Ban the Imperial Measures Forever!

[Stevo69]

Originally Posted by slice of heaven

I'm fluent in both and I'll use either at any time depending what suits, I also use centimetres

Nearly 4 decades on and the imperial measurements are still being used by everyone, even youngsters, without a second thought. Ask them what size bike they ride, if it's not a racing bike it's stated in inches.
What size rims do you have on your car? 13s 14s 15s 16s 17s ... thats inches.

Australia fully converting to metric is a milestone that's yet to be reached.

I am the same. I'm fluent in both. Although I am under the age of 40 (just), and grew up learning metric at school, my grandfather taught me fluent imperial. Somehow (don't ask me the reason) it made as much sense. I am quite capable in measuring in inches, feet, yards and on occasions, chains! With my Dob project, I am using imperial. and not because Kriege's book is all imperial. Because I thought it would be a unique characteristic for the scope. A sort of dedication and in memory of some people who have helped me along my life's journey including my grandfather. It's a personal thing.

In the words (and voice) of Grandpa Simpson: "The Metric system is the tool of the devil!"

and

".... Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. Give me five bees for a quarter you'd say...." audio here


hoo roo,
Steve

[Tannehill]

Good point, I think hanging on to inches and miles is an impediment for the U.S. in terms of communication and such. Most Americans with a science background are able to cope, but the look of distress for most Americans, when faced with km and cm, is quite heart-wrenching. Almost as sad as when they are asked to surrender their assault rifles (used for home defense only, of course).

Also, having all those different English language variances...civilized, civilised....makes for confused spell-checking software. Also, I agree, it's really a torch, not a flash light...since - after all - there is no flashing involved. Silly to call it a flashlight.

In return for accomodating the rest of the world in these issues, the U.S. will - in return - ask all other English speaking countries to pronounce all the letters in the alphabet. Henceforth, please pronounce it caRRR, not cahhh. PeteRRR, not Pet-ah. Etc. And, let's all drive on the "right" side, shall we? The car (cahhh) was invented in the U.S. so it's only fair.

Resistance...is...futile....you will be assimilated.....

Originally Posted by AJames

Hi Y'all....

I have a question to pose...

Should we not have a total ban on using inches to describe the sizes of telescope aperture and stick to the metric system only - expressed either centimetres or metres?

With the Yanks and the Brits persisting with their antiquated imperial measures, surely its time we finally sink their non compliance with the rest of the civilised world?

AJames

[rmcpb (Rob)]

Originally Posted by Glenhuon

New clocks in time units of ten.
Something like 100 units a day (instead of 24 hours a day) 100 milli-units per unit (instead of minutes) and 100 Micro-units per milli-unit (instead of seconds).

Just been watching Battlestar Galactica, they beat ya to it, time is measured in Centons

Why not base it on a day being equal to ten whiles?? Would make much more sense when you say "See ya in a while."

[AJames]

Tannehill, et.al.

Oh Dear oh dear, you known a culture is really in trouble when they have to use Borgisms to justify their own existence...

As for your parochial schisms for pronunciation, however, such adoption is even worst than the metric system. Needless to say that the "zee" for "z" is an Americanism we can all do without... As for the "confused spell-checking software" you can go past Microsoft's Word. Why is it that you cannot set the default language in word, without the program assuming and text pasted into it is automatically "English (US)" - also known as the greatest of the known oxymorons?

US Imperialism, you bet ya!!

But seriously folks... homogeneous (Note: NOT homogenous - having a common decent with the real English language - as the yanks often assume American English must be) adoption of standard systems like has real benefits in calculation in mathematics and the sciences. Clearly, the means of calculating something is not in the units of measures but in the meaning of the results. For example, of the top of you head, how many feet are in say one furlong? Firstly you have to known the conversion of feet and furlongs, then after the calculation, you have to imagine how long 'x' amount of really is. If I say the distance was one furlong, say a distance a horse has to run in a horse race (but not in new South Wales at the moment), how long is this? Let's see how quickly you can come up with a result!
(Not being very cruel person, you might like to look at; http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001729.html )

Now even knowing the conversion factors this is a complete nightmare.

If I say the horse has 200 metres to run - well you and most of the inhabitants of the Earth know how far this is - except for the yanks and a few Poms....

Even the Yanks have different imperial measures than the Brits... For example the unit for "Pint". There are so-called dry pints and imperial pints, where 1 dry pint = 0.96893 imperial pints... So if you buy a pint beer in the UK you would be short changed by 3.2% for the same beer in the US.

