EU gives up on 'metric Britain'

[dangel]

a pint is about half a litre

No s**t - thanks for clearing that up!

Perhaps I needed more smileys with that statement or someone's taking this a tad too seriously.. Post edited to clarify it for ya mate

So half a litre's just a bit too small for a proper drink.

Indeed - which is why we need a PINT. Because a litre's too heavy for us metrosexuals

[toolsong]

For specific things where there are cultural or established conventions, I agree that using non-metric units is a good idea.

eg
pint glass
inches for wheel/tyre diameters (crazily mixed with millimeters for width and % for profile)

For anything else why not use metric?

The obvious one in this country is for distance and speed measurements. Miles do my head in

[Andy3536]

Metric or imperial.
The simple fact is they are both easy if your tought them at school!

The reason most young people are finding it hard to understand imperial is they don't teach it in schools anymore as they stopped when the EU told us to.
So they have in fact made us go metric because in the not too distant future almost everyone will have no clue as to what the imperial system is.

The fact that the EU demanded this in the first place was petty and narrow minded and shows they are not in touch with what the people of europe actually want.

In the US they have only imperial and they get on just fine, you don't see US students going '3", how long is that?'
They should start teaching it in schools again just so we can again annoy those stupid MEPs.

[directhex]

Metric or imperial.
The simple fact is they are both easy if your tought them at school!

The reason most young people are finding it hard to understand imperial is they don't teach it in schools anymore as they stopped when the EU told us to.
So they have in fact made us go metric because in the not too distant future almost everyone will have no clue as to what the imperial system is.

The fact that the EU demanded this in the first place was petty and narrow minded and shows they are not in touch with what the people of europe actually want.

In the US they have only imperial and they get on just fine, you don't see US students going '3", how long is that?'
They should start teaching it in schools again just so we can again annoy those stupid MEPs.

so then. how many hogsheads to the furlong?

[TooNice]

While it's true that you can get most system, I definitely prefer and find more logical to use centimetres and metres to inches and feet. The reason is simple: in virtually every place I've been to (and that's quite a few), people count using a base ten system. Okay, there might be people, who might enjoy counting the cost of his shopping in binary or hexadecimal, but for most of us, even in this forum, we are probably sticking to base ten. And that's pretty much how the metric system works. Now granted, I don't hear people use decimetre or decametre much if at all, but it's not complicated (10 cm, and 10m respectively).

Whereas for inches and feet, you have to consider that each foot equals twelve inches. And then there is the yard which is 3 feet. So each yard is 36 inches. And a mile is apparently 1760 yards. So how many feet is 15.5 miles? Yes, sure, you can work it out eventually, but the conversion progress is more fiddly than converting 15.5km to cm, I'd say. From a cultural account, I can see why one may want to stick with the imperial system. But it just does not seem to be the most natural form of measurements today.

[toolsong]

While it's true that you can get most system, I definitely prefer and find more logical to use centimetres and metres to inches and feet. The reason is simple: in virtually every place I've been to (and that's quite a few), people count using a base ten system.<snip>

Exactly

Here's a fantastic quote I came across recently in a book about software engineering. Quite obvious yet not something I'd consciously thought about.

By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and, in effect, increases the mental power of the race. Before the introduction of the Arabic notation, multiplication was difficult, and the division even of integers called into play the highest mathematical faculties. Probably nothing in the modern world would have more astonished a Greek mathematician than to learn that ... a large proportion of the population of Western Europe could perform the operation of division for the largest numbers. This fact would have seemed to him a sheer impossibility ... Our modern power of easy reckoning with decimal fractions is the almost miraculous result of the gradual discovery of a perfect notation.

[hibby]

And why not go for the full conversion to the duodecimal system? Apparently it's the logical counting system.

[iranu]

The UK will go metric eventually, it will just take a long time (probably need everyone over the age of 40 to die off ) as its only metric that's taught in schools. The biggest problem will be the cost of replacing all the road signs.

Over my dead 6' 1" body. When the length of a cricket pitch becomes 2011.68cm I'm off to somewhere more civilised. Miles are a perfectly reasonable measurement. Ask any engineer what ten or twenty thou is and they'll tell you regardless of whether they were only taught metric.

[badass]

honestly though, where's the logic to imperial?

Its more divisible. Thats about it. I'm pro metric but still think in miles etc

[headbrace]

More divisible? As in, you can divide it more?

Surely metric is much more divisible, given that we already have all the prefixes required, so we can express many fractions of a certain measurement without having to invent new ones after we reach an arbitrary size.

