God Bless America!

[Pompey Monkey]

I'm getting increasingly peeved at constantly having to swap between metric and imperial components, nuts, bolts, and tools on my rigs. It can really interrupt my train of thought while assembling stuff.

And, as for planning how to make stuff that includes both measurement systems, it's nigh-on impossible.

Just venting!

[doublevodka]

8 minutes ago, Pompey Monkey said:

I'm getting increasingly peeved at constantly having to swap between metric and imperial components, nuts, bolts, and tools on my rigs. It can really interrupt my train of thought while assembling stuff.

And, as for planning how to make stuff that includes both measurement systems, it's nigh-on impossible.

Just venting!

It's a minefield out there! This page can be quite helpful though https://agenaastro.com/articles/guides/miscellaneous/astronomy-threads-explained.html

The only "standard" in astronomy is that it will be cloudy when you buy new kit! 🤣

[Ouroboros]

I completely agree. It’s irritating enough when trying to fettle some bit of kit at home. It used to drive me nuts at work. Much of our equipment was made in the US and the mixture of metric and English as they call it was a pain in the proverbial. Every lab and workshop had boxes of imperial bits and bobs which inevitably got muddled up with metric. 😐

[Carbon Brush]

I accept inch measurement when dealing with vehicles or other machines that are 50 years old. But for anything else. It is a joke.

Your metric/imperial issues are trivial compared to the number of large passenger and freight aircraft that have crashed or glide landed after mixing fuel units. Kilogrammes. pounds. litres, gallons......

I once had an argument with a flying examiner on a check. He asked me the fuel capacity of the aircraft.
I gave an answer in litres. He wanted an answer in US gallons - because that was the number stated in the flight manual when the aircraft was imported.
I pointed out the aircraft was fuelled from a pump delivering in litres, I know the fuel burn in litres/hour.
I know the fuel weighs 720g/litre, and the aircraft dry weight in Kg so can easily calculate take off requirements.
So for a US gallons capacity - I have no idea and I think you are daft for asking while we are flying in the UK.
I still passed the check!

Mars Polar Orbiter didn't make it.
Someone mixed up 125KM and 125 miles for orbit insertion.

The Hubble main mirror was another inch/metric mix up. Easily fixed😂 by a shuttle mission carrying a lens or two. Were they expensive?

It isn't just inches versus millimetres. I have to deal with USA customers who seem to think electric motors on machines are rated in horse power.
Strangely the kiowatt rating used by the rest of the world converts very nicely to electrical requirements.
Metric measure on pressure and flow in hydraulic systems converts nicely to kilowatts. Might be why everyone uses it🤣
I can only assume at the end of the day they go home to their log cabins, heated by wood burning stoves.
The more advanced use a horse and gin wheel connected to a generator for electricity.

I spend a lot of time trying to explain to my USA customers that they are the only industrial nation worldwide to still use inches, small gallons, horsepower, etc.
I show them world maps to demonstrate that what they think is the world is actually a small part and about 5% of the population.

One day they may come to realise....

This evening I might relax with a 0.568 litre glass of beer.

[Pompey Monkey]

25 minutes ago, Carbon Brush said:

This evening I might relax with a 0.568 litre glass of beer.

Nah!

You should just roll over and give them their 0.454 kg of flesh...

[Tiny Clanger]

I rather enjoyed teaching the eminently sensible metric system to the pupils in my charge, then , when a small person inevitably bought up the topic of the 'funny marks on the other side of the ruler that came in my new pencil case' , impressing them with the insanity of the whole 12"= 1 foot,  3 foot = 1 yard, 1760  yards = I mile .

They always wanted to know why those numbers, rather than the sensible 100x , 1000x relationships of the metric measures, and I had to say, er, it's a jumble of history, probably something to do with human foot length and paces . And the Romans. it's always the Romans.  And if you think that's crazy ,children,  how about furlongs , acres, rods, poles perches , ells, gills , fathoms, nautical miles , lbs, stones and hundredweight (which in Imperial is a mind melting ... 112 lbs ?!) and the whole host of weird stuff which actually used to be printed for reference on the back of exercise book covers ?

More marvelling at the weirdness of 'olden times' was to be had when we studied the Victorians and I made them try some calculations involving  £ shillings and pence, with extra annoyance in the form of guineas and halfpence/farthings thrown in for the maths geniuses.  Blew their minds.

It's not just the US, North Korea and Liberia don't do metric either. Interesting company to be in ...

Heather

[Zermelo]

51 minutes ago, Pompey Monkey said:

Nah!

You should just roll over and give them their 0.454 kg of flesh...

But then you just know that if you give them 2.54cm, they'll end up taking 1.61km

[DaveS]

Regarding coinage, skip to the end where he gives reasons why 240 pence to the pound isn't so crazy after all.

 

[Zermelo]

13 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

I rather enjoyed teaching the eminently sensible metric system to the pupils in my charge, then , when a small person inevitably bought up the topic of the 'funny marks on the other side of the ruler that came in my new pencil case' , impressing them with the insanity of the whole 12"= 1 foot,  3 foot = 1 yard, 1760  yards = I mile .

