Thread: Metric / Imperial relationship reference

I grew up in the imperial era but I was lucky that my hobby back then was amature radio where everything is metric.
I could work quite happily in either system but still find myself going into bunnies for some wood and asking for something like : a 3.6 of 2/1
I have a nice app on the phone that converts nearly anything to anything. "ConvertPad" Covers all the weird imperial measurements.

Also on the original topic.

Ironically I speak 2 languages but still have zero interest in learning imperial.

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It seems that where most people have problems, is by trying to convert between the two.
Metric and imperial are two distinct systems. Both are very easy to use but have never been intended to be interchanged.

Now where did I put that Super Foot of timber?

Regards
Keith

Originally Posted by aldav

Wow! I think Dave needs some support here, where's woodPixel?

I hope he doesn't have to buy tyres for his vehicle anytime soon

I converted from Imperial to metric around 1978 ish. It was a struggle as many of the most useful sizes of things were a 1/2 lb of something eg sausages. These were just enough for two people. Now its whatever the metric system dictates. Less human based more measurement based. Its OK I adapted.

I now woodwork entirely in metric. That is all my tools have metric measurements. My old BSW,BSF,BA etc spanners are still there for my old machines but I usually reach for the metric versions first for todays kit.

The only thing I dislike about the metric system is centimeters. Why, what how the hell ??. I have seen more wrong measurements that anything where someone spec'd centimeters and it was read as millimeters. So I only use mm and meters. Centimeters are an uneccessary measurement.

By the way the BEST, ABSOLUTE BEST music was in the 60's. The 70's was just others copying the 60's, the 80's was a wasteland.

I find people who were trained in the metric system have good mental agility. Try adding 1 and 5/8 to 3 and 13/16 to 8 and 29/32. Most people today would not have a clue how to do this rapidly. Imperial trained the mind to operate these fractional numbers very rapidly whereas metric does not.

Al

Originally Posted by beech1948

By the way the BEST, ABSOLUTE BEST music was in the 60's. The 70's was just others copying the 60's, the 80's was a wasteland.

Now this just takes things too far. While I'm happy for people to derail my thead with a range of weird and wild opinions about metric and imperial, outright lies and what borders on slandering a whole decade of big hair, leather pants, wailing guitars and thumping 20 piece drum kits is just uncalled for! ;-) I'm now going to put on some cracking 80's Rock to herald in a Friday.

Lance

Quoted from Beech 1948 "The only thing I dislike about the metric system is centimeters. Why, what how the hell ??. I have seen more wrong measurements that anything where someone spec'd centimeters and it was read as millimeters. So I only use mm and meters. Centimeters are an unneccessary measurement"

I started my Appenticeship in Imperial and converted when the Standard in Australia changed in 1973. At a meeting for the company's employees, some official guy during his presentation announced that Australia adopted the French System.....Metres and Millimeters!!!! I whole heartedly agree with Al. More confusion regarding Centimetres is a total waste of time.
If you were to describe a 6mtr shark being seen my mind still will convert to 20' before making the comment "oh that's a big shark". I still think in 4 X 2s, 8 X 4 sheets but work in metric. I can easily work in either but its rare now that I don't use Metric. I have all Metric Tape measure or Imperial Tape. I don't like to use those bi-lingual tapes at all.
Another facet to my "hobby horse" rant is the introduction of Non-Australian terminology being used on this Forum. We have timber here, not lumber! Wood is what you throw in the fire to keep you warm. Its obvious that UTube is to blame for this intrusion but even Australians are using non-Australian terms. We are definitely a minority as far as population at the world stage goes but we need to keep our "Australianess" cause once its gone its gone.
Thank you for listening, I will retire to the back of the stage to await my firing squad execution for my statements

The only thing I dislike about the metric system is centimeters

I came across a decimeter measurement Dm. mm is the standard, cm is prone to cause errors. dm is just plain stupid.

