U.K. to revert to imperial weight measures

[onetrack]

In news just to hand, Boris Johnsons Govt has outlined how they plan to extend the Brexit rollback to imperial weights. In a snub to that backward French/EU system of the metric weight measuring system, British retailers and merchants will now be allowed to post the sale weight of their goods in pounds and ounces only.

 

In other British news, those new-fangled, noisy, smelly, polluting cars and buses will be banned from London, and horse and carriage transport in the City will be restored to its rightful position in the transport industry. 

 

https://www.ft.com/content/23569cd6-edc1-475e-956a-53ffe5ac5f1c

[facthunter]

Well the false tan genius who was Potus says that metric is Un American. Using your brain seems to be  becoming unamerican also.. Nev

[Yenn]

Not only non american.

[Old Koreelah]

Gawd help us.

[spacesailor]

Rediculous. 

Should only use American.

4 litres per gallon. Makes sence to me !.

spacesailor

[old man emu]

While homeschooling my grandson, I noticed that the multiplication tables have been metricated. They seem to only go to 10x now, abandoning 11 and 12.

 

I find the Metric system inconvenient when doing woodwork. The problem is that the Metric system doesn't lend itself to easily used fractions. Using the inch, one can readily find, in fact see, a division as small as 1/64", but the same distance is a tad under 0.4 mm. Try marking that off with an old set of Mk I eyeballs. Admittedly 1/16" is just about 1.5 mm. and that's about as accurate you need to be for most work.

 

On the other hand, liquid measure, weights and distances above 2.5 metres are better handles with the Metric system

[Fliteright]

Drivers of planes have to deal with both metric & Imp, it's not hard although metric is far easier in all fields of measurement.

[spacesailor]

Fliteright

You haven't tried that metric time yet.

spacesailor

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

37 minutes ago, Fliteright said:

Drivers of planes have to deal with both metric & Imp, it's not hard although metric is far easier in all fields of measurement.

Yes... Beware any a/c departing the UK.. Think I will now take my flights from France:

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/30/us/jet-s-fuel-ran-out-after-metric-conversion-errors.html

[Jerry_Atrick]

When I first arrived here in '96. the directive had yet to be implemented.. I made two mistakes going to the local butcher when I said "Can I have 2 150g Scotch Fillet steaks, please."

 

First was a bemused response, "What's wrong with English Fillet".. I explained I just came off the plane and in Aus, we term the cut Scotch Fillet - English Fillet is perfectly fine for me. The next question, with genuine confusion was, "er.. what is 150 grams in lbs and ounces?" I knew enough that it wasn't a lb, thankfully and he worked it out (I think 8 ounces - but would have to check)

 

He then made a point by getting me Scotch Fillet...

 

Today, except for the oldies and die-hards passing it onto their kids, no one would know and a lb or ounce is.

[spacesailor]

Jerry

You must live near London, up north it didn,t take that easily, people still say 5' 6" & 7 st 10lb.

spacesailor

[Jerry_Atrick]

I did live in London when I first moved here, up until almost 6 years ago - where I now live in the South West (but since lockdown is all but over, am in London a couple of days/week.

 

We all still speak feet and inches for height though.. I was still doing that when I first left Aus in late '96.

[old man emu]

I notice that the continued use of the Imperial system for weights and short distances is restricted to those whose education began before metrification. By the time we are pushing up daisies, the Imperial system will only exist in language.

 

"Give him and inch and he'll take a mile" is much more succinct that "Give him 2.54 mm and he'll take 1.6 kilometres". Will Shylock from The Merchant of Venice seek his 450 gms of flesh? And will we still "walk a 161,000 kilometres for one of her smiles"?

[Fliteright]

13 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

The next question, with genuine confusion was, "er.. what is 150 grams in lbs and ounces?"

 

That's why he is a butcher😁

 

[Dax]

Took me decades to get my head around metric, prefer it now, but still use imperial for some things as that's what those industries still use.

[onetrack]

I think I was quite fortunate in that I was brought up and educated in the '50's and early 60's - and we were educated in both imperial and metric systems. In high school in particular, and in science classes, metric was becoming the rule.

In my working life, carrying out lots of earthworks and excavations, levels, and measuring of volumes, I initially always used imperial measures. Then it all changed in 1976 and we went 100% metric! They even made us change our speedo dials!

 

But we got used to the metric life relatively easily - although, I must admit, I still like to buy dual measurement tape measures. That's because you always come across inch measures - not only in older items you work on - but on new items that are aimed at the American market. We still get new items from China that are listed in inch measurements and psi pressures. The Americans will simply not change, they're the most obstinate people around.

