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David Cameron Says Brits Should Be Taught Imperial Measures
00_NOP writes: Children in the U.K. have been taught in metric measures in school since (at least) 1972, but yesterday British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that they should actually be taught in Imperial measures (which are still in use officially to measure road distances and speeds, but not really anywhere else). Is this because he hasn't a clue about science or because he is catering to a particular political base?
It's time for national units to finally be put out to pasture. Both US units and UK units.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Yay for morons going for populist measures. *sigh*
You're not an empire anymore, and going back to imperial measures won't make you one.
£1 = 20 shillings
1 shilling = 12 pence
All perfectly logical if you're a UK politician.
Is this because he hasn't a clue about science or because he is catering to a particular political base?
Both.
Mostly though because so many conservatives have a "we have always done it that way" attitude. Many of them don't have a clue that imperial measures are very different from US customary ones (we have 20 fluid ounces to a pint, and the US has 16). Many also don't know their pecks from their bushels, or their furlongs from their rod, poll, or perch, but think the system must be good "because its traditional".
US recipes use US measurements, but a lot of recipes I've seen from elsewhere do in fact use metric.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
As a Breton I fully support the furthering of our national units to promote unity in these divisive times.
while "1 cup" and "1/2 cup" do. So when a recipe calls for 1 cup of anything, you can measure that quickly.
You rarely see this in UK measurements, for one thing in the UK cup sizes are not standard. My wife (from the USA) found it confusing at first that things were either given in capacity or weight (fluid ounces and pints/pounds and ounces in traditional UK books) and not various cups or spoon sizes.
Does not deserve to hold a place in office.
What, a fucking idiot.
No other way to put it, sorry.
Nobody uses "cups" in the UK anyway, that's 100% a US thing. Even wondered why it's always 1 cup or 1/2 cup and never 0.94 cups? Because the exact quantities don't matter. You're saying 125ml is more "approximate" than 1/2 cup? Er, no. Rounding to 1/4 cups is way more approximate than rounding to 25ml.
will the Science curriculum go back to the foot pound second system or will they have to learn metric there?
for the lazy minded people who cannot or refuse to think.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
... also known as a dick.
This unit measure, like inches and feet, comes from a body part of a ancien dead king.
It should be moved to the trash with a considerable amount of furlongs per fortnight.
oh bollox. you did well until "except in cooking"
if you use cups as a size, you'll never repeat the same quantity twice, cup is only an approximate quantity, but every time i use 125g or 125ml of anything, its the same every time. Tell me how you make a specific metric measure when the comparable measure its based on is never the same twice.
"125ml and 250ml have no practical relationship" - eh??? one is exactly twice the other whereas 1 cup and 1/2 cup are not
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
so true, UKIP is definitely the Tea party of the Conservative Party in the UK
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
rockets exploded, satellites got lost in space because someone mixed up metric and imperial. So the UK wants to play no role in space technology in the future, good to know.
I think he's being an idiot.
I don't agree with his policies or his party ideology either, but I think it is incorrect to call him an idiot. He knows very well what he is doing, and I think he is leading the country competently, in the sense that he is not blundering around stupidly and making the overall situation significantly worse for the whole nation.
As you say, metric is eminently useful, not just because it makes it trivially easy to compare small quantities to large ones (just a matter of where to place to decimal point), but also because it ties together measures for length, area, volume, time, energy etc in a way that follows directly from physics.
We keep using imperial in our daily lives because they are easy when you don't need great precision or a deep understanding of the science behind; 1 pound is about the weight of a large handful of something - easy to relate to and precise enough for many purposes.
The reason is, 125ml and 250ml have no practical relationship, while "1 cup" and "1/2 cup" do. So when a recipe calls for 1 cup of anything, you can measure that quickly. If it's half a cup, then you use half a cup, or if you have it calling for 1.5 cups, you use the 1/2cup 3 times.
Actually, cooking is the one place that US imperial measurement drives me up the fucking wall. 1 cup of something trivially measured by volume isn't so bad, though 100ml is just as easy to measure. The big issue is when you get to "1 cup of flour" or "1 cup of butter" - things that are much more easily measured by mass, or things like "1 cup of cherry tomatoes" where the amount you get will vary based on the size and density of the particular tomatoes you have today.
Basically, no, the kitchen is exactly the place I want metric measurement - it is if anything the best example around a house of where you need accurate scientific style measurement.
It's just his personal opinion. He doesn't hold it strongly enough to change the legislation and reverse 40 years of education policy.
The only problem with that is that there are at least 3 definitions of cup that I know of (metric, imperial and U.S. customary), which kind of defeats the purpose of having a recipe in the first place.
And the approximation problem is something you constructed for yourself. Here we typically describe recipes using deciliters. Which is a nice, standard unit which you can scale up or down as needed. And, no, we don't start with imperial measurements and round off. If you want to do scones my way you will have to add 1.26 cups of standard milk, 3.38 cups of flour and 0.22 lb butter (among other things).
