Personally I would say the EU has bigger problems than whether we use KMPH or MPH
The issue is one of implementing a common signalling system for safe pan-European rail services. It sounds like exactly the sort of the EU is charged with.
Excellent idea. I'm going to start canvassing immediately in favour of imperial. For my slogan I'll play on the anti-foreign vibe currently awash in this country - "Metric is French. We hate the French. Vote British Imperial"
I mean, we briefly covered the metric system. We were taught the conversions, but that's as far as it went. If there was a maths test and one of the questions was about, I don't know, combining and multiplying the heights of 10 giants, it would certainly be in foot & inches.
At the risk of sticking my neck out here, I'm going to call B'S on this.
There isn't an exam body in the country that would issue maths and science papers using Imperial units.
Excellent idea. I'm going to start canvassing immediately in favour of imperial. For my slogan I'll play on the anti-foreign vibe currently awash in this country - "Metric is French. We hate the French. Vote British Imperial"
Well it wouldn't be the first political campaign built on incorrect data and false assumption
At the risk of sticking my neck out here, I'm going to call B'S on this.
There isn't an exam body in the country that would issue maths and science papers using Imperial units.
Look further down the page, I admit I guess I was wrong in thinking this.
It's not possible to revert to Imperial. The cost is too great. The cost, and not just the financial cost, is many many times greater, than the cost to complete metrication.
What is the European Rail Traffic Management Systemm and is it an important thing to have and be a part of? The article says our railways are some of the safest around so what are benefits of this?
More's the point, who would be paying for all this conversion to metric?
If it's of no real benefit and our government was expected to pay then I'd be against it. If it was greatly beneficial and the EU were funding it then fair enough.
It's not possible to revert to Imperial. The cost is too great. The cost, and not just the financial cost, is many many times greater, than the cost to complete metrication.
To say nothing of the cost to anyone who imports or exports things. International trade is metric and has been for a long time.
Oh, I thought this meant the track gauge would have to be tweaked...
So did I, we invented Railways and most of the rest of the world use the same gauge as us. 4ft 8 I/2 inches, which is based on the old cart wheel sizes which in turn dates back to the Romans. The wheel ruts in Pompeii are 4ft 8 1/2 inches, so in a way we are already continental.
Curiously the SI unit that's a bit odd is the second, since higher units of time are not decimal, so we have 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and so on.
Most scientists would do calculations involving time in seconds then convert the answer into minutes/hours/days/years (which aren't metric measurements) to make them more understandable and relatable to every day life
For example, if I had to work out the orbital period of the Earth, I'd get an answer of ~3.2 x 10^7 seconds (or 32 mega seconds) and then I'd convert that to 1 year to make the answer more applicable to our daily lives which are based around the motions of celestial bodies.
On the other hand, if I'm doing a calculation involving speed or velocity, I'd always calculate my answer in metres per second and never kilometres per hour.
People also like to use contrived units like light years in astronomy which really is an arbitrary unit which relates to the time it takes the earth to go around the sun.
There are plenty of other measurements which are neither SI nor imperial, some of which are pointless and others which are helpful in certain circumstances.
An example is measuring pressure in Torr. I must admit, I have no idea what the point in this measurement is, but it must have a use somewhere.
"Light years" is a helpful measurement because it makes more sense than saying "9 Peta metres".
But for the purpose of any calculations, the light year would be converted to metres.
The UK's mixed system as it is seems pretty stupid. If we laugh at Americans for rigidly sticking to imperial we might as well go the whole hog to metric ourselves.
Completely agree. Never understood why it's half & half.
Oh, I thought this meant the track gauge would have to be tweaked...
No, but the loading gauge in the UK is generally less than in Europe, hence our narrower trains and we can't use double decker trains on most routes, because of tunnels being too small.
The Great Central Main Line (GCML), also known as the London Extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR), is a former railway line in the United Kingdom. It opened in 1899 and ran from Sheffield in the North of England, southwards through Nottingham and Leicester to Marylebone Station in London.
The GCML was the last main line railway built in Britain during the Victorian period. It was built by the railway entrepreneur Edward Watkin who aimed to run a high-speed, north-south main line to London. The line was not only designed to a specification which would permit trains to run at higher speeds, but also built to a larger loading gauge in anticipation of larger continental European trains; Watkin confidently believed that it would be possible to run direct rail services between Britain and France and had also presided over an unsuccessful project to dig a tunnel under the English Channel in the 1880s.
