Imperial units of measurement and the future?

I look back to my school days in the 1970s & 80s and wonder why we were taught centimetres as the primary metric measurement too.

As for fractions, what was the point of learning them, but not the measurement system that uses them?

 

So you can work out whether your glass is half full, or 1/2 empty.

 

!

 

All the common modelling scales/ratios seem to come up with nutty numbers . Even the American 0 scale of 1:48, or a 1/4"/ft only works for whole/half feet. My rule then goes to 64th's and 100th's. They seem to have missed the 48th's and 96th's scales off mine. S scale is fine at 3/16"/ft but sadly I only ever had 1/64th of the money needed to play trains at those sort of prices.

Vive les Americains!

 

Because most of the teachers/academics/politicians/civil servants who orchestrate our children's education have never actually gone into the real world. Hence those arithmetic problems that begin "Georgina has 27 oranges, Surinder has 19 oranges and Osama has 76 oranges. What do they have altogether?" dunno-big hands? a vitamin C deficiency?

Vive les professeurs

 

That prompted me to check my DPhil thesis - one of the new compounds I made was fully characterised (C, H, N analysis, proton and C-13 NMR) from 20mg of product. Happy days!

Tom

 

A-level proton NMR was traumatic enough, don't remind me!

 

You had NMR at school - blimey! I'm old enough that it was considered a bit recherché to have a machine in our undergraduate teaching lab.

I got about as far as understanding COSY. I always wanted to do (simply so I could write the acronym in my thesis) an Incredible Natural Abundance Double Quantum Transfer Experiment, but could never justify it in my system ...

Tom

 

Soft tooth enamel, an acid stomach and the squits.

 

Oh we didn't actually have it, but we still had to learn it. It was always the last question on the paper, here's the results, tell us what the molecule is, usually some sort of branched ether alcoholy thing.

 

A very specialist experiment, I believe over 100mg of sample and a cryoprobe are required for anywhere near useable data. I've done lots of COSYs, HSQCs and HMQCs.
Recently I've been running quite a lot of 7Li which most seem not to bother with.

 

It's really interesting to follow this discussion.
Although there are several factors which put the daily use of the imperial units under threat ( I think I have to exclude Gibraltar and several other remaining colonies which already stopped using the old measurements from the motherland).
Firstly, nearly all migrants from abroad are from nearly metric only countries (eg. polish, romanian and on and on) and they will continue to come to the british island and blend into the british society.
Secondly, the citizens in the cities are more used to the metric system than the people from the countryside and the younger people are also more convenient with the SI system than the old generation.
And last but not least, nearly all of the exported products go to the so called metric countries and the metric system is used as the universal language to understand rhe units of products (it's like the use of English for communication).
Time goes on and the time will tell what will be more widely used in 20 years. The pre 60s heritage sector will surely remain imperial, but the future is surely metric.

Australia and the Republic of Ireland are examples showing that it's possible to successfully finish the metrication process (only the older generation still knows what a mile or inch is...).

 

Managed a bargain today - picked up a copy the 1953 edition of the BSI's Workshop Practice (BS Handbook No.2), first published in 1943 ...

Before anyone reminds me that it is now 2018, I want to use this to explain some background information that applied to some of our restoration projects in their earlier lives. (Not as originally built, some of our restoration projects even predate the foundation of the precursor to the BSI in 1901).

 

This subject makes my blood boil. I know our heritage industry still needs imperial and I support the use of that but I was told at junior school that we were learning the metric system as the changeover was “imminent”. I’m now 68 and we still haven’t changed! I do wish we’d get on and move into the 21st century, the only other major country to use imperial is the US and look what a mess that place is. Scrapping the Metrication Board was one of the worst things that Thatcher did, it held back industry and added to the belief that this country is exceptional. We’re not. Let’s get on and join the modern world. Let’s go fully metric NOW!

Sorry, rant over

 

Its not going to happen. The fact that the US still uses imperial means that US Engineering in general uses imperial, which means at a minimum every oil well dug and every aircraft that flies is intrinsically imperial. Even Airbus have imperial measurement because Boeing use it, which is remarkable given Airbus is European.

Further, all undergraduate accredited BEng and MEng courses teach imperial conversion in not only length, but volume and temperature, so that Engineers can be turned our proficient in both. For the first two years of my career i didn't even use metric. Everything was 5/8ths, 3", 20lb/ft, 12TPI.

Standards are still being written in imperial, so if you don't learn it as an aspiring engineer, you are at a disadvantage in the job market. Schools really should be teaching both, because its deeply unlikely the US is going to change any time soon, and given the strength and presence of their industrial footprint, its imperative you know both.

As for centimeters, why on earth are they taught that?! No one in industry uses that because its not even an SI unit. mm or nothing.

Further, Apple size their products in imperial. If that is mass consumption of imperially based products then i don't know what is.

Its really not a big deal, and although it might be nice if the world were all metric, the fact that imperial is still so widespread speaks volumes about its usability. Its so much easier to visualize 3" than 76.2mm

 

Perhaps those who are mocking the original derivation of the metre (in terms of an inaccurate estimate of the circumference of the earth) can tell us:
a) how they'd estimate the circumference of the earth
b) precisely whose foot the imperial foot is accurate for? Likewise inch (thumb?), yard (someone who always strides the same), etc.
There's a difference between a unit used for rough measurements and one used for accurate measurements. It's people who say "22.4mm" when they mean "about 2cm" who are silly, it's like saying 23/24" or something. Accuracy and precision....!

 

Ah yes, that reminds me...people who use overly precise conversions...
"The explosion could be heard over 1609 metres away"
"Some of the trees are over 30.48 metres tall"

Then there's entirely irrelevant measurements...
"Nelson's Column is as tall as five double decker buses"
"An elephant weighs as much as two football pitches"

 

The circumference of the earth at the equator is exactly 21,600 nautical miles. A nautical mile is 1 minute of latitude. The nautical mile is a derived measurement and was, and remains satisfactory. The nautical mile converts to 6076.1 feet, the foot being an arbitrary measurement. In longitude the difference in the earth's circumference is about 28 nautical miles, or 0.13%.

My feet, in boots, are exactly a foot long, with sufficient accuracy for things I measure in feet.
Top joint of my little finger is my "inch".
For joinery work I find that a 64th inch is plenty accurate enough.

The mitricists are mocked because the of arrogance of deciding that all existing measures are not good enough and "we will create a new interconnected system of scientific measurements, wherein length, mass, volume, energy, are all derived from one scientific calculation" and getting that calculation wrong.... Well, what would you expect to happen?

 

Nope, not "exactly". Look it up. Abandoned in 1929 for a conversion from metres...

The Earth's circumference, even at the equator, is almost impossible to measure. For example, it is different if measured starting from 0 degrees of longitude or from 90 degrees of longitude.

Exactitude is a dead end. All units of measurement are ultimately arbitrary and just need to be consistent, to the level of precision required for the information being communicated.

Metric units are far easier for calculation, that's all.

 

I believe that The term "sea miles" is now used as a definition of one minute of latitude. At least, the UKHO uses it in that way and they are the world leaders....