Note that this has been true from the time of Mills, 1806 - 1873, so it's not a recent phenomenon.
I would hypothesize that there is a direct correlation between conservatism and stupidity; the more extreme the conservatism, the stupider the person.
Why is Snark Required?
Clothes for both men and women are sold in inch measurements. Trousers are a waist and leg measurement, bras are chest plus a letter (indicating a half-inch increase in circumference over the chest measurement per letter), shirts, are measured in a chest and collar measurement, jackets and blazers in chest, all in inches. Even the dress, blouse, and shoe sizes are derivations of the inch.
Scotland had a chance to run away from that madness but they missed it.
A cup in the US is 1/16 gallon = 1/4 quart = 1/ pint = 8 oz. = 237ml.
Though Canada uses a "metric" cup, 250ml.
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... who can't understand what the fuss is about.
I don't think DC was saying *not* to teach in metric units as well, he was suggesting that maybe teaching people in the units that a vast number of people still use would be sensible. Road distances are still marked in miles, we use mph for speed indication, we buy non-bottled drinks in pints.
Remember that imperial measures were based on relationships with the human body and other natural features, it makes sense to understand them.
When I'm working I use metric units for everything, but I still say "that's a few hundred yards down the road" unless I am talking to someone from a metric country where I use metres so as not to confuse them. If someone asks me how far somewhere is I have an instant mental understanding if I tell them in miles, but even if I convert that to kilometres it is meaningless to me because I don't think in those units.
Learn both, education is supposed to be about flexibility!
-- BtB
Only if you're European. If you're from the US, 1 cup is a very exact volume.
Also, I'm pretty sure cups don't always have the same volume. Which one am I supposed to use??
1 cup of flour is trivially measured by volume: Just grab the "1 cup" cup from your set of measuring cups, scoop up flour from your storage container, level. You're done. If you're using measuring cups, you can make a batch of cookie dough without using a scale or having to look at the actual measurement.
US recipes usually don't use "cups" of butter, they use "sticks" of butter. If you live where butter isn't sold in US sticks (113.4 grams), you're screwed.
1 Guinea = 21 shillings. Prices were often expressed in Guineas, to appear smaller compared to prices in Pounds.
I left college just before the UK education system switched to what we Brits tend to think of as the French system of metric measurements. So I was brought up with yards, miles, pounds, ounces and pints. And, for that matter, shillings, half-crowns and "real" pennies (which weigh 48 to a pound & 3 to an ounce, who needs weights?). As a frequent visitor to the US, I know their variant pretty well too. Nowadays, if I'm making something, or sending measurements of things to people, then I use metric. It is a great system. But I still don't think in it, and as I am approaching retirement, I guess I never will. If it as a warm day, it is in the mid 70s (not 24C). The next road junction is 300 yards away, the next town three miles down the road, where they have a McDonalds serving quarter pounders. I drink a pint of milk in the day and of beer in the evening, and my gay friend is as bent as a nine bob note. :-) So if the youth of today want to speak with me without seeing me stop and look up for a moment as I convert each time they mention a metric measurement, they need to learn Imperial. Or they can leave me in peace and stay off my lawn. Which I don't have. But you get the picture... :-)
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f...
"UKIP is definitely the Tea party of the Conservative Party in the UK"
But much funnier.
Isn't it enough to teach people how to properly perform unit conversions (then show them the cell phone app)?
Within the context of science education, it is a much easier to focus on understanding the mathematical relationships which underpin theory using metric. Use of customary units (US or UK) will result in more students falling back on the use of memorized magic numbers and not proper derived constants. Understanding concepts of scale in science becomes an order more difficult as well.
For this reason, metric units (mks or sometimes cgs) units are by far dominant in scientific papers and texts. Imperial has some presence in engineering, possibly due to a more narrow focus and more resistance to change.
So cups in the US are 250 ml? I have a selection of cups here which have between 150 ml and 500 ml. Which of them is the "baking cup"? Cup is a quite confusing measuring unit.
try and work will millimeters in engineering and you soon find out that thousands of an inch are the only way to measure small tolerances
What's wrong with thousands of a mm? Here in Europe, engineers, machinists and the like have happily worked with metric for ages.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Having prepared many a baked good in the U.S., I can honestly say I've never read a recipe that calls for 'sticks' of butter as a unit.
The 'cup' measurement is still not a problem though - because the stick-of-butter packaging tends to have little lines telling you exactly at which point you've reached half a cup, a quarter cup, 1/8th of a cup, or tablespoons, etc.
http://mrsdiehlsmathsite.files...
It's because the U.S.'s food industry is so homogenized that the volume measurement 'works'. 1 cup of product X from one company is going to be equal to 1 cup of competing product X from the other company.
There are some notable exemptions.
Brown sugar, for example, which is why most recipes will call for "1/2 cup of brown sugar, packed" - because if you don't 'pack' it, the size and shape of granules can greatly affect the actual amount.
