U.K. to revert to imperial weight measures

[Marty_d]

43 minutes ago, facthunter said:

What's a molar mass?  Nev

What your tooth weighs after it's extracted.  

[spacesailor]

I thought we were talking French " systen international,  paris, france, ". 

The English may be the first, but won,t be the last.

spacesailor

 

[facthunter]

Dunno IF "revert" is the word. Return would do.  or re adopts the previous system.. Britain is not reverting. The French probably think it's revolting.  British are ANGLES. Angleterre is where they live.  Nev

[Dax]

46 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Dunno IF "revert" is the word.

Revert, does mean go back or return to a certain condition. Understand what you're saying though, yet I see it as reversion as there's only 3 other countries using imperial. USA, Myanmar and Liberia. Everyone else uses metric, add the UK and that's it.

 

I like metric, it's simple which suits me fine. Grew up with imperial, but always had trouble working our fractions and algebra is way beyond me which is a real drag cause I really love science. If you don't understand algebra or basic physics, no chance of understanding science or working it all out.

 

What annoys me is all the different tools, spanners and sockets you have to keep to work on your vehicles and machinery. I've got a number of tool boxes overflowing with different size tools and it can be a pain trying to work out what will fit. Then there's irrigation, you can buy inch size pipe and fittings, as well as metric sizes, yet neither fits the other. All my water systems are in imperial, way to much tot change everything.  But, house plumbing is metric and imperial, the copper pipe is the same diam.

[Jerry_Atrick]

It definitely is reverting. The Brit has not been happy with being forced to work with metric weights and measures and if you go to butchers, grocers, etc., more often than not (at least outside London) they will prominently display lbs and oz, and if you ask for, say 2 x 200gs of fillet steak, they will verbally convert to oz and then proceed. Even in the supermarket where everythign is displayed in grams/kgs, when I ask the meat counter butcher, he still converts to lbs and oz mentally.. and he is about 40, I would say (or very well pickled).

 

The younger generation of immigrants will probably not know what imperial weights are, but that would be about it.,

 

Anyway, this Brexit thing has had me adopting imperial measurements by osmosis.. While walking the doggo yesterday, a lady asked me directions, and I turned, pointed and sad, "In about 150 yards, there will be a gate". As I heard myself say it, thought to myself, WTF? Don;t think I have said yards in terms of distance since I was about 6.

 

[pmccarthy]

When you are working with machinery, imperial units are very 

precise once you know that the whole machine was built to 1/16 inch tolerances. So once you measure, you know exactly what the original size was. In metric you get some odd mm measurement from the worn part and are none the wiser.

[Old Koreelah]

The real reason for the new (unpronouncable) military alliance is slowly dawning on me. It’s not the threat of China that has galvanised the Yanks and Poms to embrace Oz- it’s their fear that they might have to learn to use proper, world-standard measurments!

[old man emu]

12 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

imperial units are very precise

That's true, and the same goes for metric. It's the required precision of the measurement that can affect which system is most useful in a particular situation. 

 

1/16" (0.0625") is, for a lot of work, a pretty tight tolerance. However, it's still possible for the eye to see markings on a ruler as fine as 1/64" (0/015625"). The limit for metric markings on a ruler is 0.5 mm (0.019685"). So, on a ruler, the imperial system is more accurate than the metric. It's odd that we don't use 1/10", even though we are quite happy to use 1/1000" for really close tolerances in machinery.

 

I find that The imperial system is most useful for measurements of things that are in the range of the size of a human, plus a tad more - say from the "just measurable" at 1/64" or 0.5 mm up to 8 ft or 2.4 metres. Bigger than that, the metric system is OK, and for smaller than the hairs on a gnat's nuts, metric is the way to go. Strangely, however, I don't think in imperial for weights (or mass) and volume. 

 

I do retain the miles per gallon over the litres per 100 kms, which would be OK if they said kilometres per litre. How far will your vehicle go if it vehicle uses 7 litres per 100 kms and your fuel gauge show 1/4 full of a 55 litre tank? Too many steps to do mentally to work out how har you are going to have to walk after the vehicle runs out of fuel.

[facthunter]

I have a grinding machine that works to  1/10th of a thou..  That would be something funny in metric..  Some piston rings are 1.5 MM and others are 1/16 Inch thick. You can't tell by just looking. There's just over 2.5 thou difference.

 I work in both. Well with food It's all metric and I'd only confuse the staff if I ordered in anything else.

    Some US made motorcycles made a bit over 100 years ago used some metric dimensions as they imported ball races from Europe. Come WW1 and they couldn't get them some went out of business. Flying Merkel was one. Nev

[Fliteright]

With today's 'infoworld' it's no big deal to go from one unit to another.

I have a box full of spanners of all denominations & I'm glad as sometimes a BSW ring spanner will fit better than a metric or imperial worn bolt/nut👍

 

[old man emu]

One tenth of one thousandth of an inch is one ten thousandths of an inch. That converts to 0.00254 mm.

 

Any fixed place machine whose motion can be made by the rotation of a threaded rod, or similar, can achieve very great accuracy, if the pitch of the thread is itself very accurate. It doesn't matter if the pitch is determined by the imperial Threads per Inch or for metric, the distance between corresponding points. For a single start thread, the lead is defined as the axial distance (parallel to the screw's axis) the screw travels in one complete revolution (360°) of the shaft.

 

The linear distance  a screw shaft moves when it is rotated through an angle of  R degrees is:  distance = lead length x (R/360), so it doesn't really matter what measuring system you use to determine how far a single rotation of the shaft will move something. However, you can see that it's a case of horses for courses. You would be hard presses to get the desired metric accuracy using an imperial thread and vice versa, due to the inaccuracies of the comparison of the units in each system.

 

 

 

[Yenn]

At least a 12mm spanner is 12mm between the flats. What is a 1/2" whit spanner? To be truthful I have used whit. for many years and cannot tell you what the distance between flats for a 1/2" spanner is, except that I am certain that it is not 1/2"

[spacesailor]

  No longer a proper size !.

The Imperial system was " chopped  " due to the war restrictions, and all bolts heads & nuts were reduced to their minimum size, to save metal.

Now we call the American system " Imperial ".

England went to the foreign way, after all the years of fighting against the French, the French have won.

spacesailor

 

[red750]

21 hours ago, Old Koreelah said:

the new (unpronouncable) military alliance

Scotty pronounces it "Orcus".

[Fliteright]

I've got three adjustable monkey wrenches, one metric, one Imperial & one BSW, all handle most sizes, Oh & Ive also got a few calibrated glass hammers😉