Imperial cf Metric

[Frances]

Re: Imperial cf Metric

Gosh yes, or politics... No, please please don't start on that!!

Wooohooo, I had no idea this was such an issue. Having grown up in an English household in Switzerland, I've always lived with both kinds of measurements - with a greater enphasis on metric it has to be said. But if something's in different mesurements you convert it. If you do it often enough, it becomes automatic - like different currencies.

Ok, UK and US galleons did have me stumped the other day, and Farenheight doesn't seem to want to enter my sluggish brain... but working with and on this forum I can now visualise inches and feet without converting. Its cool, I learnt something new.

[Inishta]

Imperial cf Metric

I must first say that throughout my short membership on the forum I have been a huge admirer of dmuns unflagging will to share a level of expertise that most of us can only aspire to. However there are a few issues I have with his most recent contribution.

It is clear that the inch is not a metric measurement since it pre-dates decimilisation. It has been defined in the metric system as 25.4 millimetres. To accept it as such ratifies the metric system is now so well established that non-metric units still in use are actually defined in terms of the metric equivalents. America is already decimalised to a great extent. Have a look at soft drinks, wine, swim track and field, car engine sizes in litres, buy light bulbs...............watts, volts and lumens are metric measurements, radio stations are in mega hertz or kilohertz. Metric only labelling is widespread in many states.

I believe that the source of much resistance can be found in the statement that "it would cost a fortune in sunk tooling and increased operating expenses to take my shop metric". There is no denying that there is a cost to change. The balance is whether not to accept will be a lot more costly. The EU has a statute on the books, defered on a number of occasions, that state that non SI markings will be banned from 1st. of January 2010. Those American companies already in compliance will have a commercial advantage. The UK went through exactly the same situation and all engineering is now in compliance after a long and costly period of reticence. The USA is a huge marketplace but to be insular is to severely limit your options.

Your timepiece speaks more of horology being stuck in a time warp. The pouce was never an inch.........but 1.066 as a conversion and not used much after the introduction of decimilasion in france in 1795. The quotation from Beckitt.........he pretentiosly dropped his surname of Denison on achieving the peerage for building a clock...........speaks of the xenophobia of the time and to quote "Doctrinairnes of this kind may cram penny-school girls with French metres, and centimetres, and kilograms; but our yard grew and will remain as the natural standard of length until the stature of the human race alters." seems to pale in the realization that 90% of the population of the world has embraced the metric ethos.

[dmun]

Re: Imperial cf Metric

The story of the standardization of the inch is a facinating one, and not well known. As Intisha says, the inch predated the meter, in fact lots of inches did, changing from country to country, industry to industry and even from shop to shop. Henry Ford ran face into this in trying to build a mass production system for automobiles, and quickly realized that there was no standard inch measurement, and what standards existed were so bad as to be worse than useless. Ford turned the problem over to the Swedish inventor Carl Edward Johansson, whose work was with standards in the metric system. As you may know, linear measurements in machining and precision measure is established with precision screw threads, in everything from micrometers to machine tool travels. Johansson realized that he could make accurate threads from his metric equipment in 25.4 mm approximations of the inch by using a 100:127 gear ratio. He proceded to make a series of steel measuring blocks of unprecidented accuracy, so flat that if cleaned and pressed together in a rotational motion that they will stick together. These gage blocks are to this day called jo-blocks.

Ford convinced the US government that acquiring Johansson's measuring tools was a matter of national security, and there is a real adventure tale of the smuggling them out of German occupied Sweeden in WWI. Thus was the metric inch finally standardized in the United States, and later throughout the English speaking world by way of an international conference in the 1950's

As far as the clock industry being reactionary, and the consequences thereof, well that speaks for it's self. What clock industry?

Oh, and the Grimthorpe quote? That was meant to be humorous. Sometimes I miss the mark.

[gjbingham]

Re: Imperial cf Metric

Not often do you miss the mark dmun, and certainly not today. Somehow, I think you should be teaching somewhere (if you are not already). I picture your lessons as being a short drink from a firehose.

Thanks again for the schooling. Water is shooting out of my nose so I guess I'm done learning, at least for the moment.

[jeff]

Re: Imperial cf Metric

SORRY.
Didn't mean to stir emotions. Length and temperature concern me.
Length (as in dome measurements), are fairly easy for me to convert.
Temperature is a problem though, and it disrupts the flow when one must pause to convert.
As a luddite, I know nothing of computer programmes, and am constantly amazed at software capability. With this in mind, I'd wondered if eg 212F could be set up to appear as 212F/100C.