Cherry tomatoes was another example. But the thing with that, and with many other such items, is that the exact amount doesn't really matter all that much - it's certainly not 'scientific cooking'. So one time your pizza / salad / whatever will have a bit more/less tomato than the next time, but it's not a big deal.
Eggs is a huge one. If a recipe calls for '8 large eggs', have a good look at the 'large eggs'.. they're far from the same size. Nobody bothers to suggest that one needs X milliliter of eggs, though (never mind separating out yolk from egg white).
Onion is another one. Recipes often call for '1 large onion'. Go to a grocery store in the U.S. and check out the large onions.. there's some the size of a big nectarine, and others are easily bigger than your fist. So which do they mean? It doesn't really matter... use the latter if you like things more onion-y.
Only when measurements are very strict, a recipe will in fact call for weight.
Personally I think it makes cooking a lot easier - except for when you get to the whole 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons vs 16 tablespoons = 1 cup thing. Having a measuring cup/thing for every common cooking unit saves a lot of mess, especially when you need to double/triple/quadruple recipes.
Trademen were paid in pounds, gentlement in guineas.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
n/t
1 cup of flour is trivially measured by volume: Just grab the "1 cup" cup from your set of measuring cups, scoop up flour from your storage container, level. You're done.
This is indeed easy—but very inaccurate: it can lead to the measurement being out by as much as 30%.
The problem is that flour is compressible—so measuring it by weight is inherently more accurate.
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You say he is not blundering around stupidly, and yet he offered Scotland the opportunity to vote for independence, which I would argue was a monumental blunder right there..
He said taught, not use. There is a massive difference. Personally don't see the harm in that at all.
At least in the wool industry here, fabric is measured in microns.
considering how much the UK loves America and that they want to leave the EU, the map from 1984 is not so far away any more ;)
Especially given that in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election the SNP only polled 45% of the popular vote, which interestingly is pretty much the same proportion of the vote they got in the referendum. They didn't have a democratic mandate for the referendum in 2011 and giving them one was stupid. Even stupider was allowing to drag on for years, should have been quick and in say 2012.
91.44 - 60.96 - 91.44 just doesn't have the same ring to it.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
What will parents and grandparents do when they have only learned metric and the kids bring home work involving how many gills there are in a peck?
It's very unlikely the Conservatives will win another term thanks to UKIP, not because UKIP stand a chance but because the first-past-the-post system ensures Labour will win a handy majority.
Engineers are used to working with SI units. milliamperes, kilogrammes etc. Working in micrometres and nanometres is second nature.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I've actually seen lots of bread recipes that make use of "cups".
Bread is actually sensitive to small differences. If you don't have a precise "cup" of flour or liquids, your bread can totally be different!
Of course, if you're serious about it, you're not going to look at those recipes as they aren't inherently good. Making bread requires some experience as the current temperature, ambiant humidity or flour can be different from room to room, let alone countries to countries. And still, people look at those and say that it isn't a good recipe as they didn't get the same result as you...
Cooking is about precision. I wouldn't use volume to mesure flour, just the same way I wouldn't use the time it takes to drop out of the flour box to mesure it.
"Drop flour for 3 seconds in a bowl..."
Especially given that in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election the SNP only polled 45% of the popular vote, which interestingly is pretty much the same proportion of the vote they got in the referendum. They didn't have a democratic mandate for the referendum in 2011 and giving them one was stupid. Even stupider was allowing to drag on for years, should have been quick and in say 2012.
Nah, the stupid thing was to let it be a simple majority vote of 50%+1.
Weighty decisions, such as changing the fundamentals of a political system (including basic laws/Constitutions/political unions/etc) really do need to require a supermajority in order to add hysteresis to the system. It's just untenable to have a razor thin majority decide matters like this, because it could vacillate too easily.
No one would would have been sweating if the vote had set a threshold of 2/3 majority.
if you use cups as a size, you'll never repeat the same quantity twice, cup is only an approximate quantity,
You are quite wrong. A cup is just as exact as any other unit of measure except there are a few different versions of measures with that name depending on location. In US customary units a cup is 236.5882365 milliliters which is more precision than you will ever actually need. For legal purposes (like on nutrition labeling) a cup is defined as exactly 240ml. In the UK it is 284ml and in Japan it is 200ml. If you are making coffee it is 150ml.
Now granted you will note that all these measures are defined in relationship to liters so one might reasonably question why we still use cups in some parts of the world. Mostly tradition, comfort and conversion costs. I'd love it if we would switch to metric but I doubt it will happen in my lifetime.
one is exactly twice the other whereas 1 cup and 1/2 cup are not
Where did you get a ridiculous idea like that? 1/2 cup is by definition exactly half of 1 cup. There can be no possible other definition.
Intel is now producing chips on it's 5.51181102 × 10-7 inch fabs and that's the way it likes them - you couldn't accurately describe that with the overly complicated metric system and you know it.
So please don't come here spouting off about how metric is better.
Are they measuring cups or tea cups or coffee mugs?
1 US cup is very close to 250ml, a tad less, but close enough for government work. That's also convenient, since most recipes are for some binary fraction or multiple, although 0.0625l might be a bit of a strain, relatively speaking.
