Another English/Metric "Spacecraft" Problem

SuperDry writes "There's been another spacecraft failure that's been attributed to an English/Metric units problem, this time at Tokyo Disneyland's Space Mountain. An axle broke on a "spacecraft" (a.k.a. roller coaster train) mid-ride, causing it to derail (nobody was hurt). The final investigation report has been released, and the root cause has been determined to be a part being the wrong size due to a conversion of the master plans in 1995 from English units to Metric units. In 2002, new axles were mistakenly ordered using the pre-1995 English specifications instead of the current Metric specifications. Apparently size does matter, even if it's only a 0.86mm difference."

Comments

The source of the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the metric system is flawed. It is defined in terms of the size of 18th century railroad tie sizes, which is totally arbitrary.

Re:English/Metric

[ender81b]

Hey! You can try to lie to us americans but I know better, I just spent a year in england doing study abroad and you guys are more fucked up than americans when it comes to measurements. At least we consistently ignore the metric system.

Let's see here. Ok, distance is in miles and miles per hour. Liquid measurements are liters except when talking about beer, then it's a pint. Weight is in *stones* for christsake, a person's height is talked about in feet but a building/mountain height is usually in meters. A football field is yards though. Tempature is in celsius I suppose.

So, while you can be a self-righteous snob to us, some of us know better - england isn't really any better than the US.

Re:The US needs to catch up

[poot_rootbeer]

And it makes an infinite amount more sense to use Metric than the US system.

Don't kid yourself. A liter is as arbitrary a reference point as a pint; a meter as arbitrary as a yard.

If we don't, trade will continue to suffer

The United States suffers from poor trade with other nations? I never would have guessed. Really, I had no idea. I just kind of assumed we were an economic superpower, perhaps I was wrong.

Mod Parent Up - Insightful

[dublin]

Re:Imperial, not English...
Re:Imperial, not English... (Score:1)
by Bob Uhl (30977) on Monday January 26, @12:03PM (#8089873)
(http://latakia.dyndns.org/blosxom/blo g)
Of course I do. Let's say I wish to cut a foot-wide piece of wood into inch-width segments: I cut in half, then in half again, then in thirds. How would I cut a decimetre-wide piece into centimetres? In half, then into fifths? Ever try eyeballing a fifth? There are very easy ways to estimate a half or third quite accurately, but I am aware of none to estimate a fifth.

Let's say I have 1 gallon of beer and need to serve it in 1 pint measurements. Dead simple: I cut in half (yielding pottles), in half again (yielding quarts) and in half one last time, yielding pints. Doubling and halving are extremely easy with liquids and masses; anything else is a right royal pain in the ass.

Try dividing a decilitre into centilitres or millilitres. Good luck.

The standard system, used as it was for millennia, was optimised for use, for manipulation of concrete amounts. The French system was optimised for conversion between units. The one is needed daily; the other almost never (now that we have computers, practically never). Which would an unbiased observer prefer?

The standard system is, of course, imperfect and could use certain improvements. Its basis, though, is sound. The French system is also imperfect, but its sole basis is a silly attachment to 10 (a mathematically ugly number anyway). I'd rather spend effort on the system with a future.

Someone with mod points please mod up parent. He raises some *very* valid points that are far too often overlooked. This is one of the most important reasons why the engineering community her in the US will continue using Englinsh units for the foreseeable future. (I fully expect the US to remain primarily on English units through this century, and possibly far beyond...)

My company just designed a new mechanical product, and it was decided that English rather than Metric units were preferable for many reasons including ease-of-use, marketing considerations (even though half the unit volume will be international), and availability/selection and lower cost of hardware.

Re:Blah blah US economy blah blah

[G-Man]

Distributing solutions to the people? 15,000 French elderly died last summer because of a heat wave and it's the US that doesn't distribute solutions to the people?