There are plenty of other measurements which are neither SI nor imperial, some of which are pointless and others which are helpful in certain circumstances.
An example is measuring pressure in Torr. I must admit, I have no idea what the point in this measurement is, but it must have a use somewhere.
"Light years" is a helpful measurement because it makes more sense than saying "9 Peta metres".
But for the purpose of any calculations, the light year would be converted to metres.
1 Torr is 1 mmHg and relates to the design of the original mercury barometers. 760 Torr/760 mmHg is atmospheric pressure.
Professional astronomers use the Parsec in their calculations. It isn't metric but instead it relates directly to Parallax - the method used to determine stellar distances.
.............. There are plenty of other measurements which are neither SI nor imperial, some of which are pointless and others which are helpful in certain circumstances.
An example is measuring pressure in Torr. I must admit, I have no idea what the point in this measurement is, but it must have a use somewhere.
I remember using a mercury manometer at school in the 1970s and making pressure measurements in mm of mercury (Torr) did make sense then.
Much of the subsequent electronic pressure measuring gauges seemed to hang onto that unit for some time, although I'm not sure if that is still the case now.
Frankly the ridiculous notion of the UK clinging to such an outdated imperial system makes us a laughing stock in the eyes of the rest of the world, and this steadfast refusal to come into alignment with most other countries actually does our reputation more harm than good.
Like driving on the left, having a monarchy and keeping our own currency? I don't think that makes us a laughing stock.
And the imperial system is not that much older than the metric one. The USA still use it; who's laughing at them?
I grew up with imperial measures, and also pre decimalisation etc...but frankly metric was far easier and simpler to get my head round. Basically of you can count to ten, you can understand metric very quickly and easily.
Imperial is in many ways easier to deal with because it's not just based on multiples of ten, which makes units merge into each other and therefore error prone.
Inches, feet and yards are actually perfect for lengths because they are just the right size for various applications: room sizes really need to be expressed in feet; you wouldn't use yards, yet we are now expected to use metres (which are too big so need decimal places, and no-one can visualise a room size without converting into feet).
And I think we made a mistake in ditching Fahrenheit for Centigrade; the former is more precise, and divides up the temperature ranges we are likely to experience into just the right number: 40s, 50s and 60s for example.
The kilometre would have the same advantages over the mile, but since the mile is extremely well established, why bother to change it now? It'll be just another welcome bit of difference we'll experience when traveling between the UK and Europe.
Like driving on the left, having a monarchy and keeping our own currency? I don't think that makes us a laughing stock.
And the imperial system is not that much older than the metric one. The USA still use it; who's laughing at them?
Imperial is in many ways easier to deal with because it's not just based on multiples of ten, which makes units merge into each other and therefore error prone.
Inches, feet and yards are actually perfect for lengths because they are just the right size for various applications: room sizes really need to be expressed in feet; you wouldn't use yards, yet we are now expected to use metres (which are too big so need decimal places, and no-one can visualise a room size without converting into feet).
And I think we made a mistake in ditching Fahrenheit for Centigrade; the former is more precise, and divides up the temperature ranges we are likely to experience into just the right number: 40s, 50s and 60s for example.
The kilometre would have the same advantages over the mile, but since the mile is extremely well established, why bother to change it now? It'll be just another welcome bit of difference we'll experience when traveling between the UK and Europe.
thou, Inches, feet, yards, chain, furlongs and leagues are not perfect for lengths and distances... and for any real application, you've got take an actual measurement rendering the point somewhat moot.
How is Fahrenheit "more precise" than Celsius? If you need more precision, you increase the amount of decimal places.
At least celsius is more relatable to what you're feeling.
When it's cold the number is low, when it's hot the number is high. In fahrenheit the numbers always appear to be high to me so it doesn't feel right to describe a cold day where it may be 3C as being 37 Degrees (had to look that one up). That seems nonsensical to me. 37 is very very warm to me. When my family in America talk about it being "in the high 90s" I struggle to know exactly how warm it will be.