Fortunately, most recipes allow for considerable imprecision. When I cook pasta, my measuring unit is the "handful", in fact. And really, would you expect meticulous measurement from the country that brought you McDonalds?
It's true, however, that cup measurements don't do justice for some things. Flour, in particular, can be packed tight or loose and further will shrink or swell with ambient humidity.
Torque is the answer. In millimeters.
The big issue is when you get to "1 cup of flour" or "1 cup of butter" - things that are much more easily measured by mass, or things like "1 cup of cherry tomatoes" where the amount you get will vary based on the size and density of the particular tomatoes you have today.
Butter generally has a fairly consistent density so measuring by volume is normally fine unless you are getting into specialty butters. (Pick whatever volumetric units make you happy) Flour should ALWAYS be measured by weight because there is no way to measure it by volume that is consistent. The reason we use volume units is because A) it's faster than getting out a scale and B) absolute precision often doesn't matter much unless you are baking. (in baking precision matters) If someone says to use a cup of tomatoes, they are giving you an estimate of the amount needed rather than a precise measurement. Good cooks/chefs know this. Being exact does not actually matter for most cooking and you will (and should) adjust to taste and preference. Lots of outstanding chefs (like Bobby Flay) do very little measurement when cooking because it isn't necessary. They use experience and adjust the relative ingredient quantities until they get the taste they are looking for.
Basically, no, the kitchen is exactly the place I want metric measurement - it is if anything the best example around a house of where you need accurate scientific style measurement.
Metric is no more accurate than US customary units. A cup in the US has a very specific volume. Like you I'd prefer metric units but it doesn't gain me anything from a precision standpoint.
1 cup of flour is trivially measured by volume: Just grab the "1 cup" cup from your set of measuring cups, scoop up flour from your storage container, level.
And if you do that you are going to get a different amount of flour every single time. Flour is a powder with a LOT of air in between. If you are looking for consistency you MUST measure flour by weight because you'll get different packing densities by the method you recommend. Sometimes it doesn't matter but when it does you have to use weight, not volume. ALL professional bakers measure flour by weight and never by volume.
US recipes usually don't use "cups" of butter, they use "sticks" of butter. If you live where butter isn't sold in US sticks (113.4 grams), you're screwed.
A stick of butter is 8 tablespoons or approximately 120mL. You're only screwed if you are clueless.
He said taught, not use. There is a massive difference. Personally don't see the harm in that at all.
People tend to use what they are taught. By your logic we should we teach creationism in science class. After all there is a massive difference so what's the harm right?
Teach the official standard in school. If families want to teach customary units then leave that up to them.
...or the Welsh. or the Cornish. or infact most people from England excluding the anglo-saxon hotbeds of Yorkshire and Norfolk.
I don't agree with his policies or his party ideology either, but I think it is incorrect to call him an idiot. He knows very well what he is doing, and I think he is leading the country competently, in the sense that he is not blundering around stupidly and making the overall situation significantly worse for the whole nation.
Cameron has been a competent prime minister. He hasn't screwed up in any major way, the economy has significantly recovered, he's survived the Scottish referendum and the coalition has been successful in moderating his party's reforms. But his party and Clegg's are doomed in the next election.
We keep using imperial in our daily lives because they are easy when you don't need great precision or a deep understanding of the science behind; 1 pound is about the weight of a large handful of something - easy to relate to and precise enough for many purposes.
As generations are born and die, the old system falls out of use and people use the new system instead. I don't see that as a reason to keep on using it when it was gotten rid of for a reason. If I want to approximate something I can always say a litre, or half a kilo, or 50 meters or whatever.
Doesn't he know that the imperial measures are defined in metric? Like 1 *F=5/9 k? By the way, I suggest that /. should require all temp measurements to be stated in kelvin, since it doesn't accept the 'degree' symbol.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
The real worrying stuff is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-p...
It is simply so that they don't have to print two boxes, and they sell more TV's in the US.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Of course... in engineering and sciences, we already use metric across the board.
Sadly not true in US engineering. We all use metric but LOTS of engineering is in other units in the US. At my company we specify all dimensions in feet and inches because that's how our supply chain generally functions. Sure we could use metric but all the drawings from our customers are in US customary and most of the dimensions from our suppliers are too. We're not a big enough firm to really move the needle on that.
It's in daily life which the simpler imperial measure system makes sense.
"Simpler"? Imperial and US Customary units are many things but simpler is not among them. You may be comfortable with them but that is not the same thing.
I just don't see how knowing both is a problem.
Knowing both isn't a problem. Needing both IS a problem. It creates needless complexity and opportunities for error.
ITS far easier to teach people metric and then they can actually get to doing math....
going backwards in time to idiot math er imperial is just more proof he needs be taken to a mental ward
America knows it isn't special.
I live in the US and a good portion of the US population does think it is special. They are wrong but they do honestly and earnestly believe it. "Greatest country in the world" and all that nonsense.
