Subject:
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Re: the metric system
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 1 May 2001 14:31:01 GMT
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Viewed:
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322 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Timothy Culberson writes:
> > Christopher Tracey wrote:
> > >
> > > yay or nay?
> > >
> > > -chris
> >
> > Abosolutely yay. The US should get out of their redneck rut and realize
> > that they are decades behind the rest of the world when it comes to this
> > issue.
>
> Sorry about that!
>
> But isn't the Metric system an abomination in the eyes of God? After all,
> the linear measure is based on human scientists gaining a true understanding
> of the world and its workings. Whereas the linear measure in the Imperial
> system is based on the size of a royal (and therefore blessed by God, just
> ask the church of england..) foot.
>
> I guess I'm surprised to hear you come out on the side of science and
> against the will of your god. <grin>
You know, I was going to comment on that, then I saw
that you already had. (The part about Tim championing
science, that is.) I almost fell out of my chair when
I read that! :) I was half prepared to read "cubits."
Or are we just being evil, nasty trolls? (Probably.)
Anyways, I'm in complete agreement with the "yea" argument.
But as someone else has mentioned, the conversion is now
immobile, fixed at (in the example given) 1"=2.54cm (approx).
But in the work I'm doing, involving survey and mapping,
the units were a serious cause of problems and they remain
the root of difficulties even today. For example, even in
the 1920s and 1930s, the length of the US foot and the UK
foot *differed* from one another, albeit only by a few
tenths of a millimeter, which was enough to screw up mixed
surveys royally (see? Bad pun!). Add the metric system
and you get a slight imprecision that grows with conversion.
In geodetic measure, that's unacceptable.
The last time, IIRC, that the meter changed definitively
was 1873. I think it got its current measure--based on the
speed of light, which had, ironically, originally been determined
by the standard bar in Paris--came into being recently, but the
goal is still that standard manufactured in 1873 under 'ideal'
conditions. Manufacturing standards was big and expensive
business before advanced optics! ;) Anyways, the upshot of
this whole tirade is that the UK made the argument in the 1930s
that conversion to the metric system would put their measures
and standards in the hands of bodies outside Britain--e.g.,
that awful Continental powers could decide to change the
standards and leave the UK stranded. The foot, they insisted,
would never change and was controlled by His (at the time)
Majesty's Government and His Majesty's scientists, not some
pinko quiche-eating un-British snail-frying...well, you get
the picture.
It's probably not the same in the US, but I'm not surprised
that some defend the imperial system on the basis of nationalism.
Now that I think of it, it's closest to the furore over money
decimalisation in Britain in 1970. Who, of the Britons and even
non-Britons among us, would dare champion a return to shillings
and bob? Maybe the US can point to its very early introduction
of decimal currency--IIRC only the first or second incidence among
the nations of the West--to get people to lay off about the
measures thing. We love our furlongs n' fathoms!
(BTW: if anyone wants to research decimalisation, all of the
documents concerning the Government and decimalisation have
just been declassified by HMG and are available at the Public
Record Office, Kew, Surrey. Check out the website if you want:
http://pro.gov.uk .)
A related observation:
I've noticed that people in Britain and, to a lesser extent,
here in the Netherlands are absolutely unable to make change
quickly. They can do round numbers OK--i.e., 5.45 from 10.00--
but if you buy something that's 9.23 and give the person behind
the counter 10.03 they freak out. It's amusing, but somewhat
disturbing, but I chalk it up to the ease of metric--when you
don't have complex maths in your workaday life, the speed of
computation is naturally depressed. (Stephen Hawking and assoc-
iates naturally excepted.)
best
LFB
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: the metric system
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| .... (...) I recently had to do somethin involving metirc conversion and was told that at some point the inch was redefind by the international standards people to be exactly 2.54 cm. (...) .... I thought that the meter was defined in terms of the (...) (24 years ago, 1-May-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: the metric system
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| (...) Sorry about that! But isn't the Metric system an abomination in the eyes of God? After all, the linear measure is based on human scientists gaining a true understanding of the world and its workings. Whereas the linear measure in the Imperial (...) (24 years ago, 30-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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