All Hail the Metric system !

Morning guys;

Ah, the metric system! We've been using it for some time now and I think most of us have become somewhat used to it. Most folks my age seem to have found a way to deal with it. 0 degrees is kind of nippy, but not nearly as bad as 0 degrees in the good old days. 10 is not too bad, 20 is nice, 30 is too hot. Mercifully, they have put both mph and km on our speedometers. 50 km is about 30 mph, that's for city driving. 110 km must be around 65 mph, that's for highway driving. One thing I do know is 160 km is bang on 100 mph. You have to go at least that speed when some youngster is trying to get the best of ya with his little fart of a metric car with a loud muffler! Strangely enough, a ticket that says you were going 100 mph is "kind of impressive". A ticket that says 160 km....not so much.

Cheers.....Rick
 
I use feet and inches, yards, miles, etc. I know how long a foot is, a yard, but I don't know how far a "click" is nor do I care, but I know how far a mile is. It's what I was raised with and I ain't gonna change now.

Dave
 
Out with the old folk today (my poor mother-in-law). Every time we looked at something with a measurement on it in metric I was asked "whats that in feet and inches?" or " how heavy is that in pounds?" I talk in feet and inches to the older folk and a mix of imperial and metric to my kids. But my grandkids want it in metric. Though even they ask "How many more miles till we get there?" :)
 
I use both, but mostly Imperial measurements because this is what I grew up with. We too went through a half-baked conversion from Imperial to metric during the early 1970s. I was in 6th grade when this started and we were being force fed the metric system and then it stopped and was suddenly forgotten. By the time I was in 8th grade, all this disappeared from school because the government found this to be "too difficult" for the people to learn. We still have some road signs that list both km and miles. This would make sense though because we have many tourists from Canada that come down east every year for a visit.

When I worked in international shipping, I had to measure all my shipping crates in centimeters and give the weight in kg as well as pounds. This was somewhat a pain because the crates were an odd size although the weight was easily converted. I found a nifty little PC conversion application which I still use today to take my Imperial measurements and convert them to metric. It saves the few brain cells and energy I have left for more fun things.

John
 
When I was at college in the 60's it was a pain as we had to know conversion factors as well as formulae, I couldn't wait for metrication. But now I don't need to know such things I always think imperial, and use online unit conversion when the need arises.

On a holiday in Eire 2001 I asked the coach driver whether the road signs were miles or kiometers
a. "some are miles and some are kiometers".
q. how do you know which are which
a. "you don't"
.......I suppose it was still their transition period,
Chris.
 
12 inches is 1 foot, 1 yard is 3 feet, 1 chain is 22 yards, 1 furlong is 10 chains, 8 furlongs is 1 mile, 1 league is 3 miles. Makes no sense and follows no pattern, of what I can see
Click to expand...

But that's the beauty of it!

This discussion could run and run. For my creative efforts using GMax, I prefer to use the good old Imperial system - 1) because the drawings I use from British railway modelling magazines for some models use feet and inches and 2) because when I was at primary school (late thirties, early forties - dates, not my age) that is what we learned. In fact, our exercise books had all the tables printed on the back cover - so I became familiar with esoteric measurements like rods, poles and perches; pints, gallons, bushels and firkins; chains, furlongs and acres; and so on. And there is both logic and history behind them, even if not immediately apparent. A lot, I understand, goes back to the distance between Henry VIII's hand and elbow. And even earlier there were barleycorns and ells.

Talking of hands, of course that is the measurement used for the height of horses. And for sea-going folk there are fathoms and cables, the nautical mile, knots, etc. And for weather forecasts 70 degrees F to me spells 'hot' whereas I don't know what that would be in C. Similarly for barometric pressure - inches versus millibars.

Fortunately, in Trainz we have the choice. And I'm not really as died-in-the-wool as I sound. Many years of modelling made it easy for me to convert imperial to a metric scale system.

Ray

PS I also preferred the beauty of pounds, shillings and pence, not to mention guineas and sovereigns - and of course farthings (which in my youth did have some value).
 
ray_whiley said:
Ray

PS I also preferred the beauty of pounds, shillings and pence, not to mention guineas and sovereigns - and of course farthings (which in my youth did have some value).
Click to expand...

That reminds me of when I was a paper boy. The day we went decimal, mars bars went from 6d to 5p overnight, doubling its price. My wages never doubled though. I think they thought that 5p sounded cheaper than 6d.
 
Pendolino said:
A mile equals to 5278 feet
Click to expand...

a mile is 5280 feet.

as far as the trainz measurement goes, iirc there used to be an accuracy problem in the rulers, plus it isnt likely its the 'system' but the display.

i just did test in trainz by laying out a 5280 ft ruler and then changing units to metric. it changed to say 1609.4.... i dont really see the problem here.

also, if i slightly fudge the ruler some it will read 1609.3 and still be 5280.0... so what that means, is that the imperial ruler is a bit more accurate now since it is to the 10th of a foot rather than the 10th of a meter.
 