America is lazy and hates change.
America is anything but lazy though you are correct that many of them do hate change. Americans work more hours than almost anyone else in the world on average so lazy isn't a label that really fits. But people in general do not like change.
Metric is taught in most schools, especially those in science.
Foreign languages are taught in most schools too and yet only a minority of native born americans are bi-lingual. Doesn't matter what is taught in schools if it isn't used in the real world.
By the end of the century America will be Metric too.
I do not share your optimism on that though I wish it would happen. Officially we do use metric but I don't see the US switching to metric for daily use in my lifetime and I'd honestly be surprised if it happened in the next 100 years. Maybe it will but I'm dubious.
An ounce of gold surprisingly "weighs" more than an ounce of feathers because gold weights are in Troy units (1 oz=31g) whereas feathers are Avoirdupois (1oz=28g).
But a pound of feathers weighs more than pound of gold, because Troy pounds have only 12 ounces.
If I know the size of a cm, I can make a container for a litre of water. Once I fill it, I can weigh it to get a kilogram. That's why metric makes so much sense.
1 cup of flour is trivially measured by volume: Just grab the "1 cup" cup from your set of measuring cups, scoop up flour from your storage container, level. You're done.
This is indeed easyâ"but very inaccurate: it can lead to the measurement being out by as much as 30%.
MOD PARENT UP.
Professional bakers actually don't use volumes or weights when they state a recipe -- they use something called "baker's percentage," where 100% = the weight of the flour. Not the volume; the weight. All other ingredients are stated in proportions relative to the weight of the flour, making it easy to scale a recipe up or down. This is because bakers actually realize that weighing is so important because of the compressibility of flour.
If you're making bread, for example, an error of 30% in measurement of flour is the difference roughly between the stickiest wettest possible dough you could work with (producing a very crusty bread with large holes, like pizza or ciabatta dough) and a dry dough that is so tough that it's barely kneadable by hand (like bagel dough). Almost all of the varieties of bread fall in that range of about 30% error in flour measurement.
Baking requires somewhat more precision than other cooking, because once you throw the batter/dough in the oven, you can't make modifications. It's not like making soup where you can just taste it while cooking and say, "oops! I forgot the salt!" and just add some and everything will turn out okay.
If you're baking bread or a cake and say "1 cup of flour," you might as well just say "Add enough flour to get the 'right' consistency... whatever that is... you just have to know." Because with volume measurements of flour, it's REALLY hard to get consistent results unless you're skilled in recognizing what the final batter/dough is supposed to be like already.
Learning more than one system of measurement doesn't sound like such a huge burden, especially if there's an emphasis on how to convert. I don't have a good intuitive sense for conversions between US and metric systems because they were taught to me separately. If, when they were initially introduced, there had been an emphasis on conversion, that would have helped. Also, teaching the conversions helps with some simple math too.
Beyond the reason of 'that's what I grew up with', how is the Fahrenheit scale more comprehensible than the Celsius scale?
It isn't. It's just what people have learned to use in every day life. They know what a day that is 70F will feel like. They know that 350F will get them the right cooking temperature in the oven. If you tell them it is 21C outside they have no mental framework to put that information into even though it is the same as 70F.
Leave stupid units and measures to the Americans. There is no sense in using anything other than the metric system (which is why the Americans are not using it.)
I think East Anglia on the whole might be a hotbed of the Angles, if not the Saxons.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
So, we've got:
1. Speeds (mph) and fuel (mpg in an X gallon tank)
2. Lumber (2x4)
Let's add a few more:
3. Milk (pints)
4. Beer (pints)
5. Ingredients in menus (pounds and ounces)
6. Human weight (stone, pounds and ounces)
7. Human height (feet and inches)
8. Vehicle heights for bridge clearances etc. (feet and inches)
9. Time (hours, minutes and seconds)
10. Date (days, months, years)
And that was just stream of consciousness, without a pause to think of other examples.
Seriously, standards are great. They help us to communicate unambiguously. And we have standards in the UK, and they are what I just listed. No-one here goes to the supermarket to buy 227g of cheese and 1.14L of milk. No-one goes to a car showroom and asks whether the fuel economy around town is better than 7.84L/100km, and most people's instinct would be that a higher number was better even if they had that reference point. A few people might describe their height in metres, but most people would say something like "five foot nine".
For projects where international collaboration is required, sure, agree a standard up-front, and it might as well be SI. Likewise for scientific and engineering applications, everyone is a professional and can agree to use SI. But for day to day life? You'd better hope someone going to a supermarket or a pub knows the same units as everyone else, because asking for 0.28L of beer at a crowded bar isn't going to make you any friends.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Imperial has some presence in engineering, possibly due to a more narrow focus and more resistance to change.
Imperial and US Customary units are used in engineering almost entirely due to economic considerations of having an installed base. Switching all your supply chain and documentation to a different measurement system (even a better one) is a HUGE cost with a payback that is measured in many years if there is one at all.
and drugs. Oh and milk/beer/petrol for some reason but other liquids come in litres. Get the dealers to go metric and it will all finally fall in.
