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UK Engineers raise concerns over proposed switch to imperial measurements

newcivilengineer.com

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Re: UK Engineers raise concerns over proposed switch to imperial measurements

#81

Post by stoobs »

323 wrote: post #48

UK is a confused place. I still don't know whats the "official" temperature scale - F or C. In the same paper, I would see the weather map with C, but the title with F (heatwave of xx F). Or the reverse, or both. Or in the same shop you can buy milk in liters, or in pints.

The temperature thing is complete nonsense, nobody uses Fahrenheit here unless we're translating for Americans.

The others are a fairer point, although we do actually sell liquids in litres or millilitres, but for some things it just happens to be some multiple of 568..

Weight is KG, unless it's a person, in which case it's Stones and Pounds.

Distance is fun, It's Miles on journeys, but metric for everything else, unless you're talking about people's height, then it's feet and inches.

It sounds confusing, but when you live here it's not something you really have to think about, you just switch rather effortlessly.

Re: UK Engineers raise concerns over proposed switch to imperial measurements

#82

Post by cmrdporcupine »

hyperman1 wrote: post #79
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I always find this funny. England is kind of totally opposite from Canada. Distances and speeds in miles, everything else metric. Our speedometers can all switch, too these days. For travel into the US. Even Google maps will switch units right after you cross the border. FWIW MPH has the advantage that it's easier to estimate travel times based on typical 60MPH hwy speed. A minute per mile more or less. 100KMH is…

As an european: Our speed limit is generally 120 km/h and maps very well to time units. We wonder how you cope with your 74 mph

In reality here in Ontario on the major highways the legal limit is 100km/h but actual practice is 120km/h. It's rare to go below that on the actual multilane 400-series highways, and rare you'd get ticketed for going that high.

Re: UK Engineers raise concerns over proposed switch to imperial measurements

#83

Post by stoobs »

323 wrote: post #71
bitcharmer wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you're making this up. No one here uses Fahrenheit.

This summer, DailyMail, one of the biggest newspapers: > Title: Britain goes into meltdown over 106F hottest day EVER that is set to hit on Monday and Tuesday > Subtitle: Parts of London set to hit 41C (106F) next Monday and Tuesday - smashing all-time UK record of 38.7C (101.6F) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11019683/Britain-en... > Summer is officially here! North East braces for sweltering 96F heatwave…

The Daily Mail online has been branching out into the US for a while, hence covering things in language catering for an American audience.

Temperature measurement in the UK is measured in Celcius, Fahrenheit is not a thing here.

Re: UK Engineers raise concerns over proposed switch to imperial measurements

#84

Post by 323 »

stoobs wrote: post #83
323 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This summer, DailyMail, one of the biggest newspapers: > Title: Britain goes into meltdown over 106F hottest day EVER that is set to hit on Monday and Tuesday > Subtitle: Parts of London set to hit 41C (106F) next Monday and Tuesday - smashing all-time UK record of 38.7C (101.6F) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11019683/Britain-en... > Summer is officially here! North East braces for sweltering 96F heatwave…

The Daily Mail online has been branching out into the US for a while, hence covering things in language catering for an American audience. Temperature measurement in the UK is measured in Celcius, Fahrenheit is not a thing here.

Except that I was reading these news articles about London on the DailyMail front-page while accessing it from London.

Re: UK Engineers raise concerns over proposed switch to imperial measurements

#85

Post by sebazzz »

gonzo41 wrote: post #12

What the actual F. That is just insane. Brexit has been such a rolling disaster. It's constantly reminds me why compulsory voting in Australia is the best thing since sliced bread. It's just insane what the British have decided to do to themselves.

> compulsory voting

No. If you don't vote and you country gets destroyed by the politicians you don't get to complain - I agree on that part.

However, if you are required to vote, also people will vote which don't inform themselves very well. Populists will take their votes happily, and populists are often not an improvement for the state of a country.

