Posted on 09/19/2017 4:01:46 PM PDT by BBell
The proposal, conceived by a bunch of pointy-headed Parisian philosophes, sounded brilliant: A universal system of measurement, derived from decimal-based units and identified by a shared set of prefixes. It would end the era of merchants buying goods according to one unit, selling in another, and pocketing the ill-gotten profit. It would simplify scientific calculations and enable the free exchange of ideas around the world. It was an enlightened system for an enlightened time. If only the French scientists could persuade other countries to adopt it.
But pirates have a way of ruining even the best-laid plans.
In 1793, botanist and aristocrat Joseph Dombey set sail from Paris with two standards for the new "metric system": a rod that measured exactly a meter, and a copper cylinder called a "grave" that weighed precisely one kilogram. He was journeying all the way across the Atlantic to meet Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson - a fellow fan of base-ten systems who, Dombey hoped, would help persuade Congress to go metric.
Then a storm rolled in, knocking Dombey's ship off course. The unlucky academic was washed into the Caribbean - and straight into the clutches of British pirates. Technically, they were "privateers" because they were tacitly sanctioned by His Majesty's government so long as they only raided foreign ships. But it amounted to the same thing. The brigands took Dombey hostage and looted his equipment. The luckless scientist died in prison shortly after his capture; his belongings were auctioned off to the highest bidders.
France sent a second emissary to promote the metric system. But by the time the replacement arrived, America had a new secretary of state, Edmund Randolph, who apparently didn't care much for measurement. As the rest of the world adopted the metric system, the U.S. continued to bumble around with
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
I live near Stennis and Michoud. They are rollin now. Sometimes you can hear them testing rocket motors at Stennis.
It is a damn Euro commie plot that will drain Americans of vital Purity of Essence...
And the flywheel to crank nut.
It was only 220 ft-lb...
Now there all all sorts of short-life front wheel ball bearing cartridges that need big torque for assembly and more for disassembly.
The Erf measurement used for the metric system was faulty.
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At the functional level, NASA has definitely not “gone metric.”
They are still using the same software as they have since the ‘70s, that is in US units. That includes the same HP calculators in orbit that operate in RPN, running the same routines that were written for RPN over 40 years ago.
The same stuff that saved the lives of the Apollo 13 crew when they couldn’t rely on the computers in Houston.
Political correctness is insane, and that is what drives the false front of our Fed Gov.
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Having spent some time in other countries I am a fan of the metric system. I do not know why we don’t adopt it.
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The metric system is great for people who count on their fingers. Our current system is based on many highly composite numbers which the metric system doesn’t have. Both have to be converted to binary for computation. If it’s not broken or just as good, don’t fix it.
It dawned on me out the blue a few years back why the ancient measurement systems are based on seemingly strange units: 12 inches, 24 hours, 60 minutes, 5280 ft, 360 degrees, etc.
It is because the world used to operate on fractions, rather than decimals. What do all those strange numbers have in common? They are evenly divisible by a lot of different numbers, which is to say they could be conveniently broken into a lot of different fractional values.
12 = 2.2.3: factors = (2,3,4,6)
24 = 2.2.2.3: factors = (2,3,4,6,8,12)
60 = 2.2.3.5: factors = (2,3,4,6,10,12,15,20,30)
5280 = 2.2.2.2.2.3.5.11: = factors =(2,3,4,5,6,8,10,11,12,15,16,20,22,24,30,32,33,...)
360 = 2.2.2.3.3.5: factors = (2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,12,15,18,20,24,30,36,40,45,60,72,90,120,180)
If some vendor bought a gross (144=2.2.2.2.3.3) of something, he could chose to divide it up and sell it as equal bundles of 2,3,4,6,8,9,12,16,18,24,36,48, or 72 units. Compare that to being sold 29 of something... not too many ways to subdivide that.
Thus, the measurement systems of antiquity facilitated commerce. The free market gave us measuring systems of antiquity!!
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>> “I mentioned when I worked for a surveyor we broke down everything in tenths.” <<
Hundredths really, in general practice, and millionths in the computation algorithms and storage files of the software.
The trig functions are calculated by Taylor, or Mclauren expansion every time one is used.
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A pint’s a pound the world around.
You and Jimmy Carter.
In Europe, a liter of gasoline costs as much as a gallon here, but you only get 1/4 as much.
It was intended to be 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the north pole to the equator on a meridian through Paris.
They got remarkably close.
Authalic sphere, North American Datum 1983 has radius 6371007 m. (WGS 1984 is very close to that as well).
2 * pi() * 6371007 = 40030218 meters.
She would free you up from having to mow your front yard.
The Metric System is Globalist in nature.
Yep, too bad ee don’t have 10 state transistors...
Interestingly enough, if you go to the butcher counter in Germany, they know exactly how much you are asking for if you order a pound (written pfund) of fleisch, or the fruit seller if you ask for a pound of apfel.
It was readily apparent in the ancient world that the physical realm that both they and we inhabit is base 12, from the seconds in an hour to the hours in a day to the months in a year. Therefore, units of measure followed suit and were suited to human scale. Our physical reality is base 12. Forcing base 10 upon it results in created objects that exude unreality, they feel fake, they don’t fit, they just don’t look “right” intuitively. They’re ugly.
I’ve come across 16 and 18mm hardware on Audis. Never needed them working on Japanese motorcycles and cars.
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