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Basically, no, the kitchen is exactly the place I want metric measurement - it is if anything the best example around a house of where you need accurate scientific style measurement.
Not always. It's the one place where you're fine with vague measurements. Like a pinch of salt, a handfull of lettuce or a chili. Take two of them if thats your style. When you're using natural ingredients, you'll always have size variations.
But I agree with you that measuring non-fluids by volume is moronic. And the above of course only applies when preparing foods in common household quantities. 1 pinch of salt per serving is perfect at home, but a bit complicated when you're preparing pasta sauce for the whole summer camp.
bickerdyke
This is due the fact that the UK was almost over a few days ago, that's all.
That's what they want you to think.
All I see here is imperial proponents having serious issues with the metric system, where the ones using the metric system has no issues with the imperial, when expressed as fractional metrics. I don't have an issue whatsoever with 1 pint expressed in either litre or ml. Nor a pound expressed as grams. Its all the same to me, and I know exactly what it is. Same with miles to m or km. A mile is 1657 metres, or 1.657 km. Working in engineering - a mm is 25.4 times as accurate as an inch to begin with, and we can still subdivide by any power of 10. Fractional inch is not limited in precision, nor is mm or any of the si units, they are just inherently less awkward to use from start, as almost all share the same base and relation to each other. 1mm is 1/1000th of a metre. 1m x 1m is a square metre. 1m x 1m x 1m is a cubic metre, or 1000 litre. For clean water, 1L, 10*10*10cm is a good approximation for 1kg (difference is about 3mg 0.003g ) which is too small to count for anything but scientific work.
In the US, "cup" is a capacity measurement, just like fluid ounces. You don't measure with any sort of arbitrary cup, you do it with a calibrated measuring cup (which is generally marked in fl oz and mL as well). You could use any graduated container, though. I like beakers.
Same goes for teaspoons and tablespoons, which are volume measurements that are only historically linked to any of the spoons one might eat with.
The one European cooking convention that's actually useful here is using weight for dry measure instead of volume. Most dry-measure materials pack well (like flour) or have nonstandardized grain sizes (like salt), so you cannot make a precise measurement by volume. We're converting, though -- most good cookbooks will list both. (Professional cookbooks will only list weight.) People on TV will generally tell you to stop measuring by volume. Etc.
It's because Cameron is a friggin' moron who should be thrown out of office as fast as possible. He is personally (with the help of other quisling MP's) ushering Britain into a new dark age.
While cup is a standard and precise unit of measurement, there are lots of materials in cooking you should not measure by volume (whether that volume is in cups or mL).
Oh, you mean the speedometers that have both measurements on them already? All US cars do. Why the ignorance?
Nope. In fact when we took our GERMAN car to germany, I had to swap out the cluster because it only read in MPH.
Well.. what would you expect from a country where inflammable means flammable!
bickerdyke
To understand the past, including literature and some old science and engineering, people ought to know what the old units were, about what the metric equivalents are! And where to find exact conversions. Going forward, things ought to be metric; but we still will need inch based tools to work on old stuff.
Basically, no, the kitchen is exactly the place I want metric measurement
You are confusing two issues: metric vs. US customary units, and measurement by volume vs. by mass.
I assure you that both metric and US customary unit systems have units for volume and mass, so you can measure either way using either system. It's also the case that neither unit system specifies how one is to measure ingredients in the kitchen.
It is European convention to measure many kitchen dry ingredients by weight. It is, unfortunately, US convention to measure many dry ingredients by volume. This is okay, even convenient, for some things where the real quantity doesn't particularly matter. (While cherry tomatoes will vary, you could probably use twice as much or half as much without any trouble.) For precision measurements, you need to use weight. This is what's used by professional cooks in the US already and is becoming increasingly common in cookbooks.
Incidentally, if you buy your butter in sticks, it's easy to measure a cup of butter. Otherwise, it's convenient to post a list of standard densities for things like butter.
So he's either an idiot our up to something evil? It couldn't possibly be because he's older... was taught imperial when he was in school... and humans tend to go with what they know?
There's plenty of evil in the world, there's no need to manufacture new evil out of thin air.
Note that they are actually measuring by weight, using a custom unit system.
The big issue is when you get to "1 cup of flour" or "1 cup of butter" - things that are much more easily measured by mass,
1 cup of flour is trivially measured by volume: Just grab the "1 cup" cup from your set of measuring cups, scoop up flour from your storage container, level. You're done. If you're using measuring cups, you can make a batch of cookie dough without using a scale or having to look at the actual measurement.
US recipes usually don't use "cups" of butter, they use "sticks" of butter. If you live where butter isn't sold in US sticks (113.4 grams), you're screwed.
You're so wrong. Some recipes require sifted flour. Some recipes expect you to pack that flower in nice and tight. It depends on how precise they need you to be with the flour. You can completely ruin a meal by not sifting your flour when called for. The volume in your measuring cup depends on exactly how much air is between each individual flour molecule.