It seems the main thing holding us back is peoples stubbornness to change. We shouldn't have started if we didn't mean to finish to job, now we're left in this ridiculous situation (buying milk, but only cos milk, in weird quantities like 2.4419 litres for example while goats milk or that stuff from Jersey is in Litres only) and in all honesty I'm kind of glad the EU is trying to get us to change as otherwise it'll never happen. We simply cannot cling to the past forever, it's time to let go.
thou, Inches, feet, yards, chain, furlongs and leagues are not perfect for lengths and distances... and for any real application, you've got take an actual measurement rendering the point somewhat moot.
I'd agree that imperial is better for 'personal' measurements, that is things that are within human reach or on a human scale. And I suppose going back a couple of hundred years most things fit into that category. But these days most things do not fit into that category and I think the metric system is better suited to the 'larger' modern world. Oh and for anything involving mixing units metric/SI wins out because you can use 'algebra' to get the units for the final answer instead of having to do yet more calculations.
If you have a distance in the SI system it will be in metres. No further calculation is needed. If you have a distance in the imperial system it could be in inches, feet, yards, miles - and could well require a further calculation to get a 'sensible' unit..or as may well be the case a combination of units like '5 feet, 3 inches'.
Few people on here seem to grasp the point that it is for us to decide how to run our railways. Whether metric or imperial is better is not the point. If metric were superior then it would make sense to use it regardless of the EU.
However miles is simpler than kilometres as it is smaller units.Likewise weight measurements are much simpler using ounces and pounds.eg. 4ozs butter
2ozs sugar,8ozs flour as opposed to 114grams butter,56 grams sugar,226grams flour.
As late as 2006 my pupils still asked me to give them measurements in ounces etc. at school because that was what they used at home with Mum.
I did as long as they knew that to use anything other than metric in an exam would have lost them marks.This is one of the sinister type of situations we find ourselves in because of the EU.
I did as long as they knew that to use anything other than metric in an exam would have lost them marks.This is one of the sinister type of situations we find ourselves in because of the EU.
We started metrification in the 1960s, decades before the EU. That's when it started being taught in schools. Using metric on exams is common sense as it's taught, it's nothing to do with the EU. It's not the fault of the EU we are in this stupid situation now. I'm just thankful they are trying to finish the job we only managed to get half done.
Anyway, the EU isn't some omnipresent being forcing us to make these changes. You do realise that the UK representation at EU level agreed to these changes as we are..shock horror...a member of the EU and have a say in policy making!
thou, Inches, feet, yards, chain, furlongs and leagues are not perfect for lengths and distances... and for any real application, you've got take an actual measurement rendering the point somewhat moot.
How is Fahrenheit "more precise" than Celsius? If you need more precision, you increase the amount of decimal places.
I think they mean for cultural use, I've never seen a weather forecast for the general public that ever states a predicted temperature with decimal points so if you don't want to use decimals Fahrenheit is slightly more precise.
If metric were superior then it would make sense to use it regardless of the EU.
You must be new to this planet. People rarely do things just because they are better. Quite the opposite in a lot of cases.
Likewise weight measurements are much simpler using ounces and pounds.eg. 4ozs butter
2ozs sugar,8ozs flour as opposed to 114grams butter,56 grams sugar,226grams flour.
Actually the 'gram' is so popular that it's used by both camps. You often hear it being used in the US:
"The gram is today the most widely used unit of measurement for non-liquid ingredients in cooking and grocery shopping worldwide.
Most standards and legal requirements for nutrition labels on food products require relative contents to be stated per 100 g of the product, such that the resulting figure can also be read as a percentage."
And FYI 'kilometre' is not a unit. The metric/SI unit of length is the metre. Unlike the imperial system we only have one unit for length.
As late as 2006 my pupils still asked me to give them measurements in ounces etc. at school because that was what they used at home with Mum.
In what way is that a recommendation? My Dad is barely computer literate. Does that mean I should give up my career as a software developer? 'Because my parents did it that way' is a poor excuse.
I think they mean for cultural use, I've never seen a weather forecast for the general public that ever states a predicted temperature with decimal points so if you don't want to use decimals Fahrenheit is slightly more precise.