Re: UK Engineers raise concerns over proposed switch to imperial measurements

#86

Post by sebazzz »

deadbunny wrote: post #72
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #53

Everybody's shitting on Imperial, U.S. customary, or whatever you want to call them units... Allow me to give a slightly different perspective: as a scientist, if I'm doing chemistry then metric is the way to go. Conversions are easier, centigrade and Kelvin just make a lot more sense... But for many day-to-day things I think the Imperial units are better. Temperature? Fahrenheit is a 0-100 scale, where 0 is pretty m…

Pretty sure you're just more used to/think in imperial beacause that's what you've used all your life. I can estimate metric perfectly fine.

It is not like a foot is as long as your foot, and a yard is as long as your garden.

Re: UK Engineers raise concerns over proposed switch to imperial measurements

#87

Post by orwin »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #73
Bayart wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French perspective here : everybody uses centimeters and millimeters are common. I just came from a hair cut and the girl doing it asked for my clipper size in millimeters . I have an intuition, and it's usually pretty close, for how much à millimeter, centimeter, meter and kilometer are. All that to say it's got everything to do with habit and not random size body parts.

What I'm curious about is whether people raised with the metric system and nothing else are more accurate in estimating e.g. lengths than people raised primarily with Imperial / U.S. customary. So we do an experiment where we have people look at, and maybe handle, random objects and then ask them to estimate the length. Does imperial / metric make a difference? My guess is no, but I have significant probability weigh…

I think you can go look at sociological experiment about crowd estimation, you might find a response: while those experiment are mostly done in the US, they are often replicated in metric countries. (i don't have any clues about the response to be honest)

Re: UK Engineers raise concerns over proposed switch to imperial measurements

#88

Post by soneil »

gpderetta wrote: post #52
Reason077 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "As Canadians we typically measure our height and weight in ft and lbs. But temperature in celsius and travel distances and speeds in kilometres and km/h. Except for cooking/recipes, where oven temperature is measured in fahrenheit and we have to deal with recipes with cups and ounces and so on. ... But recipes are also often in litres and grams. So.." As British we typically measure everything in metric, including…

And human weight in stones. Been living here for more than 10 years and still can't remember how much is a stone.

The nice trick with stones is that I don't care how much they are.

They're nice and vague enough that it's like .. if I go from 10 stone to 11 stone, I need to care. If I go from 10 to 10.1 I don't need to care. I don't convert them to pounds or kilos because I don't want to know the answer, it just adds anxiety that I don't need.

The funny thing is I'm otherwise metric-all-the-things. But for body weight, the lack of precision lets me focus on the trends instead of worrying about the details.

Re: UK Engineers raise concerns over proposed switch to imperial measurements

#89

Post by soneil »

StewardMcOy wrote: post #75
tzs wrote: post #43

OT: Can I ask a question about something that has long puzzled me about Brexit? Note: I'm not asking about whether or not Brexit was a good idea. No matter where you stand on that, let's assume for the sake of argument that there were terrific arguments for both staying in the EU and leaving. My puzzlement concerns the specific question asked on the 2016 referendum, which was > Should the United Kingdom remain a memb…

The missing piece here is that the referendum was designed by people who wanted and expected remain to win. David Cameron, the PM at the time, was facing a minor rebellion within his own party from a faction of MPs that were anti-EU. They weren't a majority of the party, but they were large enough to cause trouble. A couple years prior, he had faced a similar problem from Scottish nationalists, so he approved a refer…

This exactly.

The goal of the brexit referendum was to catch the voters that were leaving the conservative party for the ukip party, and give them a reason to vote conservative again.

It wasn't expected to pass, it wasn't expected to be remotely close. It was expected to shore up the conservative party so they wouldn't be dragged into another coalition.

The wording of the referendum needs to be seen in that light. It was intended to give ukip voters what they wanted to hear. "should we think about talking about thinking about maybe doing something" wouldn't have achieved that goal.

Re: UK Engineers raise concerns over proposed switch to imperial measurements

#90

Post by iroddis »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #15

Observation as a Canadian: Until the US decides to finally convert (e.g. never), the rest of the anglo-sphere will be forever stuck in an awkward inbetween zone anyways. We supposedly converted to metric in the 70s but it's only ever been half-hearted, as many trades (especially construction) continue to work in imperial measurements, and most people work in an awkward combination of the two. As Canadians we typicall…

This phenomenon is neatly captured in the locker-room wisdom for the recommended amount of protein intake for athletes here: 1 gram per pound of body weight.
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