STIG doesn't do 0 - 100 km/hr, he does 0 - 60 mp/h, just like God and Clarkson intended.
Most of America uses decimal.
Canada uses decimal. Mexico uses decimal. Central-American countries use... Well, a very strange mix, lets leave them aside for a bit ;-) But from Colombia until Chile and Argentina, every country uses decimal.
Maybe we should also get the USA to choose a proper country name, as all of us who live in the same continent will continue to insist we are Americans.
its "pennies", "pence" is the new money
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
1 cup of flour is trivially measured by volume: Just grab the "1 cup" cup from your set of measuring cups, scoop up flour from your storage container, level. You're done.
Is that flour fluffy or compacted - how compacted was the contents due to transport vibrations/settling? (yes, you do get about the same if you do it the same way, but what if you don't scoop but instead pour from the package?)
If you're using measuring cups, you can make a batch of cookie dough without using a scale or having to look at the actual measurement.
Guess what - the same thing applies if you have metric measuring cups and metric recipes (haven't seen any call for something like 138g, just like you're unlikely to see calls for 2,17 cups, they're typically tuned to reasonable values in whatever system they originate. Very few recipes are THAT inflexible to not allow that...)
US recipes usually don't use "cups" of butter, they use "sticks" of butter. If you live where butter isn't sold in US sticks (113.4 grams), you're screwed.
For butter/margarine we use, like 200/225/250g (never seen a value not a multiple of 25g, like you're unlikely to see anything but easy fractions of 'stick') - and that can be had by cutting off a chunk from the package (typically 500g or 1kg), 4/4.5/5 scale lines wide (lines on the wrapper placed every 50g)
As an American, I'm tougher than the Europeans, and I can prove it. I can take heat up to 104 degrees. The Europeans are in trouble when it's only 40!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
and they'll take 1609.34 meters. 0.473 liters is 0.473 kilograms the world around. Centimeterworm, centimeterworm, measuring the marigolds... The whole 8.22 meters... 28.35 grams of prevention is worth 0.453592 kilograms of cure. He's done it! He's broken the 240 second 1.6 km! "Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit Be nominated for an equal 453.592 grams Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken In what part of your body pleaseth me." HBO. Next up. 1.8288 Meters Under. "You're gonna lose that smile / because all the while / I can see for kilometers and kilometers..."
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The physical cup maybe an exact volume but the quantity of whatever you put into it will vary from cup to cup.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
yep, they've got more cranks and at the moment safely away from the big red button
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Science uses the metric system universally, even in the UK and the US, and outside science, it hardly matters. In particular, while the thought of dealing with non-metric units may seem daunting to people raised on metric, to people raised on imperial units, it's just another unit; if you have inches, miles, feet, and acres, having one more length unit hardly makes a difference.
Advocacy of the metric system seems to be more a kind of political shibboleth. Keeping non-metric units is a matter of national pride, an expression that a country is rich and powerful enough not to have to give in to international uniformity. Advocating metricization is something people use to appear more rational and more scientific, and people from countries who are already metricized like to use it to express their silent resentment at the fact that other countries have been able to maintain a larger level of independence.
I have a feeling any "conversion" would be about as difficult to handle as your cable company changing the channel lineup around. Perhaps a few weeks of grumbling, but eventually you get used to it.
The bigger problem is actually in documentation and tooling. The big costs in converting aren't in changing some signs which is really more of a political problem than anything else. It's really just a bunch of old farts who don't want to change. Thing is that old farts rarely forget to vote so politicians aren't going to do anything about the problem until they all die. Unfortunately by the time they do die there is now a new generation of old farts that doesn't want to change.
The bigger problem is in converting all the documents (work instructions, legal documents, product drawings, etc) and all the tooling to SI/metric. There is an enormous cost to doing that and that is the biggest economic obstacle to overcome. It can be done but there is precisely zero political will in Washington to make it happen. If it does happen in the US the change will be very slow. Some progress has been made but the big steps have yet to be taken.
Dealing only in KPH is sufficiently hard for someone like myself raised with MPH that even if i switch my GPS / speedometer to KPH, I still have to do the mental conversion back into MPH to get a feeling for "how fast is that".
A couple of weeks of driving in a KPH based country and you'd get over it. It just takes a little experience is all.
if you are wanting to supply your products globally it makes sense to have a single measuring system and metric is the easiest.
"The Imperial system is critical to British cultural identity and must be restored for that purpose." - oh bollox you sound like a UKIP supporter. maybe we should go back even further if you want to claim cultural identity of the old order is best http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Yes. Because the Conservatives want to win over UKIP voters by emphasising that they are not just going to not join the Eurozone, but also bring back Britain's original currency. I think we should call our Prime Minister David "Shilling" Cameron.
