed by ATC?

Ironically we (the US) still operate in the old system because of the UK. Almost immediately after the Constitution was adopted/ratified in 1787 one of the first acts of Congress was to prescribe the official weights & measures. There was almost a unanimous desire for metric, but our major trading partner (the UK) was using imperial so it would have been impractical.

 

[sunndog]

Ironically here it's a mish-mash. our bulk drink bottles (soft drinks) are in metric (a liter or a multiple thereof) but most of us still refer to them, as quarts. Pet food is still labelled in pounds but the number of pounds per bag make it obvious it was packed somewhere metric.

As RV said, we have no "stones." It's 16 ounces per pound and no measure between a pound and a ton (2000 pounds for a standard ton ----- more for a "long" ton, and less for a "short" ton)

Is flight altitude in the UK still measured in feet? Is Flight Level 320 (32,000 feet0 or Flight Level 360 (36,000 feet) still prescribed by ATC?

Ironically we (the US) still operate in the old system because of the UK. Almost immediately after the Constitution was adopted/ratified in 1787 one of the first acts of Congress was to prescribe the official weights & measures. There was almost a unanimous desire for metric, but our major trading partner (the UK) was using imperial so it would have been impractical.

Thats really interesting. America, the last great stalwart of imperial measures actually wanted the metric system from birth

AFAIK we still use feet for flight altitude

Surprised no-one has mentioned pounds, shillings, and pence yet

Wonder if he ever got an axe handle?

 

[Robbi]

Wonder if he ever got an axe handle?

Brilliant !

 

[Janne]

mmmmmmmmmmmmm