OK, so I might be US bashing, but listen to this imperial insanity...

"The bushel as it is used by farmers in the U.S. is actually a measure of mass which varies for different commodities. Canada uses the same bushel masses for most commodities, but not for oats.
There is a variety of "barrels" established by law or usage. For example, federal taxes on fermented liquors are based on a barrel of 31 gallons; many state laws fix the "barrel for liquids" at 31 1/2 gallons; one state fixes a 36-gallon barrel for cistern measurement; federal law recognizes a 40-gallon barrel for "proof spirits"; by custom, 42 gallons compose a barrel of crude oil or petroleum products for statistical purposes, and this equivalent is recognized "for liquids" by four states." Nuts!

Even more clearly obvious is the advantage of things based on the units of base ten. The Yanks, of course, considered as the financial capital/ists of the World (though with their problems at the moment, the US dollar is being sold of by the hundreds of billions per day as the $A strides to 90 cents - goody cheaper 'scopes and accessories - with the rest of the world preferring not to "working for the Yankee dollar") have been using base ten money for more than a century with no problems - but in dumping of their antiquated imperial system they just refuse to budge.

As George Bernard Shaw said; "America and England are two nations divided by the same language."

Note: If he were alive today, he would have modified this considerably by also adding the problem of the metric system. Indeed it would sound like; "America and the World are divided by language and the measuring systems."

Also please explain to me why the symbol "#" in America is called a pound, when it is clearly a hash symbol? Isn't a pound a "£"?

And explain why simple 100 gsm paper (regardless of it paper size) is equal to about; 68 pound book (offset) paper ; 61 pound tag paper ; 36 pound cover paper ; 55 pound index paper ; 27 pound bond paper; 32 pound blotting paper ; 44 pound blanks paper ; 46 pound postcard paper ; 20 pound box boar... ?

Again, all I can say is; Nuts!

[May God Bless America! - because no one else believes this complete mess anymore - and he can probably save them!]

[AJames]

I tell you the Yanks are Nuts!!!

Tannehill said his place is at Location: Sandringham, Victoria (near Melbourne) - which is all well and fine.

But coincidentally, I looked for City of Melbourne, and found instead Melbourne, Florida... (See http://www.melbourneflorida.org/ )

This, however, really made me laugh... as the website describes the City of Melbourne as the "Harbor City" - which is Australia is Sydney! (Type "Melbourne US" in Goggle to find this listing, for example)

Amusingly, it has a Map of Australia in the bottom of the web page, with the statement "Looking for the other Melbourne?" However, what is really funny is the location of Australia's Melbourne being closer to Canberra than Port Phillip Bay! Even funnier is the caption directly below the map and the statement "Prepare Now for the 2007 Hurricane Season." - now I know what they literally mean about "Visit Melbourne and Be Blow-Away!"

Q. Why do the Yanks spell "Harbour" as "Harbor", while at the same time they call "Melbourne" instead of "Melborne" - without the "u"? N

(Actually, the word "bourne" is actually an middle English term, meaning "a small stream, especially one that flows intermittently or seasonally" Yet in the 16th century it meant "denoting a boundary of a field"
While Melbourne, Victoria has the muddy Yarra River, Melbourne, Florida has the "Eau Gallie River", which translated from the French to English as "Rocky Water River!" - seemingly a merger of both meanings of the word. Even more bizarre is the origin of the "City of Melbourne", Florida, which is stated as;
"The City of Melbourne today is the result of the merger of two communities… Eau Gallie and Melbourne. This consolidation occurred in July 1969." Go figure?

AJames

[mickoking]

America was the first country in the world to adopt decimal (Metric) currency.

AJames, I was taught in my Graphic design (pre press) course at TAFE that # is officially called a pound even though most of us (including me) call it a Hash.

[DSO]

Originally Posted by AJames

With the Yanks and the Brits persisting with their antiquated imperial measures, surely its time we finally sink their non compliance with the rest of the civilised world?

For that, I've voted no.

For the record, here in the UK we use both.

[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

The # (hash) symbol is often referred to as a "pound" because on older typewriters, etc, the pound symbol was found at - you guessed it - Shift 3.

[slice of heaven]

Originally Posted by rmcpb

Why not base it on a day being equal to ten whiles?? Would make much more sense when you say "See ya in a while."

and 10 jiffys could equal 1 while

In the words (and voice) of Grandpa Simpson: "The Metric system is the tool of the devil!"

