How tall are you? I have been asked!
In imperial measurements like they use in America 🇺🇸 and Britain 🇬🇧, I am told I’m five feet ten inches. That translates as one metre seventy nine.
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AceOfSpades · 36-40, M
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@AceOfSpades We used SI units in school in the UK at least as early as the mid-sixties when I was about to start junior high school. We were expected to be able to use both systems.
AceOfSpades · 36-40, M
@ninalanyon I only started school in the 90s, so I can only go from there. At no point did we use Imperial in that time. Thankfully. 😅
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
@AceOfSpades I learned both at school and use them interchangeably. I'll give my overall height in imperial, but if I am making clothes I use metric for greater precision.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@AceOfSpades Not an "odd" reason at all, but of sheer technical land financial practicality, when you consider the vast number of vehicles with miles-based speedometers / odometers, and the UK's extremely dense, complicated road network. The road system has hundreds of thousands if not millions of junctions, narrows, speed-limits etc., from the motorways down to housing-estate streets and tiny country lanes, and almost all such features are indicated by signs of various types. About the only signs using both metric and Imperial are bridge-height warnings.
The railways use miles and mph too, and even still the Chain (22 Yards) and Yard for some measurements such as curve radii and tunnel lengths.
What is odd, and wrong, is that although the proper units of length are the metre, kilometre, and millimetre, schools insist on teaching the "non-Preferred" centimetre, whose genuine use in important areas is little more than the c.c. in chemistry and engine sizes.
(The SI scales use 3-based powers of 10 for the divisions and multiples, so the "centi", "hecto", "deci" etc. only add muddle. Many people who use SI units properly say if told an object is so-many cm long they have mentally to convert it to mm to be able to picture it.)
Oh - and those are the correct spellings for these French names for the French inventions.
The railways use miles and mph too, and even still the Chain (22 Yards) and Yard for some measurements such as curve radii and tunnel lengths.
What is odd, and wrong, is that although the proper units of length are the metre, kilometre, and millimetre, schools insist on teaching the "non-Preferred" centimetre, whose genuine use in important areas is little more than the c.c. in chemistry and engine sizes.
(The SI scales use 3-based powers of 10 for the divisions and multiples, so the "centi", "hecto", "deci" etc. only add muddle. Many people who use SI units properly say if told an object is so-many cm long they have mentally to convert it to mm to be able to picture it.)
Oh - and those are the correct spellings for these French names for the French inventions.
AceOfSpades · 36-40, M
@ArishMell It may not be difficult, but there's no need for it any more with a metric system that makes complete sense.
Its like having money with no decimalisation, old hat and needed to be eradicated.
Its like having money with no decimalisation, old hat and needed to be eradicated.
supersnipe · 61-69, M
@AceOfSpades The original UK plan for metrication from the late 1960s onwards was that we'd adopt metric units for most things but that we'd keep the pint and the mile for some purposes. In my last years at school, we were already using them in science and also in subjects like woodwork. Our distances in sports were also metric - 400 metres, 800 metres, 1500 metres, etc.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@AceOfSpades That a system is merely old is not a reason for "eradicating" it. That was not the reason for the UK going "metric".
The reason for adopting the Systeme Internationale was to facilitate trade and science, especially internationally. Nothing to to with age.
The basic SI units are hardly new anyway. The metre, gramme and litre are all well over 200 years old.
They were invented in post-Revolutionary France in the Eighteenth Century.
France's centuries' worth of a mass of measures specific to trades and even regions were incresingly hampering commerce even within France. So the Government commissioned a new set of units traceable to official standards, and imposed them nation-wide. These new units were still rather arbitrary though, not much less so than Britain's foot, pound and gallon which had largely already replaced much older trade-specific units.
I am surprised the Nautical Mile was not adopted, divided into 1000 etc, because that is a geometrical measure just as the original kilometre had been.
Thge SI is not perfect. Its purely-mathematical "coherence" makes some units useless for day-to-day use, hence it allows the non-coherent Degree for angle and the vaguely-coherent Bar for pressure. The Radian is useful only in certain scientific and engineering calculations. The Pascal [= 1 X 10^(-5) Bar ] is a compound mess of a thing, far too small for any ordinary pressure measurement, but relevant to sound pressure levels. Actually it's not much use even there: the Pa is a million times too high to be the base unit for acoustics!
It is curious that UK schools insist on teaching the cm as an ordinary unit, and the clothes trade uses the cm. It is not a standard SI unit and not normally used in any technical work.
It is also curious that the USA still keeps to its version of Imperial measures (its Gallon is a 16C vintner's measuire), now only the major nation still using them. Obviously US scientists and engineers use SI units, and any imported manufactured items there are made to metric units, but it's anyone's guess when the whole country will comply with all the rest of the world.. Oh, and learn to spell the French words.
The reason for adopting the Systeme Internationale was to facilitate trade and science, especially internationally. Nothing to to with age.
The basic SI units are hardly new anyway. The metre, gramme and litre are all well over 200 years old.
They were invented in post-Revolutionary France in the Eighteenth Century.
France's centuries' worth of a mass of measures specific to trades and even regions were incresingly hampering commerce even within France. So the Government commissioned a new set of units traceable to official standards, and imposed them nation-wide. These new units were still rather arbitrary though, not much less so than Britain's foot, pound and gallon which had largely already replaced much older trade-specific units.
I am surprised the Nautical Mile was not adopted, divided into 1000 etc, because that is a geometrical measure just as the original kilometre had been.
Thge SI is not perfect. Its purely-mathematical "coherence" makes some units useless for day-to-day use, hence it allows the non-coherent Degree for angle and the vaguely-coherent Bar for pressure. The Radian is useful only in certain scientific and engineering calculations. The Pascal [= 1 X 10^(-5) Bar ] is a compound mess of a thing, far too small for any ordinary pressure measurement, but relevant to sound pressure levels. Actually it's not much use even there: the Pa is a million times too high to be the base unit for acoustics!
It is curious that UK schools insist on teaching the cm as an ordinary unit, and the clothes trade uses the cm. It is not a standard SI unit and not normally used in any technical work.
It is also curious that the USA still keeps to its version of Imperial measures (its Gallon is a 16C vintner's measuire), now only the major nation still using them. Obviously US scientists and engineers use SI units, and any imported manufactured items there are made to metric units, but it's anyone's guess when the whole country will comply with all the rest of the world.. Oh, and learn to spell the French words.