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I'm still wondering with all the metric going on why there are still 24 hrs in a day and 60 min in an hour. Shouldn't that be 20 Hrs / 10 daylight/ 10 night and a 100 minutes per hour with 100 seconds per min? Just a thought
 
I was taught the Imperial, or as it is called 'English' system — I am, however, open to learning the metric system as well. We did go over it in Elementary and Intermediate school, however it went straight through one ear and out the other. I regret it though, because knowing both can be beneficial. Especially if you're in scientific circles.
 
In my line of work, density is an important parameter. I'm always amused when my American colleagues have to talk about it. What is the density of water? They immediately say 1 (it's the same number in g/cc, kg/litre or tonnes/cubic metre). They don't seem to realise they have just used the much-hated metric system. What is it in Imperial units? 'Oh, I'll have to look that up'. And if they did, I wonder what scale they would choose; pounds per cubic foot? ounces per cubic inch? stones per gallon? Dry gallons, liquid gallons? etc. etc. all of which give a different number and obviously impossible to remember.

Australia had no trouble converting to metric, I think it was in the 1960's. For me it felt like a great burden was lifted, no more of those stupid Imperial units and their insane arithmetic. Whoever was in charge at the time did a great job of managing the change. There was no stopping half way and we only had a very brief transition period if I remember correctly. Maybe that's the secret. Given that America already had a metric currency system, I'm still amazed that they dropped the ball so badly on a full conversion. Is it something in a nation's psyche that prevents it from making a change for the better, or is it just lack of leadership?
 
PC_Ace said in post #17

"By the inch it's a cinch; By the yard it's too hard..." Try to get that to rhyme in metric.
I'll take the challenge...

"...by the 'mil' it's a chill:...by the 'metre' it's a beater...."

Oz changed to metric in '66, i was 16 at the time and welcomed it with open arms. Anybody can add or subtract 'zeros' to numbers for addition, multiplication or division.
We used dual speedometers for a few years, then car manufacturers/importers had to use metric. Roadsigns - infact everything had to change by the end of the phase-in period. (Can't remember how many years that was).
People grumbled, but soon adapted. If there is only one official system of measurement in place, then you have to adapt/adopt.
While i was living in the UK in the '80's I couldn't understand why liquid measurement was in Cl (centilitres) rather tham in ml (mililitres). Much easier on the tongue.
Our wine is in 750ml bottles and beer in 375ml cans. sounds much more user friendly than 7.5Cl bottles and 3.75Cl cans. No wonder the English didn't like metric.

Bob (CRO)
 
I'm still wondering with all the metric going on why there are still 24 hrs in a day and 60 min in an hour. Shouldn't that be 20 Hrs / 10 daylight/ 10 night and a 100 minutes per hour with 100 seconds per min? Just a thought
Click to expand...
Perhaps we should adopt the French Revolution calendar introduced circa 1789? - ten months of equal length, with extra days to make up the deficiency each year?


Ray (with tongue still firmly in cheek.)
​
 
cascaderailroad said:
... as all measurements in Trainz are in Metric units.
Click to expand...
Yes, internally Trainz is completely metric. It is hard to imagine how it could work otherwise.

What may surprise you is that the US is metric, too. I often mention UTM. It's a map grid, the official one in the US. All coordinates are in meters. Strange, isn't it? And the DEMs? All elevations in meters. Again? In the US?

In the UK, Ordnance Survey, the national agency, went metric in 1936.

The only map grid I have seen so far which was not metric was an example in the OGP handbook of "Coordinate Conversions and and Transformations" which has a chapter on Cassini/Soldner (late 19th century) for Trinidad & Tobago. There the unit is the Clarke's link = 1/100 Clarke's chain (1/100, yes, incredible). 1 chain is 22 yards to get it right again. I think, OGP listed this example for its curiosity.

And another curiosity: The British built 3 ft 6 narrow gauge railways in Africa, but in the Indian subcontinent, they built 1000 mm, more than a century ago. Why did they do that?
 
CRO said:
PC_Ace said in post #17

"By the inch it's a cinch; By the yard it's too hard..." Try to get that to rhyme in metric.
I'll take the challenge...

"...by the 'mil' it's a chill:...by the 'metre' it's a beater...."

Oz changed to metric in '66, i was 16 at the time and welcomed it with open arms. Anybody can add or subtract 'zeros' to numbers for addition, multiplication or division.
We used dual speedometers for a few years, then car manufacturers/importers had to use metric. Roadsigns - infact everything had to change by the end of the phase-in period. (Can't remember how many years that was).
People grumbled, but soon adapted. If there is only one official system of measurement in place, then you have to adapt/adopt.
While i was living in the UK in the '80's I couldn't understand why liquid measurement was in Cl (centilitres) rather tham in ml (mililitres). Much easier on the tongue.
Our wine is in 750ml bottles and beer in 375ml cans. sounds much more user friendly than 7.5Cl bottles and 3.75Cl cans. No wonder the English didn't like metric.

Bob (CRO)
Click to expand...

Heh! Well done Bob! Thank you for taking up the challenge.
Not quite Iambic Pentameter, but it'll do!
Thanks,
Peter
 
geophil said:
Again? In the US?
Click to expand...

yes, exactly. i see a lot of people going on the assumption that the US cannot or will not use the metric system. that is just false. we use both systems frequently. a great deal of infrastructure, especially if built by or for a government agency is usually in metric.
 
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