My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and thats the way I likes it! Classic

[Dujon]

In view of the fact that this thread has drifted off into the realms of pronunciation and spelling I vote that the letter 'h' shall never start a word and the enunciation of such letter should be 'haitch'.

Sorry!

Regardless, would anyone notice?

[Gerald Sargent]

It is repoorted at at a debate at Harvard University (USA) the majority voted that the miniroty were usually correct- so much for American Logic.

[Gerald Sargent]

It is repoorted at at a debate at Harvard University (USA) the majority voted that the miniroty were usually correct- so much for American Logic.

The decimal system in every country that converted their curreny to decimalised currency - was followed by ongoing inflation.

Those mathematically bent will recognise that at Imperial system is basically binary, and generally have more factors than any decimalised form

I use both, but history should not be too readily discarded, one does not build Cathedrals by repeatedly digging up the foundations.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

We still measure our horses by units called "Hands". One hand = 4 inches = 100mm
So a 16hh (hand high) horse is 1.6mt tall at the withers.

[GrahamL]

change the world currency reserve form US dollars to euros
..now that would really mess things up .. in terms of measures

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

We still measure our horses by units called "Hands". One hand = 4 inches = 100mm
So a 16hh (hand high) horse is 1.6mt tall at the withers.

16 hands or 64 inches...both useful measures to me to understand how big a horse is...

[leon]

It dosn't bother me, imperial or metric I can quite easily use either. I think they can live happily together.

Leon

[AJames]

Hi All

I continue to be amazed at the support for the imperial system here, which in Australia is almost totally accepted. I think the problem is not that the imperial system is necessarily good or bad, but that it is almost useless in calculations of even the simplest kinds. Moreover, there are no problems in say; feet, miles, or degree Fahrenheit, but the real problem is in calculating secondary units like pound force and the dyne.

For example, measured force has the SI unit of the newton (symbol N), equivalent to kg·m·s^−2. The earlier CGS unit is the dyne. Simply, these units are easily calculated using Newton law, F=m times a
(force equals mass times acceleration).

Unfortunately, in the Imperial units, if F is measured in "pounds force" or 'lbf', and a in feet per second squared, then m must be measured in slugs. Similarly, if mass is to be measured in pounds mass, and a in feet per second squared, the force must be measured in poundals. The units of slugs and poundals are specifically designed to avoid a constant of proportionality in this equation.

Now this is really nuts, because you have to have a secondary understand just to do simple calculations in imperial units.

Ie.
1 dyne = 10^-5 newtons
1 kgf (kilopond kp) = 9.80665 newtons
1 lbf = 32.174 poundals
1 slug = 32.174 lb
1 kgf = 2.2046 lbf

In metric, all you have to know is the acceleration due to gravity, which is 9.80665 m/s² and you can do all the force calculations you want - and without any conversions with difficult manipulations.

It is for this reason why in America and the UK, that scientific or engineering have readily dumped the imperial system all together. Yet the basic everyday units remain, just because they feel comfortable and convenient. However, when calculations are involved, we end up in a total mess having endless conversions factors. The advantage of metric units is that no conversions other than knowing multiples of base 10 - and this is why it was adopted in Australia beginning in 1966, with the legislation being unanimously approved in 12 June 1970. The general public only saw the changes when the retailers were force to adopt the metric system in 1974-75, where it became against the law to use imperial measures.

The real reality is that; English has become the language of commerce, the metric system has become the language of measurement.

You can read about the rationale behind Australia history in this regard at;
http://www.mail-archive.com/usma@col.../msg18205.html

To our non-Australian reader here, the comment about especially towards the US avoiding metrification that happened in Australia from 1968 can be summed up as;

"Resistance to the metric change is mostly due to fear of the unknown.
Few realised it could be a simple, non-traumatic experience so that, with
the general public, support for the change can only be expected after it has
been experienced, as was the case with the adoption of decimal currency."

Andrew

Note: While I've been hammering the US and UK, actually, only two other countries haven't adopted metrification being Liberia and Burma.

[AJames]

To Gerald Sargent

In response to your comment;

"...one does not build Cathedrals by repeatedly digging up the foundations."

That's might be true, but then again, not everyone these days goes to church.

Andrew

[mickoking]

AJames said:
The real reality is that; English has become the language of commerce, the metric system has become the language of measurement.

Spot on.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

This thread has mysteriously steered a bit too much from a discussion about Metric and Imperial, to Yank Bashing!

If you have a beef about Measuring systems, keep it on that.

There, that's my Psuedo Moderation for today