I still worship FB Site and Forumites, and would never intentionally cause hurt or disharmony.
Again, my apologies.
Luddite Jeff.

[Frances]

Re: Imperial cf Metric

You just never know which threads are going to take off, or how.

Jeff, your suggestion would make my life a bit easier, too. But in the end it comes down to the question of who turns on the converter/calculator - the person writing the contribution or the one reading it...

[jeff]

Re: Imperial cf Metric

You got that right Frances. Reckon I'll pull me head in for a bit, eh.
Mate, despite Beginner's Luck with the oven, I've run crook tucker two nights in a row. Wrong temps. Still edible but......

May our Lord forgive me Frances, I just can't help myself it seems. I reckon I'll fit vertically rotating doors to the front arch. Combined with a chimney damper, that's got to aid heat retention, don't you reckon? And that Can't be controversial. (Can it?)
You stay safe mate.
Ludd the Jeffite.

[Frances]

Re: Imperial cf Metric

ooooh, well Jeff, I dunno... Heat retention, eh?

Strikes me you're asking for it, but don't let me stop you. Go on, fling another stone in the behive.

About the cooking, I've had my share of trial and error sessions. Just hang in there, it'll all work out in the end.

[Archena]

Re: Imperial cf Metric

I really haven't got the emotional investment in the danged thing people seem to think I have. What I reacted to - possibly having incorrectly interpreted it - was the hysterical backlash I saw against a silly joke. That was it. Why it is so important to people that the US convert their entire system when we can simply make conversions as necessary (which isn't often necessary unless you happen to deal with overseas manufacturers frequently) beats me. We did try it - and didn't like it. Even if it is 'simpler' the conversion cost just wasn't worth it both in financial, political, public policy (replacing all road signs in a nation this big is horrendously expensive - another reason for the negative response to metric) and social terms.

As to what may happen in the future, well, I doubt the US will make any official conversion in the foreseeable future and am dubious it will happen in my lifetime. Those things mentioned that have adopted metric measures are still the exception and many of them are intermittent within themselves (only 2 and 3 liter bottles of soda are metric - the rest are measured in ounces and the intro of the 1 liter flopped horribly). At the moment the American market is still too large to be ignored - companies/governments who decline to trade with us because they prefer metric slit their own throats to spite there faces - here the advantage is to those that can adapt to the Imperial system - and I see no good indication of that changing any time soon.

Sigh - I really didn't come back to this to debate that (obviously, that didn't stop me). I came back to apologize. I don't know who was right - I'm not rereading it because I'll only get angry again. But maybe I misunderstood - I'm perfectly willing to concede that possibility especially since I'm of the impression that I was misunderstood. I have a dry and somewhat weird sense of humor and it doesn't always translate well - it was not my intention to 'jump' on anyone.

What I'm trying (and failing) to say is that if I was out of line, I genuinely apologize.

[gjbingham]

Re: Imperial cf Metric

Archena,
Bygone's buddy. Let 'em be.

It's easy for misunderstandings in a written forum. Few chances along the way for immediate feedback to the speaker. No one ever says: "are you saying....", we just jump in with our own viewpoints, which can occasionally lead to firery results.

As everyone knows, opinions are like AHs, everyone's got one, and nobody thinks their's stinks (though I have strong suspicion that mine are occasionally quite odiferous).
George

[carioca]

Re: Imperial cf Metric

J...
Mate, I try to go empirical for USA, but use metric in other threads.
Hope it's possible.
...
Jeff.

Jeff, don't want to barge into the metric vs imperial debate, just say that I'm with you on being 'empirical' for the US readers :-)

So in my posts you'll find, more often than not, that I supply both the metric and the imperial measurements - same on my picasaweb albums.

C'mon, Aussie, c'mon!

Take care,

LMH

[jeff]

Re: Imperial cf Metric

Thanks Carioca.
Hey Fellers, I reckon that since I initiated this debacle, maybe I can cast a vote in favour of it's demise'n cremation: ( *F or *C: I no longer give a rats, eh.)
Next thread is in Hints and Mind/Minefields, (distant, rather shy 'hahaha' on that one).
Topic?
Heat retention. Boringly non-controversial. Whew!
Stay gentle eh you mob.
The Jeffite Ludd.