With femto, pico, nano, micro, milli, deci, deca, hecto, kilo, mega, giga, tera etc etc, we can express any length in terms of metres. We don't get to a stage where we hit 12 metres, or 36 centimetres, and then think "Now what?"

It makes perfect, logical sense. It's scalable. It can be easily counted on fingers, it's easy to remember, and it works.

To me, insisting on using imperial smacks a bit of a "Little England" (Or Scotland, Wales or Nr Ireland), us against them mentality.

[99Flake]

I was speaking to my dad about this (an accountant) and to a guy at work who does a lot of word work and building and both say that the imperial system is far more uselful and can be used in much better ways. I can't remember why though, I asked them to explain as I didn't understand why but it made perfect sense.

[directhex]

I was speaking to my dad about this (an accountant) and to a guy at work who does a lot of word work and building and both say that the imperial system is far more uselful and can be used in much better ways. I can't remember why though, I asked them to explain as I didn't understand why but it made perfect sense.

"i bought this set of imperial wrenches back in '63 and damned if i'm replacing them!"

here's the simple one. remember imperial currency? it was abbreviated "lsd" for a reason

[dangel]

Meh, people simply adopt scales which most make sense to the job in hand, nothing more. So you metric-maniacs will just have to put up with it

[TooNice]

If by "making more sense to the job" you refer to 'a pint' which is easier to say than 'I'll have a 0.568L of beer', and it would be 'wrong' by British culture to round the size of a pint (0.5/0.6L), then sure, you have a point. Ditto for the size of the cricket pitch.

But there is certainly nothing that makes miles more suitable than kilometres when it comes to measuring the circumference of the earth, the distance between the earth and the sun, or even the distance between my place and the airport. Now you might argue that it is just a case of personal taste/getting used to the system. But I would argue that the entire imperial system simply lack a consistency between each measurements. An inch is a thousand thou, a foot is not 10 or 100, but 12 inches, a yard is not 10 no 12 but 3 feet, and I can carry on.

It's almost akin to using decimals for numbers between 1 and 10, hexadecimal between 11-99, binary between 100 and 9670, duodecimal from to 999991 etc. An exaggeration? Somewhat. I am going to assume that the uneven multiples between in the imperial system is not entirely arbitrary (can't say I've looked up behind the 'why' behind those multiplers). And really, I wouldn't be surprised that our human mind could adopt to a format based on various numeral systems if we were taught to count that way from the moment we could do 1-2-3, and we would be able to 'put up' with it. But it's not the most intuitive sounding system.

Just to say, I can do my mǔ and my l&#237;, my tsubo and my shaku. Given that I've only spent a couple of weeks in China and Japan, I won't claim that I 'know' their system better than the imperial system. But their system, for most part, scales more consistently. There are still time where the Japanese system of measurement go a little wonky, but multiple of ten is still the most commonly used multiplier, and in the long term, I find base then more intuitive simply because of the way we count.

[Although consistency alone might work too - if the multiplier is consistently 5, or 25 or even 8 it would ease things a bit]

[dangel]

Really, I only meant that if a unit was too complex/too hard to understand then we'd of abandoned it ages ago. Hence, the overhaul of the monetary system but not the road system - changing the latter wouldn't enhance my life any and would cost more than a thrupenny bit To be honest, it's mildly amusing that we're hung up about it at all: I mean can you actually think of any imperial measurement that's causing you grief? You're offered both in weights, both in measurements and probably the only one thrust upon you is miles/feet on t'roads (hint: change the units on yer sat nav). I'm sure some university think tank somewhere is working on one of those oh-so-useful reports explaining how working in miles is throwing me off when i'm visting my mum but.. I just don't see it. Perhaps i'm too old
I rather like the fact we're a little different - it makes a trip to 'europe' that much more exotic lol

[badass]

More divisible? As in, you can divide it more?

Surely metric is much more divisible, given that we already have all the prefixes required, so we can express many fractions of a certain measurement without having to invent new ones after we reach an arbitrary size.

With femto, pico, nano, micro, milli, deci, deca, hecto, kilo, mega, giga, tera etc etc, we can express any length in terms of metres. We don't get to a stage where we hit 12 metres, or 36 centimetres, and then think "Now what?"

It makes perfect, logical sense. It's scalable. It can be easily counted on fingers, it's easy to remember, and it works.

To me, insisting on using imperial smacks a bit of a "Little England" (Or Scotland, Wales or Nr Ireland), us against them mentality.

You can divide 12 by 1,2,3,4 and 6 and get an integer.
You can only divide 10 by 1,2 and 5