Metric system dumbs us down.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by StuM

Considering the alternative, where you don't know if your gallons are the same as your trading partner gallons or he uses maunds instead of gallons, there is a lot to be said for international standards of measurement.

The most commonly traded liquid is oil.... they don't use gallons or maunds... ( maunds are a unit of mass by the way - and yes I did have to look that up )

The oil industry is a fine example of international standardisation which we all should follow.... scroll down...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_(unit)

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

....

The oil industry is a fine example of international standardisation which we all should follow.... scroll down...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_(unit)

Cute

[Jason Flare]

Originally Posted by StuM

Considering the alternative, where you don't know if your gallons are the same as your trading partner gallons or he uses maunds instead of gallons, there is a lot to be said for international standards of measurement.

Explain barrels.

[mikedefieslife]

Originally Posted by nautitrix

As I recall; when Canada, went metric, the hardest thing for most people was not the math of conversion in volumes and distances. It was trying to figure out what to wear when the temperature was given in degrees centigrade. How should I dress for 13 degrees C? with a wind speed of 17 kph.

The simple answer is wear some ****ing warm clothes, because it will feel cold. Of course Centigrade is just an old fashioned name for Celsius. Similar to wench being an old fashioned word for a girl or young woman.

[TrentePieds]

Quote: "course Centigrade is just an old fashioned name for Celsius."

Not so! 'Tis the other way about. The Celsius scale for measuring heat was "invented" by Anders Celsius back in the 1740s. Old Anders was a Swede, so forgive him. He was a child of the Age of Reason. He decided, arbitrarily and in Swedish, that water ought to freeze at 0º on his scale, and that water ought to boil at 100º. And it was so!

He was in competition at the time with his contemporary, good old René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, who insisted just as vehemently that water must boil at 80ºs, tho he was willing to let it freeze at 0º. And it was so! And why not? Rene-Antoine was, after all, also a child of the Age of Reason. Incidentally, even in my childhood, in my neckathewoods, you sometimes saw the Réaumur scale in use, though the Celsius scale was the common thing.

It wasn't till the coming of steamships and railways in the 19th century that the term "centigrade" came into use, and then only in the English speaking-world, whose engineers were tickled by it. The rest of the world called the scale by its proper name.

And then there's that bizarre scale concocted by a Polish-born Dutchman, the Fahrenheit scale, that is used only in that holiest of scientific holies, the USA. But let's not even go there :-)!

But it might be worth mentioning that both Anders and Réne-Antoine were contemporaries of John Harrison without whose hard work and glorious invention we seafarers - well, not me, since I'm strictly a coastal cruiser - would be all at sea.

TrentePieds

[Jim Cate]

we seafarers - well, not me, since I'm strictly a coastal cruiser - would be all at sea.

But hopefully measuring the temperature of that sea in degrees C.

Jim (who is pretty much bi-lingual in matters of units)

[TrentePieds]

Well, most people do, but in my early days on this coast Canada was still on the "old system", and my early indoctrination that the water temperature six foot down is "forty six degrees" year round has never left me. Nor has the early learning that an unprotected man's life expectancy in this water is about 40 minutes.

I was among the first to wear a "UVic floater coast", the PDF that became famous as the "Mustang" floater coat and is now in its various permutations de rigueur all over the world. A very good friend of mine was Mustang's CFO for a number of years when Mustang was still a Vancouver company operating out of "Gastown", the now very trendy and touristy part of central Vancouver that was the city's original site back in the 1880. In the late 1990s Safariland. (out of California) made Mustang an offer the shareholders in the closely held company couldn't refuse.

But what doesn't change is that the water in the Salish Sea is COLD - and deadly. Regardless of the temperature scale you use :-)!

TrentePieds

[Benz]

While cruising near Labrador, we would get Canadian Coast Guard forecasts with windspeed in knots; then the weather service would forecast with wind in kmph; and then we encountered forecasts with wind in metres per second! It's hard enough to figure out what they mean when they use kilometres, but metres per second is absolutely meaningless, since I have no frame of reference. Also, the difference between ten knots and twelve knots is not huge, but from three metres per second to four it seems like the difference would be huge. I say 'seems', because I have no idea how 'metres per second' translates into speeds I travel in.
Ben

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Benz

While cruising near Labrador, we would get Canadian Coast Guard forecasts with windspeed in knots; then the weather service would forecast with wind in kmph; and then we encountered forecasts with wind in metres per second! It's hard enough to figure out what they mean when they use kilometres, but metres per second is absolutely meaningless, since I have no frame of reference. Also, the difference between ten knots and twelve knots is not huge, but from three metres per second to four it seems like the difference would be huge. I say 'seems', because I have no idea how 'metres per second' translates into speeds I travel in.
Ben

Double metres/second to get knots:
3 m/s = 6 knots, 4m/s= 8 knots.

(It's actually 1.944:1, but 2:1 is close enough)

[Jason Flare]

Originally Posted by StuM

Double metres/second to get knots:
3 m/s = 6 knots, 4m/s= 8 knots.

(It's actually 1.944:1, but 2:1 is close enough)

That is good to know provided that, being human and therefore fallible, you haven't mistakenly put that little decimal point in the wrong place.

There's been enough of that in this thread alone.

[carstenb]

Originally Posted by Jason Flare

That is good to know provided that, being human and therefore fallible, you haven't mistakenly put that little decimal point in the wrong place.

There's been enough of that in this thread alone.

Stu is correct.

1 meter per second = 1.944 knots

although if he were in europe he would need to write it:

1 meter per second = 1,944 knots.

In everyday usage a simple 1 m/s = 2 knots is close enough

[Ozifrog]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

If metric is so great, why is paper measured as A0, A1, A2, etc... rather then by dimensions like normal people use?

If you aren't going to use dimensions, just say "letter size"? To make matters worse, letter size in metric is 8.3x11.7inches or 210x279.4mm. If you are going to make up a special metric paper size, you would either match it to the old standard or use round numbers. Is trimming that 0.6mm off, really needed?

A4 paper IS metric.
Now how's that for normal people.
Its the ratio of length to width which makes it so cool.
Every time you cut it in two equal halves you get the same ratio of length to width.
Check out these links.
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html

ISO Paper sizes | A brief overview

[Jason Flare]

According to the people with a metric measuring tool everything measurement is metric.

In a similar way, to everyone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

[buzzstar]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

**Buzzstar
I never thought about horses' watts before! ;-) But, consider the Shetland pony and the Scottish Highland Cattle. Both quite small for equids and bovines. The Hielanders would have had to travel quite a way to find a Shire, and then work like the devil to clear the rocky soil and plant enough grass for it, to boot!
Ann

Ay lass, as me brother, who was raised in the Highlands (or is it Hielands?) told me while showing me a photo of himself as a boy, in shorts, holding a rabbit he had shot, life there can he hard. But Mr. Watt was a Scot, so what was he do do but use a familiar measure. Darn, you brought back some memories! Thanks.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by Jason Flare

Explain barrels.

That prices for certain commodities are still being quoted in some old fashioned unit is not uncommon. It's just what we have always done...

For example, if I order firewood, the unit used for quoting the price is an old fashioned one called "stère".

However, outside of trading those units are not used. Sizes for tanker cars for example will be given in m3, not in barrels...