Originally Posted by beech1948

The only thing I dislike about the metric system is centimeters. Why, what how the hell ??. I have seen more wrong measurements that anything where someone spec'd centimeters and it was read as millimeters. So I only use mm and meters. Centimeters are an uneccessary measurement.

Well call me a radical who can't order tyres but here again I will express my maverick views. I actually liked centimeters. I speak in the past tense because I seem to be almost the only one in the world so I have ditched cm and work in millimeters & meters like you normal people. I must concede that xx <point> x centimeters is a little cumbersome. There is just something tangible and easy for rough estimation with cm but yeah I realise I'm way out on my own there. So yeah I'll give you that one. I had to let cm go and pretend to be a normal person. (Still secretly quite like centimeters though - don't tell anyone.).

Originally Posted by beech1948

By the way the BEST, ABSOLUTE BEST music was in the 60's. The 70's was just others copying the 60's, the 80's was a wasteland.

Al

And people call me a radical!! How can you say that about the 70s? The absolute pinnacle of musical achievement in recorded history!!!

Originally Posted by DavidG

I came across a decimeter measurement Dm. mm is the standard, cm is prone to cause errors. dm is just plain stupid.

I saw an American video on youTube recently for some tool and they had tried to convert things to metric for the video narration. Bless them. Unfortunately they didn't get it because they talked about decimeters. Sigh. Maximum points for trying though.

THe rag trade I think is to blame for the Centimetre. If a garment is within ½" then they are content. Not so with Engineering and Building. The kids at school are being taught Centimetres!! Why?? The rot sets in early in life

Originally Posted by chambezio

THe rag trade I think is to blame for the Centimetre. If a garment is within ½" then they are content. Not so with Engineering and Building. The kids at school are being taught Centimetres!! Why?? The rot sets in early in life

The chemistry and physics trade is actually to blame for the centimeter.

All metric: At 4deg Celsius, the density of water is 1.00000 gram per cubic centimeter.

Cheers,
Joe

I don't see a problem with cm as its an official subunit of the metric system and conversion to metre or mm is trivial. Like all quantities, the problems only come because folks don't write down the units.

The centimetre gain popularity with the development and use of the CGS (centimetre/gram/second) system proposed by the German Mathematician (Gauss) in the 1830s.
It is basically a metric system and a subsystem of CGS (Gaussian Units) is still used by many working in electromagnetism today e.g. the metric "tesla" unit is inconveniently large where as the "gauss" is much more convenient.

CGS has some quaint other units, e.g. Force is in "dynes" , energy is "Ergs", and acceleration is in "gals". Some of the older members might remember using or have heard of these terms.

CGS was gradually replaced as the international standard by the MKS (metre, kg, s) system starting in the 1940's and then the full SI metric system in 1960. However, the CGS system lingered, especially in north american physics and chemistry text books (which were/are used worldwide) and I remember doing some physics calculations in full CGS units in the late 1960's. I remember using a high school physics text book by a west Australian that had mixed problems in Imperial, CGS and MKS units and you just had to be able to convert seamlessly between all three systems. As uni student in the early 1970's some older lecturers might set some questions in CGS but all the younger used MKS.

By the time I started teaching in the mid 1970's most CGS units had disappeared except for a few like grams, cm and mL . Students could still use these but all other units had to be MKS.

These remnants of the CGS system (which are all just sub units of the metric system anyway) are used because they match the small scale experiments that students and researchers use in laboratories. For example my 1985 PhD thesis contains all sample weights in g, and millilitres are used extensively. Centimetres are used for nuclear physics terms like neutron flux "neutrons per cm^2 per sec " and fluence "neutrons per cm^2".

Sometimes we will just need to live with imperial.
A cricket pitch is one chain long, as is a lane for ten pin bowling. However, cricket will say 22 yards, but 66 feet if bowling.
How high do you fly? Do you want to join the 'mile' high club. Flight altitude is expressed in feet.

How much pressure is in your tyres?
I do a bit of work with pressure vessels. Older ones are in psi, latter ones in kpa others are in Bar. It all depends on what is on the gauge. Oh, I work with psi when inflating tyres (or is it tires?).