They always wanted to know why those numbers, rather than the sensible 100x , 1000x relationships of the metric measures, and I had to say, er, it's a jumble of history, probably something to do with human foot length and paces . And the Romans. it's always the Romans.  And if you think that's crazy ,children,  how about furlongs , acres, rods, poles perches , ells, gills , fathoms, nautical miles , lbs, stones and hundredweight (which in Imperial is a mind melting ... 112 lbs ?!) and the whole host of weird stuff which actually used to be printed for reference on the back of exercise book covers ?

More marvelling at the weirdness of 'olden times' was to be had when we studied the Victorians and I made them try some calculations involving  £ shillings and pence, with extra annoyance in the form of guineas and halfpence/farthings thrown in for the maths geniuses.  Blew their minds.

It's not just the US, North Korea and Liberia don't do metric either. Interesting company to be in ...

Heather

You forgot chains! Still very important to some people.

Though I never came across anyone who used rods, poles and perches. I have a suspicion that all of those "useful conversions" tables just copied from each other.

[StevieDvd]

Shame the guy in the video gets his coins wrong. 😞

3 pence was not also called a tanner

Tanner = 6 pence

1 Bob was a shilling  = 12 pence

 

 

[Pompey Monkey]

18 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

You forgot chains! Still very important to some people.

Why did you have to bring up chains to complicate matters further?

That's just not cricket, old chap!

[Tiny Clanger]

29 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

You forgot chains! Still very important to some people.

Though I never came across anyone who used rods, poles and perches. I have a suspicion that all of those "useful conversions" tables just copied from each other.

Chains ? Important to some people ? Sounds a bit dodgy to me,     

I expect those tables were copied , which for some reason reminds me, my Dad told me that the books of log tables had at least one deliberate mistake in them, intended to betray any copyright flaunting imitations . I've no idea if that was true or not .

Heather

[Ouroboros]

Ahh … yes. 22 yards in a chain.  The length of a cricket pitch. Ten of which end to end give a furlong of which there are 8 in a mile. A the length of a cricket pitch multiplied by 10 chains wide gives 4840 square yards, or an acre. Perfect. An English village green, warm sun, the sound of leather on willow, a pint of beer in the hand. God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.  

[Zermelo]

1 minute ago, Tiny Clanger said:

the books of log tables had at least one deliberate mistake in them, intended to betray any copyright flaunting imitations

That sounds just like that fictitious road in London that the map company put in, for the same reason.

 

[Tiny Clanger]

24 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

Shame the guy in the video gets his coins wrong. 😞

3 pence was not also called a tanner

Tanner = 6 pence

1 Bob was a shilling  = 12 pence

 

 

Quite right 3d was thrupence 🙂 , 6d a tanner , 1/- a bob , 2/- a florin or two bob, 2/6d half a crown.

When I was small , I thought my Yorkshire born & bred gran was calling people (affectionately) a silly monkey when she said what sounded to me like  'Daft apath ' , but later I realised it was a contracted version of half pence worth , ha'penny worth , (h)aypath ! 🙂

[City9Town0]

A mountweasel!!!

[Pompey Monkey]

2 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

That sounds just like that fictitious road in London that the map company put in, for the same reason.

 

I saw this on telly once. It used to happen quite a bit.

I have thought about randomly removing a star from each of my images for this very purpose. But then I realised that no-one would want to rip them off anyway....

[Zermelo]

6 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

3d was thrupence 🙂 , 6d a tanner , 1/- a bob , 2/- a florin or two bob, 2/6d half a crown

... and the short-lived double florin (=4/-) was a "barmaid's ruin"  (no, for a different reason)

[Tiny Clanger]

Wikipedia reckons it's true https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry

"By including a trivial piece of false information in a larger work, it is easier to demonstrate subsequent plagiarism if the fictitious entry is copied along with other material. An admission of this motive appears in the preface to Chambers' 1964 mathematical tables: "those [errors] that are known to exist form an uncomfortable trap for any would-be plagiarist".^[7] Similarly, trap streets may be included in a map, or invented phone numbers in a telephone directory. "

[Zermelo]

6 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

Similarly, trap streets may be included in a map

Give me any thread subject, and I guarantee to (mis)direct it eventually to Doctor Who ...

https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Trap_Street,_London

[JamesF]

1 hour ago, Tiny Clanger said:

When I was small , I thought my Yorkshire born & bred gran was calling people (affectionately) a silly monkey when she said what sounded to me like  'Daft apath ' , but later I realised it was a contracted version of half pence worth , ha'penny worth , (h)aypath ! 🙂

My (Lincolnshire born and bred) dad still does this

James

[JamesF]

54 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

Give me any thread subject, and I guarantee to (mis)direct it eventually to Doctor Who ...

https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Trap_Street,_London

I feel like a proper Doctor Who geek now, because I knew what that was without needing to follow the link

James

[ItsmeMaw]

We claim it was the metric side that caused the problem with the Mars lander!

I guess it doesn't really matter if it's a 10mm wrench or  a 9/16's wrench. You cant ever find one when you need it!

[JamesF]

Oddly enough, this morning I needed a spanner for a somewhat corroded bolt that might have been 13mm or possibly ½" AF.  Fortunately I have a set of  these, so I didn't need to work out which.

James

[Pompey Monkey]

1 hour ago, Zermelo said:

Give me any thread subject, and I guarantee to (mis)direct it eventually to Doctor Who ...

Much more civilised than Godwin's Law!