All Hail the Metric system !

Whether it was a popular folk story or genuine history I know not (a bit like King Alfred burning the cakes) I was always taught that it goes back to "Bluff King Hal" or King Henry VIII!

In order to standardise sales of a "yard of cloth" when King Henry became furious at being told that a draper had sold insufficient cloth for his tunic, when the same shop had previously sold the same quantity and his tailor had enough cloth! (and King Henry's clothes needed a lot of yardage, owing to his massive appetite and consequent bouts of gout and obesity!) Up until that point, the yard had been taken as the length from the shopkeeper's nose tip to the tip of his index finger - and of course that varied according to the shopkeeper's physical size. A carpenter was called to make an official yardstick, by which the entire nation's measures would be standardised and this yardstick was notched in three equal places. The distance, allegedly, of each piece equated to the size of King Henry's foot.

Because a shilling comprised twelve pennies, and people were used to items being sold by the "dozen", it was decided to divide the "foot" into twelve equal portions for smaller measurements - quite where the name "inch" came from, I can't recall.

Metric is easier, except when I do carpentry because I learnt imperial! If you tell me something's two feet long, or to go and get a length of four by two, I can visualise it.

It may be easier, but metric's not half as much fun -there aren't any stories attached to it (unless someone knows different!)

Maybe it came about because of the Wee Kircudbright Centipede!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nd0pM1CbA8

I do order 4x2 by the metre plus there is no substitute for a pint of beer!
 
I only find Metric useful for small measurements ie 00 gauge 4mm to the foot. For everything large I still think in Imperial - Miles, Pints and Pounds.
 
It seems to be age related. The older you are the harder it is to convert to the metric system. It has taken me many years to become comfortable with metric and, when I finally realised that fact, I wondered why it took so long.

Volume (litres) was the easiest and fastest for me to adjust to - I never could see the sense of pints and gallons. Distances (Kms, metres, mm) took the longest because they were the most significant measurements in my life.

It helps enormously if your country mandates the entire metric system, not just parts of it. On my recent trips to the UK I was greatly amused by the confusing mix of metric units (weight, volumes) and Imperial (distances, speeds). Boris is clearly confused with his recent thought bubble about going back to Imperial measurements.
 
With more spare time this morning that usual, I went back and re-read this thread from the beginning. Interesting (and wide ranging) discussion.

Understandable, the main theme here is on the problems involved in converting measurements from one system to the other. A secondary theme is on the relationships between the sub-units within each system (inches, feet, yards, miles in Imperial and mm, cm, m, km in metric) and the differences there - powers of 10 vs a random somewhat arbitrary number.

But I have noticed that a theme that is missing from the discussion is the ease, or otherwise, of making calculations within each system.

Lets take an example.

A builder has a piece of timber of length 15ft and needs to cut it into 3 equal lengths of 4ft 8.5in. Will he/she have enough left over for another piece of length 1ft?

To do the calculation all the measurements would have to be converted into the same units (lets use inches but we could have used feet, yards, rods, poles, perches, etc).

  • The 15ft becomes 180in.
  • The 1ft becomes 12in.
  • The 4ft 8.5in becomes 56.5in.
  • 56.5 multiplied by 3, becomes 169.5in.
  • Subtract the 169.5 from the 180 gives 11.5in remaining (too short).

In metric the calculation is a lot easier. Under Australian law all building measurement have to be expressed in millimetres with no decimal points or commas. The conversion process was helped by phasing out and, eventually, making illegal the sale of rulers and tape measures that contained Imperial or even dual Imperial-metric units. You could still use Imperial measuring tools if you had them but could not buy new ones.

The hypothetical question above would be rewritten as:-

A builder has a piece of timber of length 4572mm and needs to cut it into 3 equal lengths of 1435mm. Will he/she have enough left over for another piece of length 305mm? (in reality, some of those measurements would more likely become 4550 or 4600mm and 300 or 310mm).

The calculation becomes:-
  • 1435 multiplied by 3 becomes 4305mm
  • subtract 4305 from 4572 gives 267mm remaining (too short).

This is not just an academic exercise.

Before metric conversion started in Australia (1974), one builder of project homes decided to test it out to see if it would make a difference to construction costs. They selected one of their project homes which was planned in Imperial and drew up the identical plans in metric. The metric version was then constructed to compare costs with the Imperial version. In the final analysis the big difference (ignoring delays and costs caused by external factors) was in the quantity of waste produced in each version. The metric house generated far less waste than its Imperial equivalent.

This was attributed to the builders making far fewer calculation and measurement errors in metric than they did in Imperial - converting measurements between yards, feet and inches to do calculations and measurement is a lot harder than working in just one unit, millimetres. Our hypothetical builder has to only make a slight error in the Imperial unit conversions (feet to inches), calculations or measurements to conclude that there was enough left over from the 15ft timber to get the extra piece.
 
That's interesting and something that played out here not too long ago.

The famous Rocks Village Bridge over the Merrimack River between Haverhill and West Newbury was rebuilt. This unique road bridge built over many years in the late 19th century is made up of different spans in different styles and includes a drawbridge in the middle to boot. Because of the historic nature and uniqueness of the bridge, the contractor was to keep everything intact and replace the drawbridge portion with a new one, but otherwise the rest of the bridge remains the same.