True but decimals could be used if it mattered. Truth is though that accuracy like that simply isn't needed for a weather forecast. The human body is absolutely pants at detecting the temperature so anything much beyond ' a bit chilly' or 'a right scorcher' is wasted anyway
At least celsius is more relatable to what you're feeling.
When it's cold the number is low, when it's hot the number is high. In fahrenheit the numbers always appear to be high to me so it doesn't feel right to describe a cold day where it may be 3C as being 37 Degrees (had to look that one up). That seems nonsensical to me. 37 is very very warm to me. When my family in America talk about it being "in the high 90s" I struggle to know exactly how warm it will be.
It seems the main thing holding us back is peoples stubbornness to change. We shouldn't have started if we didn't mean to finish to job, now we're left in this ridiculous situation (buying milk, but only cos milk, in weird quantities like 2.4419 litres for example while goats milk or that stuff from Jersey is in Litres only) and in all honesty I'm kind of glad the EU is trying to get us to change as otherwise it'll never happen. We simply cannot cling to the past forever, it's time to let go.
As for Fahrenheit I had to relate to it as I spent a lot of time in the US. My way of dealing with it is to equate it to a % since 0 is about the coldest it will ever get and 100 is about the hottest in air temperature as experienced by humans ( not strictly true but near enough )
It does amuse me how worked up people get over this stuff. There are way more important problems in the world.
Comments
The issue is one of implementing a common signalling system for safe pan-European rail services. It sounds like exactly the sort of the EU is charged with.
Excellent idea. I'm going to start canvassing immediately in favour of imperial. For my slogan I'll play on the anti-foreign vibe currently awash in this country - "Metric is French. We hate the French. Vote British Imperial"
At the risk of sticking my neck out here, I'm going to call B'S on this.
There isn't an exam body in the country that would issue maths and science papers using Imperial units.
Look further down the page, I admit I guess I was wrong in thinking this.
It's not possible to revert to Imperial. The cost is too great. The cost, and not just the financial cost, is many many times greater, than the cost to complete metrication.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Rail_Traffic_Management_System
http://help.export.gov/link/portal/28023/28026/Article/166/Is-the-metric-system-required-for-export-labeling
So did I, we invented Railways and most of the rest of the world use the same gauge as us. 4ft 8 I/2 inches, which is based on the old cart wheel sizes which in turn dates back to the Romans. The wheel ruts in Pompeii are 4ft 8 1/2 inches, so in a way we are already continental.
Most scientists would do calculations involving time in seconds then convert the answer into minutes/hours/days/years (which aren't metric measurements) to make them more understandable and relatable to every day life
For example, if I had to work out the orbital period of the Earth, I'd get an answer of ~3.2 x 10^7 seconds (or 32 mega seconds) and then I'd convert that to 1 year to make the answer more applicable to our daily lives which are based around the motions of celestial bodies.
On the other hand, if I'm doing a calculation involving speed or velocity, I'd always calculate my answer in metres per second and never kilometres per hour.
There are plenty of other measurements which are neither SI nor imperial, some of which are pointless and others which are helpful in certain circumstances.
An example is measuring pressure in Torr. I must admit, I have no idea what the point in this measurement is, but it must have a use somewhere.
"Light years" is a helpful measurement because it makes more sense than saying "9 Peta metres".
But for the purpose of any calculations, the light year would be converted to metres.
Completely agree. Never understood why it's half & half.
No, but the loading gauge in the UK is generally less than in Europe, hence our narrower trains and we can't use double decker trains on most routes, because of tunnels being too small.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading_gauge
Ironically, the Great Central Main Line was built to European loading gauge standards and most of it is now closed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Central_Main_Line
1 Torr is 1 mmHg and relates to the design of the original mercury barometers. 760 Torr/760 mmHg is atmospheric pressure.
Professional astronomers use the Parsec in their calculations. It isn't metric but instead it relates directly to Parallax - the method used to determine stellar distances.
I remember using a mercury manometer at school in the 1970s and making pressure measurements in mm of mercury (Torr) did make sense then.
Much of the subsequent electronic pressure measuring gauges seemed to hang onto that unit for some time, although I'm not sure if that is still the case now.
And the imperial system is not that much older than the metric one. The USA still use it; who's laughing at them?
