Posted on 09/16/2021 1:30:54 PM PDT by ameribbean expat
In 2001 a greengrocer from Sunderland arguably did more than any politician to set Britain on the path towards Brexit when he was convicted for breaching EU rules banning the sale of fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces.
Now, 20 years on, Boris Johnson is to make good on a pledge to vindicate the cause of the “metric martyr” by announcing the return of imperial weights and measures.
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(Excerpt) Read more at thetimes.co.uk ...
Smile...
SI stands for International System but you have to say it backwards in Europe because they also walk backwards and eat after brushing their teeth.
Thanks...
Yeah the automotive biz went metric in the 80s. For worldwide compatibility. I’m good with it.
I actually agree. LOL
I’m sure if when I grew up they had taught me Metric from
the start, and everything was measured that way, it would
make a lot of sense.
Not interested in doing calculations all day long to convert
things into something I already know.
YES! Different units have their usefulness. Pounds, ounces, feet, inches. These are our everyday customary units. They are part of our history, language, and culture. We should keep them because if we give them an inch, they'll take the mile, and the inch, foot, gallon, ounce, yard -- the whole acre!
I prefer to buy in kilograms, because you get more.
Dunno but there are twelve furlongs in a fortnight.
LOl, I like it. :)
When I was in Engineering school (NJIT Chem E) they taught both, the rational being that the piping industry would never convert. Still true as far as I know.
113.4 grammer
We did both as well.
I started off in ChemE, then EE.
SI...Systeme Internationale
Yes, especially for thermal and fluids.
Besides, when was the last time you saw an appliance or light bulb power usage in BTU/hr? 🙂
After engineering school, I prefer SI units.
Yes, the math with SI is much simpler. Pretty much moving the decimal point left or right. On the other side, figuring out half of something is pretty easy, and a quarter, and a 16th can pretty much be done by eyeball, same is true for 1/12ths. Of course this all was settled before most people had access to rulers—the measuring kind not the bossing around kind.
The meter was based on a fraction of the estimated distance between the equator and the pole. The yard was based on the distance from your nose to your outstretched arm—very useful for measuring cloth.
The foot, well, based on a human foot. Which human? Who cares. The average man can get a decent measurement just by heel to toe.
Measure the height of a horse? Use a hand (4 inches). Length of line or depth, use the fathom which is about the distance of two outstretched arms.
Point being the traditional system is basted on the human body, which most of us have at hand, while SI is based on well, Science!
But again, I agree that the math is much easier to do with the SI system.
Prior to retiring recently, my work over the my last 20 years has been largely what is in the traditional realm of EE - the commissioning of process control systems.
Same here. Not even close. I have a tape measure that does both units and use metrics whenever I can.
I am a physicist and use metric or even more natural but obscure units of measure all of the time, however traditional English units work just fine because they are designed around quantities that humans actually use in their daily lives.
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