 

I spend a considerable amount of time reconditioning and restoring old vehicles, equipment, machines and tools, that came from America or were designed in America. A lot of Australian-built machines were built under licence to American companies and they are 100% imperial measure construction. My nuts and bolts and hand tools are still probably 2/3rds inch fasteners and A/F spanners.

 

You cannot take imperial measures out of our lives, it's everywhere - right down to our new building and construction materials that come in metric, but which are still largely based on imperial dimensions. 

[nomadpete]

15 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Yes... Beware any a/c departing the UK.. Think I will now take my flights from France:

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/30/us/jet-s-fuel-ran-out-after-metric-conversion-errors.html

Yes, I remember that incident. But it wasn't caused by metric measurements, it was the result of poor arithmetic.

I know this is drift that belongs in the parent forum, but I cant resist posting a quote from the 1983 NYtimes article, that is relevant to more recent , far more serious Boeing accidents that might not have happened if Boeing had taken notice of the 1983 gliding incident.

 

Quote from 1983:

"Safety specialists of the main pilots' union in the United States had recently approved a statement on the the subject of training. They expressed the view that crews were not receiving adequate education in the functioning of the many automated systems used on the new Boeing aircraft."

[onetrack]

Who recalls NASA losing a very expensive (US$327M) Mars Climate Orbiter, simply because of a metric/imperial calculation mixup (by Lockheed-Martin)?

 

I reckon that widely-reported loss is probably just the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to the many metric/imperial costly stuff-ups.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

[spacesailor]

My clock calender reads in American !,  months, days, year.

A little confusing : the 9th of the  12th is the 12th  September , not December the 9th.

still have problems reading a metric  tape !.

2M

12 Cm

Then Mm.

The only way I can read the dam thing.

spacesailor

[Yenn]

Those who were educated before we went metric don;t know how lucky they are. I went through the imperial education. Rods, perches roods ounces, grains, chains and a whole lot more. Metric is so simple anyone who wants to revert to it has got to be mad.

If I have one shilling and buy two buns at threepence halfpenny and a cup of tea for tuppence farthing, how much change will I have? That is the sort of rubbish we learnt at school.

I have built an American designed plane and just loved the use of fractions. Which is greater 3/4 or 15/16?

When we first changed over it became even clearer how much real metric was. I had to convert feet to metric, plus feet and tenths of feet, ie 13.2', then they would throw in yards for some of the measurements, what a mess.

[Marty_d]

Centimetres should never have been invented - they just confuse the issue.

 

Millimetres, metres, kilometres - each 1,000 times the previous.  Nice and easy.

[spacesailor]

There,s twelve divisions, in metric, & more inveted yearly.

 

spacesailor

[old man emu]

3 hours ago, Marty_d said:

Centimetres should never have been invented - they just confuse the issue.

The other week my grandson was doing some schoolwork involving measuring things like pencils and glue stick - the usual school stationery stuff, first by estimating, then by measuring. The answers were to be in centimetres, but to give him reference lengths, we measured his fingers and distance between finger joints. It was stupid to use centimetres because a young kid can't grasp the magnitude of a distance of one centimetre. As soon as we started using millimetres, he clicked to it. 

 

To follow the KISS principle, we should only work in millimetres, metres and kilometres as Marty_d says. In the old days, the common measurements were inches, feet, yards and miles.

[willedoo]

The problem with centimeters is that drongos with no real world experience design the school curriculum. They teach kids centimeters as a base and when they leave school, they have to learn all over again because they've found out the outside world doesn't use that ridiculous, un-needed measurement. I'm retired now, but have worked with measurements in many different industries and have never, ever come across anyone trying to use centimeters. Try rolling up to a building site and talking centimeters; you'd be laughed at. Ban the things, I say. It's doing kids a great disservice teaching unused measurements.

[onetrack]

The silly part is, nothing has ever gone fully metric. Wheel rims are still measured in inches in diameter, while the tyre width is in mm. TV and computer screens are listed in inch sizes. Cooking is still measured in cups and spoonfuls.

Air compressors still advertise their output in CFM. I can still buy (and regularly use), fasteners in inch and fractional inch dimensions. 

Pressure washers always advertise they're 2000 or 3000psi, because that's more impressive than the feeble-sounding 13.78 or 20.68Mpa!

Torque settings are still often listed in lbs/ft - and if you've got 400HP under the bonnet, that sounds so much better than 298.28kW!