Racers
Established Member
- Joined
- 22 Apr 2005
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What about an Olympic sized swimming pool and a double decker bus they are favourites of every news channel.
Pete
Imperial vs Metric
- Thread starter billw
- Start date
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Pete
billw
The Tattooed One
Indeed the total amount of gold in the world is often quoted in Olympic swimming pools, because that makes total sense.
Dr Al
Established Member
Don't you enjoy swimming in molten gold then?
Trevanion
Greatest Of All Time
Hands.
“It’s about two and a half hands”
“What do you mean it’s two and a half hands!?”
“I forgot my tape measure, it’s two and a half hands”
Small horse!
Certainly interesting but only practical if your animal-training skills are rather better than mine. You could only check the measurement if you could persuade elephants to perform underwater acrobatics. Now that is something I would pay to see
Oddly enough I saw a sculpture yesterday called "animal acrobats" (or that is what it is called if you trust my rather dubious translation from Finnish). It had a giraffe standing on a horse (I think) that was in turn standing on an elephant. Mixing units like that would be worse than mixing imperial and metric. BTW I didn't notice if it was an Indian or African elephant - what inaccuracies would that introduce? This measurement system could lead to more madness than cm.
Something I have never understood: what is the difference between a hand and a span? Is a hand the width of the hand so the fingers are irrelevant?
billw
The Tattooed One
TheTiddles
Established Member
A hand is 4”, I don’t know when that was decided, but it is therefore also... metric
Lazurus
Established Member
Beard-second (distance)
A unit inspired by the light-year, but for extremely short distances. A beard-second is defined as the length an average physicist’s beard grows in a second (about 5 nanometers).
Moot (distance)
One smoot is defined to be equal to five feet and seven inches (1.70 m), the height of Oliver R. Smoot. He was an MIT student whose fraternity pledge in 1958 was to be used to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge. The bridge’s length was measured to be 364.4 smoots plus or minus one ear.
Perhaps it was fate that Oliver Smoot later became Chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
Megalithic yard (distance)
After analyzing survey data from over 250 stone circles in England and Scotland, Scottish professor of engineering Alexander Thom came to the conclusion that there must have been a common unit of measure which he called a megalithic yard (which was the equivalent of 0.9074 yards, or 0.8297 meters).
Bloit (distance)
In the Zork games, the Great Underground Empire had its own measuring system. The most common unit was the bloit, defined as the distance the king’s favorite pet could run in one hour. The length varied greatly, but one account puts the bloit as the equivalent of approximately 2/3 of a mile.
Pyramid inch (distance)
Claimed by pyramidologists to have been used in ancient times, a Pyramid inch was one twenty-fifth of a “sacred cubit”, 1.00106 British inches, or 2.5426924 centimeters.
A unit inspired by the light-year, but for extremely short distances. A beard-second is defined as the length an average physicist’s beard grows in a second (about 5 nanometers).
Moot (distance)
One smoot is defined to be equal to five feet and seven inches (1.70 m), the height of Oliver R. Smoot. He was an MIT student whose fraternity pledge in 1958 was to be used to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge. The bridge’s length was measured to be 364.4 smoots plus or minus one ear.
Perhaps it was fate that Oliver Smoot later became Chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
Megalithic yard (distance)
After analyzing survey data from over 250 stone circles in England and Scotland, Scottish professor of engineering Alexander Thom came to the conclusion that there must have been a common unit of measure which he called a megalithic yard (which was the equivalent of 0.9074 yards, or 0.8297 meters).
Bloit (distance)
In the Zork games, the Great Underground Empire had its own measuring system. The most common unit was the bloit, defined as the distance the king’s favorite pet could run in one hour. The length varied greatly, but one account puts the bloit as the equivalent of approximately 2/3 of a mile.
Pyramid inch (distance)
Claimed by pyramidologists to have been used in ancient times, a Pyramid inch was one twenty-fifth of a “sacred cubit”, 1.00106 British inches, or 2.5426924 centimeters.
AESamuel
Established Member
I design in both metric and imperial (even on the same project) because I find they are useful for different things. My tools are all a mixture, and if I am making a joint where I need a specific metric or imperial size, I just pick whichever one fits with the tool I have.
Trevanion
Greatest Of All Time
Something occurred to me today I hadn't really thought of and I thought of this thread.
I always think in imperial when dealing with the widths and thicknesses (Metric lengths funnily enough) of rough sawn material and leave using metric sizes until it's finish planed to size.
When it's rough sawn I will say it's a 10" x 2" board, because it's roughly that size give or take and 8th
When it's planed I will say it's a 250mm x 50mm board, because it's exactly that size.
I always think in imperial when dealing with the widths and thicknesses (Metric lengths funnily enough) of rough sawn material and leave using metric sizes until it's finish planed to size.
When it's rough sawn I will say it's a 10" x 2" board, because it's roughly that size give or take and 8th
When it's planed I will say it's a 250mm x 50mm board, because it's exactly that size.
t8hants
Established Member
Sticking with only one system is so inhibiting and restrictive. Its like learning another language, once you have even a smattering your life experience is enhanced, your brain is more flexible in its processes. The problem with the adoption of the metric system in the UK was it was accompanied by a lot of political 'thou shall and shall nots', and 'das ist verboten', imposed by politicians, but insisted upon by civil servants who wanted standardisation in areas the usually had no experience in. The most sensible thing to have done was to teach the basics of both systems and allow each of the industries to sort out amongst themselves what system they wanted to adopt.
MikeG.
Established Member
So some people would use metric, and some imperial. Some standards would be written in metric, and some in imperial. Some laws would be metric, some imperial. That's a recipe for chaos. Sheer chaos. There is nothing "restrictive or inhibiting" about using metric. Just accept that imperial has gone and move on.
Surely the most sensible thing to have done would have been to have changed currency and all forms of measurement to metric at the same time? It worked for other Countries. Chaos, but chaos once only.
That would have been an utterly stupid idea.
Yebbut standard ply sheets are 1220 x 2440mm. Unless the timber yard is fiddling you!
Duncan
Lonsdale73
Established Member
German - and therefore probably metric - resources
Everyone's probably seen it before, but it's interesting.
So the next time you are handed a Specification/Procedure/Process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with it?' you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses (Two horses' asses).
(I read a version linking it to the width of Nasa's tractors.)
So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
So the next time you are handed a Specification/Procedure/Process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with it?' you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses (Two horses' asses).
(I read a version linking it to the width of Nasa's tractors.)
Not entirely accurate though. Yes, today the USA uses standard gauge railways but originally a lot of their rail system used a 5 ft gauge. They converted about 11 000 miles of track to 4 ft 9 in gauge in 36 hours when they changed to a "standard" gauge.
I only know that because, by chance, I watched a youtube video about it yesterday. Why I watched it is anyone's guess - I have no interest in the subject.
