Metric system dumbs us down.

[Smokeys Kitchen]

The skit from the Canadian comedy person was great!

Here is a tidbit on how we came to have certain measurements or standards and what implications they have had going forward. Kind of a long post; maybe better in the joke thread; and I apologize if it's been put up before. And no, I did not validate this, but its pretty funny and kind of makes sense. (note the accompanying photos did not come through on the copy)..


Who Knew? All makes sense in the end as you will clearly see

Railroad tracks.

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did 'they' use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.

Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. In other words, bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process, and wonder, 'What horse's ass came up with this?' , you may be exactly right.
Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)

Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, you will notice that there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah ..

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit larger, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature
Of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important?
So, Horse's Asses control almost everything...

...Explains a whole lot of things,
Doesn't it?

[jewt]

I did learn a lot about Metric in Vietnam; 12.5 mm = a .50 cal and a 23mm will ruin your whole day!

just sayin'.

jewt
S/V Bifrost
'69 Morgan 41FOOT K/CB

[StuM]

Originally Posted by AnglaisInHull

Yes, I know I've told this one before

Years ago, working as a programmer on a pipeline control system, I had to find a unit conversion: we knew the diameter of the pipeline in feet and its length in miles; we needed to calculate its volume in barrels.

Assuming that's a 42 US gallon oil barrel, I'd just multiply the feet by the miles and multiply the result by 9692.


(1 ft = .3048 metres, 1 mile = 1609.34 m, 1 barrel = 159 litres
1 ft-mile of pipe = .3048 * 1609.34 * pi = 1541 cubic metres =1,541,000 litres
1,541,000/159 = 9,691.8 barrels )

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Jason Flare

It's been agreed to be "rounded" to 1852 meters.



So, what is it in reality?

Whatever everyone agrees it is - 1852m

[Blue Stocking]

Try explaining it to the cabinet-makers you supply why the 10 flat racks of 48" x 96 " mahogany plywood just arrived from Indonesia actually measures 1250mm x 2500mm per sheet.

[deblen]

Originally Posted by rom

No, but a bottle of Chardonnay is 75 cl everywhere in the world.

In Canada,it's 750 ml

[deblen]

Originally Posted by dlymn

But is that a us cup and gallon or an outdated imperial (that stands for the British Empire, because Britannia rules the waves.) And are you still measuring in rods, chains and furlongs? What about bushells and pecks and did you build that ark using cubits?

Brits still quote their weight (mass?) in stones

[Sav]

Originally Posted by rom

No, but a bottle of Chardonnay is 75 cl everywhere in the world.

I bought a bottle of Hardy's Stamp Chardy in Darwin and its 1 litre.

[deblen]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Like introducing a new currency (Euro) on 300 million people and in the medley round up the prices from the old currencies to make a little on the side

The metric system work brilliantly for diving. Cylinder volume is calculated in liters of water volume. Pressure is measured in bar (close to atmospheres) so multiplied together give the volume of free air available, eg 10 x 232 bar equals 2320 litres of free air.

Depths are measured in meters and for every 10m the pressure increases 1 bar. Again simple maths to work out how much air you will breath at depth per minute, to a point most of us can do these calculations underwater in the cold when slightly panicky because you are running short of air

for engineering, well the imperial system is just baffling. So you want a drill slightly bigger than 5/32, what's the next size up

Drill bits are made in 64ths (you have to know that,just like you have to know there is a 5.5mm wrench)
If you reduce all drill bits to their 64th equivalent,5/32 = 10/64. Next size up is 11/64......simple.

Why isn't a bar exactly 14.7 psi-the air pressure @ sea level?

Why does my Volvo manual specify oil cap. in Dl rather than the commonly used ltr. Yes,I can convert Dl to ltr,but some folks that are new to metric may not.

As a Canadian,I had metric "impressed" on me at age 23,so I'm fully conversant in imp/US & metric & must work in both systems daily,since our largest trading partner is USA,but we also deal with the rest of the world.

I don't have a preference of one over the other-I can use either-because I have to.

It does irk me that the metric folks keep introducing new terms for the same old measurements.This is confusing to people trying to learn metric
Len

[PPLepew]

Should we talk about Celsius vs Fahrenheit? I think the US is the only country still using the latter.

[PPLepew]

Originally Posted by deblen

Why does my Volvo manual specify oil cap. in Dl rather than the commonly used ltr. Yes,I can convert Dl to ltr,but some folks that are new to metric may not.

Maybe you are confused. Dl doesn't exist, if you mean deciliter, it's dL.

[deblen]

Originally Posted by StuM

Assuming that's a 42 US gallon oil barrel, I'd just multiply the feet by the miles and multiply the result by 9692.


(1 ft = .3048 metres, 1 mile = 1609.34 m, 1 barrel = 159 litres
1 ft-mile of pipe = .3048 * 1609.34 * pi = 1541 cubic metres =1,541,000 litres
1,541,000/159 = 9,691.8 barrels )

There are 3 "barrels" in use in N. America.

1. barrel of oil = 42 US gal = 35 Can. (Imp.) gal = 159 ltr.

2. drum USA = 55US gal 3.78ltr/US gal

3. drum Can. = 45 Imp. gal. 4.54 ltr/ Can (Imp) gal


Can. coastal charts are mostly in fathoms,though new ones are coming in meters.
US coastal charts are in Ft or fathoms,though I know of a few new ones in meters.

-40 F = -40 C darn cold!!

/ Len

[deblen]

Originally Posted by PPLepew

Maybe you are confused. Dl doesn't exist, if you mean deciliter, it's dL.

Deka liter does exist = 10ltr probably not in common use,but who knows?
Same with dl- not in common use in my experience.

But you are correct re my Volvo. It holds 4.1 deciliter (dl). My mistake in using a D instead of a d.

[Jason Flare]

I forgot who was arguing with me here but stop it.

[deblen]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Personally I believe these different units of measurement originated from suppliers desire to cheat their customers and the confusion today only perpetuates the scams

You are 100% correct! We experienced that in Canada in the 70's during metric conversion. All of a sudden an Imp gal.(454L) was replaced with a US gal 3.78L at the same price. Same for pounds to kg,etc,etc.

Of course the US perfected that scam 250yrs ago with their "small" pt,qt,gal,etc.

/ Len