Imperial is in many ways easier to deal with because it's not just based on multiples of ten, which makes units merge into each other and therefore error prone.
Inches, feet and yards are actually perfect for lengths because they are just the right size for various applications: room sizes really need to be expressed in feet; you wouldn't use yards, yet we are now expected to use metres (which are too big so need decimal places, and no-one can visualise a room size without converting into feet).
And I think we made a mistake in ditching Fahrenheit for Centigrade; the former is more precise, and divides up the temperature ranges we are likely to experience into just the right number: 40s, 50s and 60s for example.
The kilometre would have the same advantages over the mile, but since the mile is extremely well established, why bother to change it now? It'll be just another welcome bit of difference we'll experience when traveling between the UK and Europe.
thou, Inches, feet, yards, chain, furlongs and leagues are not perfect for lengths and distances... and for any real application, you've got take an actual measurement rendering the point somewhat moot.
How is Fahrenheit "more precise" than Celsius? If you need more precision, you increase the amount of decimal places.
At least celsius is more relatable to what you're feeling.
When it's cold the number is low, when it's hot the number is high. In fahrenheit the numbers always appear to be high to me so it doesn't feel right to describe a cold day where it may be 3C as being 37 Degrees (had to look that one up). That seems nonsensical to me. 37 is very very warm to me. When my family in America talk about it being "in the high 90s" I struggle to know exactly how warm it will be.
It seems the main thing holding us back is peoples stubbornness to change. We shouldn't have started if we didn't mean to finish to job, now we're left in this ridiculous situation (buying milk, but only cos milk, in weird quantities like 2.4419 litres for example while goats milk or that stuff from Jersey is in Litres only) and in all honesty I'm kind of glad the EU is trying to get us to change as otherwise it'll never happen. We simply cannot cling to the past forever, it's time to let go.
If you have a distance in the SI system it will be in metres. No further calculation is needed. If you have a distance in the imperial system it could be in inches, feet, yards, miles - and could well require a further calculation to get a 'sensible' unit..or as may well be the case a combination of units like '5 feet, 3 inches'.
However miles is simpler than kilometres as it is smaller units.Likewise weight measurements are much simpler using ounces and pounds.eg. 4ozs butter
2ozs sugar,8ozs flour as opposed to 114grams butter,56 grams sugar,226grams flour.
As late as 2006 my pupils still asked me to give them measurements in ounces etc. at school because that was what they used at home with Mum.
I did as long as they knew that to use anything other than metric in an exam would have lost them marks.This is one of the sinister type of situations we find ourselves in because of the EU.
We started metrification in the 1960s, decades before the EU. That's when it started being taught in schools. Using metric on exams is common sense as it's taught, it's nothing to do with the EU. It's not the fault of the EU we are in this stupid situation now. I'm just thankful they are trying to finish the job we only managed to get half done.
Anyway, the EU isn't some omnipresent being forcing us to make these changes. You do realise that the UK representation at EU level agreed to these changes as we are..shock horror...a member of the EU and have a say in policy making!
I think they mean for cultural use, I've never seen a weather forecast for the general public that ever states a predicted temperature with decimal points so if you don't want to use decimals Fahrenheit is slightly more precise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram#Uses
"The gram is today the most widely used unit of measurement for non-liquid ingredients in cooking and grocery shopping worldwide.
Most standards and legal requirements for nutrition labels on food products require relative contents to be stated per 100 g of the product, such that the resulting figure can also be read as a percentage."
And FYI 'kilometre' is not a unit. The metric/SI unit of length is the metre. Unlike the imperial system we only have one unit for length.
In what way is that a recommendation? My Dad is barely computer literate. Does that mean I should give up my career as a software developer? 'Because my parents did it that way' is a poor excuse. True but decimals could be used if it mattered. Truth is though that accuracy like that simply isn't needed for a weather forecast. The human body is absolutely pants at detecting the temperature so anything much beyond ' a bit chilly' or 'a right scorcher' is wasted anyway
As for Fahrenheit I had to relate to it as I spent a lot of time in the US. My way of dealing with it is to equate it to a % since 0 is about the coldest it will ever get and 100 is about the hottest in air temperature as experienced by humans ( not strictly true but near enough )
It does amuse me how worked up people get over this stuff. There are way more important problems in the world.