Post Brexit Wheatabix advert!

I literally can't picture an ounce.

16 ounces make a pound? That helps a bit more.

Feet and inches are easy enough to to convert to metres, which I can picture.

Miles are pretty natural because we don't really use kilometres.

Fahrenheit is just silly.
 
Bonjour said:
Imperial measurements for engineering? *shudders*

SI is the global standard. No conversions, no long rows of zeroes, evolves to take advantage of increased accuracy and even the imperial system is now defined by SI units.
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Which is a nicer number to work with

+/- 1 thou

Or +/- 0.025mm

On another note, what is easier to work with?

6Oz butter or 150 Grams?

Metric units do not generally relate to normal day to day practical quantities .

Any way, I digress.

The interesting thing is that Ounces were mentioned at all!

I cannot actually think of any similar mention in the last 20 years.

Advertising is a heavily psychology driven industry, If they are choosing to refer to "Ounces" in an advert, I am sure that they will have a reason for deciding to do so.

And that is interesting! ;) :p
 
What on earth does an ounce relate to, or a pound for that matter?

150g is much easier to picture. For that matter a decimal system is simply much easier to think about.
 
Surely any claim as to whether they relate to practical quantities depends entirely on what you're used to / grew up with?

Your thou/mm argument is flawed since you deliberately used the 'nicer' number for the imperial side. 0.5mm is nicer than 19 and a bit thou.
 
Caged said:
Surely any claim as to whether they relate to practical quantities depends entirely on what you're used to / grew up with?

Your thou/mm argument is flawed since you deliberately used the 'nicer' number for the imperial side. 0.5mm is nicer than 19 and a bit thou.
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+/- a thou is actually a very good engineering tolerance (Possibly a bit on the tight side mind)

+/- 0.5mm and your pistons will be flying out of you wrecked engine block after a couple of dozen miles (Dozen! I have done it again! :p))
 
If I'm feeling in the mood, I have a question for when people talk about retaining old systems of measurement because they're somehow better:

How long is an ell?

Dozens of different units could be substituted for "ell".

Or a question such as "how long is an inch?" Trick question - it depends on which inch you're referring to, which isn't specified.

Arbitrary units of measurement based on inaccurate approximations of variable things and set by decree of whatever person or organisation had enough power in a particular time and place and usually with various different values for the same unit is not an inherently better system than standardised, accurate measurements based on real, unvarying things.

Does this help anyone quickly understand the size of something:

1 furlong, 6 chains, 27 links, 4 inches and a barleycorn.

Those are real units that were in common usage in England.


And yet...I still use British Imperial units for many things despite metric being clearly and objectively better. The mix makes no sense at all and is completely inconsistent. For example, I'll measure my weight in metric and my height in British Imperial. Why? No reason.
 
LITERALLY CANT WAIT FOR MILK TO NOT HAVE 1.13652L ON THE SIDE.

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

CAPS

j2NIfDS.gif
 
Orionaut said:
Which is a nicer number to work with

+/- 1 thou

Or +/- 0.025mm
Click to expand...

0.025mm as you can easily see, and do calculations on, its relation to other measurements.

Orionaut said:
On another note, what is easier to work with?

6Oz butter or 150 Grams?
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150g. Again, easier relations and calculations.

Orionaut said:
Metric units do not generally relate to normal day to day practical quantities .
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Why do they even need to? Everyone's hand and feet sizes are different anyway. This is a common argument used by market stalls as it favours them to be dealing in imprecise measures.
 
I found out via a pub quiz at the weekend that 1 mile does not equal 1600 metres as I'd always thought. It's actually 1609.something

How could I not be aware of this :(
 
I watch a few blacksmith/metalwork engineering/manufacturing channels on YouTube and I just love how every single UK based channel will happily say things like they are using 2ft of 12mm bar or take half an ounce off to make it a kilogram, mix a litre of this into 1 gallon of that etc. I swear they switch Imperial and Metric around willy-nilly just to confuse the Yanks and Europeans who watch them. :cool::D
 
[FnG]magnolia;29766084 said:
I found out via a pub quiz at the weekend that 1 mile does not equal 1600 metres as I'd always thought. It's actually 1609.something

How could I not be aware of this :(
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And a nautical mile is longer.;)

One of the nice things about metric measures is that they are the same regardless of where you are in the world, or when (after it's introduction). you don't get a imperial gallon or american gallon (pretty important if you're say flying from America to Canada and work in imperial gallons), you don't get differences in the length of a mile, or differences in the mass of an ounce.

Most of the older measures varied a lot over time and assumed you knew the difference between how the use affected the measure.
 
Orionaut said:
Have you looked at your tyres?

Tyres are seriously Metrinch.

(The wheel size, and therefore the inner dimensions of the tyre are imperial. it is only the outer parts that are metric.)

There have been repeated attempts to metricate tyres/wheels but they have always failed.
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True, mine are 255/35/r19

Which iirc is 255mm wide, tyrewall is 35% of the width and theyre for 19" rims, the practical upshot is theyre really expensive and not very forgiving lol

Its what your used to i guess, if we were raised on km/h, l/km etc we'd find the metric comparisons much easier to deal with.

Like mpg, only reason to use it still compared to l/km is that we use miles and we know what a good/bad value is.
 
Mph and miles are fine, but everything else will eventually make its way to metric, as metric makes sence.
Cooking in grams, fine, that what everyone does now.
Going back ro certain imperial measurements, just so old people can be old is utterly ridiculous, and should be avoided at all costs.
 
Orionaut said:
+/- a thou is actually a very good engineering tolerance (Possibly a bit on the tight side mind)

+/- 0.5mm and your pistons will be flying out of you wrecked engine block after a couple of dozen miles (Dozen! I have done it again! :p))
Click to expand...

Work in micron then? A thou would then be a nice 25 micron. There is no place for imperial measurements in anything engineering, the sooner people stop thinking at all in imperial the better.
 
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