After many months of waiting, the big day arrived and...

The replacement didn't fit!

The difference was less than a millimeter, but too close so the mechanism bound up and wouldn't work.

The reason for this is simple. The measurements were done in Imperial and converted to metric, but the rounding was incorrect. It took another 9 or 10 months before the replacement arrived and put into operation. The kicker is the bridge is now closed again due to a truck striking one of the supports on the West Newbury side.
 
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Use metric when building my models as it is easier to use and more accurate and less confusing. (Fractions of an inch come to mind.) I use imperial for everything else.

Jack
 
Cascade would be happy his tongue in cheek thread is still live after 9 years! Another Trainzer who disappeared suddenly like Ed (euphod).

In Blender you don't need to use imperial or metric as they have a None option. Originally I thought it was equivalent to a metre but now I think its an abstract measurement. i.e. it can be anything you want.
 
Metric huge con forced on the UK. As our government at the time was so desperate to join the old EEC.

Now there is a campaign to revert a lot of measurement back to imperial.

I never stopped thinking in yards, feet and inches, or pounds, shillings and pence.

Always convert back automatically, when presented with metric.
 
Metric huge con forced on the UK. As our government at the time was so desperate to join the old EEC.

Now there is a campaign to revert a lot of measurement back to imperial.

I never stopped thinking in yards, feet and inches, or pounds, shillings and pence.

:D:D:D:D:D
... and your user name says it all. The 7ft gauge used by Mr Brunel in his Great Western Railway should become the new "national standard" with a change-over "break-of-gauge" transfer point in the middle of the Channel. That will show up those meddling Europeans for daring to impose their silly 10 to 100 to 1000 metric conversion system (in all measurement) on the very sensible and easy to use UK versions:-

  • inch to foot to yard to mile (1 to 12 to 36 to 63,360)
  • ounce to pound to ton (1 to 16 to 35,850)
  • teaspoon to tablespoon to fluid ounce to pint to quart to gallon (UK not US - 1 to 3 to 4.8 to 96 to 192 to 768)

As for the UK currency, well I hear that the pound is not worth much these days and what is it - 1 pound (not to be confused with weights) = 20 shillings = 240 pence = 480 halfpennies = 960 farthings? And then there is that ridiculous unit the guinea which was worth 1 pound and 1 shilling.

Yes, Boris is finally on the right track for once.
:D:D:D:D:D

(I had to delete the other 82 grin emojis - the forum AI would not accept that many).
 
You forgot all those other really useful length measurements, all of which I had to learn when I was at school in England: Chains, Furlongs, Rods, Poles and Perches. We had to learn how to convert between all of these and yes it was a long time ago.You also forgot to specify whether it should be Troy ounces or Avoirdupois.
 
As for the UK currency, well I hear that the pound is not worth much these days and what is it - 1 pound (not to be confused with weights) = 20 shillings = 240 pence = 480 halfpennies = 960 farthings? And then there is that ridiculous unit the guinea which was worth 1 pound and 1 shilling.

Keep in mind that £1 was once worth 1 troy pound of silver. Unfortunately, as of July 1st, 2022, 1 troy pound of silver is equivalent of £201.72.
 
Keep in mind that £1 was once worth 1 troy pound of silver. Unfortunately, as of July 1st, 2022, 1 troy pound of silver is equivalent of £201.72.

Dang It! I knew I should have taken my Great Grandfather's advice and invest in silver.

"Troy Pounds" - is there no end to the joys of the Imperial measurement system? Since full metrication here back in the 1970s, I do not miss the "Imperials".
 
In 2022 horses are still traded in guineas, a very traditional sport.
I an 12 stone 11 pounds. Keep your kgs.
 
I'm 11.6 stone, or 163 lbs, or 13.58 (13.6) Troy lbs.

One Troy ounce equals:

31.1 grams, or

12 oz. in a Troy pound, so it's a bit short. (There are 16 oz. in a lb.)

Alan weighs almost 169 lbs., so that makes him 14. Troy lbs. (or would that be one Troy stone? :D)

For metric to imperial

Here's a nice website for converting either way for those of us who don't want to think. The cool thing about this site is it gives the handy math formulas too.

Metric Conversion charts and calculators (metric-conversions.org)
 
I'm 11.6 stone, or 163 lbs, or 13.58 (13.6) Troy lbs.

According to my calculations you are about equal to 0.02 elephants (not sure if that is Indian or African). A much more practical unit than the Imperial weight measurements, IMHO.
 
I'm sure both methods do an adequate job, though I suspect the metric does a more adequate job.

I used the old pounds, shillings and pence and managed to buy things, we converted to metric and I still managed to buy things. Sadly whether measured in stones or kilograms, I'm still overweight :)
 
Some very smart bar staff back then if you order six different drinks for instance, no till that works it out for you, a bit like being the scorer at darts but on steroids.
A metric height is something I cannot get my mind to 'see', if a building is 30 feet tall a quick conversion is 9 metres approx but I have to do the math (if required)
 
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