Is the "conservative" party the party of "stupid"?
what a load of bollox. your stupid building analogy for example. you have to use that system if you work in imperial. if you build using metric, division by 10 is better. Have a proper look at an imperial ruler and ametric ruler and see which is clearer to read. The metric is because it doesn't have 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16th on it. You are just a dinosaur who no longer wants to learn something different even if its better
" little to do with day-to-day life and ignored untold centuries experience about what works best." maybe we should go back to measuring using fingers, palms, hands, shaftments, cubits as that was the way before standard measurements became popular
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Sure teach them, just like we do Roman numerals. It's good to know, since imperial units will be in old (otherwise still valuable text books and fiction) for ever.
Anybody interested in this issue should look at http://www.metric.org.uk/
It gives a lot of information about how stupid the imperial system is in general, and in particular in its implementation in Britain.
It's not due to him not knowing about science, it's due to him not doing enough math, probably because he doesn't know enough science to ever apply any information about th-- oh, you got me.
Metric is for people who work with measurements. But if you never actually do anything, then you don't need metric.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
you're right: "28 grams of prevention is worth a half a kilogram of cure" sounds MUCH better.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
French are quite proud of the meter. It isn't an inheritance of internationalisation, but internal progress. It's a memory from the Enlightenment and Revolution, letting go of the royal measure of the king's inch or feet.
Also, fractions of inches are awful to read for metric people.
How does measuring 100 mm^3 of cheery tomatoes make it any easier than using a cup. It is still based on the size and density of the tomatoes you have.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
If you're cooking that exact to the recipe, you're probably doing something wrong.
Relax. The recipe is just a general guideline, not code to be compiled and run on a math processor.
Oh, and don't forget to taste before you serve. An appropriate salt level for the recipe creator may be too salty for your tastes. Same goes with every other taste.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Until they make tape measures in the UK DIY Stores that only read in metric I will continue to use "Impetric" for whatever D.I.Y job I am tackling. If it is small and to a high degree of accuracy I tend to use mm but if its something like popping together a garden shed I tend to use feet and inches and then mm for the last bit. "The door frame needs to be 6 feet and 40mm, works for me as all of the measures here have both on them.
1) Those that use the Metric System; and
2) Those that have landed a man on the Moon.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Micrometres are overkill as a replacement for thou. All that is needed is 0.1mm increments for most cases, as you rarely encounter tolerances less of than 4 thou, and if you do, you can go down to the 0.05mm or 0.025mm levels.
Yes, they are measuring by weight; I don't think I implied otherwise. In fact, I stressed its importance. I merely said that when they state a recipe, often it is given in terms of percentages, which are all based on weighing ingredients.
No still, but again. TVs used to be sold using the diagonal given in cm. On the other hand, computer screens were always (?) sold in inches. However, since flat screen TVs have become common, they have been marketed in inch. I don't really understand why - after all, cm are the bigger number.
I think everyone should be taught imperial measures as well , specifically miles,yards.feet and inches
All these measurements are still in daily use , try and work will millimeters in engineering and you soon find out that
thousands of an inch are the only way to measure small tolerances.
That's true actually, because we all know it's completely impossible to subdivide a millimetre. It's already been divided out of the metre! Split it any more and it'll shatter!
No attempt at ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
The UK starts driving on the right side of the road.
... they should quit using Imperial measures, adopt metric, and they should also stop using English and adopt Esperanto.
In general, trying to follow a US recipe that needs some level of accuracy is basically impossible.
That is so not true that I think you are trolling. If not you must be an engineer because you are worrying about levels of precision that simply rarely matter. It's not even remotely difficult to follow a US recipe unless you are wildly incompetent. Few recipes require highly precise measurement and the recipes that do need a high level of accuracy are written to reflect that fact. Professional bakers and competent cooks/chefs know when to use weight versus volume and they know when it doesn't actually matter. Experienced cooks often don't even need to measure. My grandmother can whip up all sorts of fantastic baked goods without measuring a thing because she has decades of experience and knows what the dough is supposed to look like. Professional chefs like Bobby Flay rarely measure anything. Watch a few episodes of Iron Chef and tell me how many measuring cups you see. It won't be many I assure you.
If you're trying to bake bread, you'd better have a metric recipe, or you're screwed.
Is that so? Then explain mister smarty pants how we somehow manage to bake huge amounts of very yummy bread despite the lack of this supposedly vital metric system.
Hell I'm even a huge proponent of switching to metric and I think your argument is complete nonsense. There are a few places in cooking were high precision is necessary (baking mostly) and NONE of them require metric measurements. US Customary units work just fine. You can argue against using Imperial/US Customary and I'll be right there with you. But your claim that it is impossible to follow a US recipe tells us about your competence as a cook but nothing about the relative merits of metric vs imperial measurements.
Keep pushing, little man, but star systems will continue to slip through your fingers the more you squeeze.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
he really is a horrible Prime Minister.
I couldn't agree more. There are, basically, more important problems than that. All imperial measures are defined in terms of SI units anyway. Big deal.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Measuring by weight has one significant benefit: you have much less washing up to do. No measuring cups/spoons to wash. When I mix ingredients, the mixing bowl sits on a wiiboard repurposed to be a high-capacity kitchen scale that reads down to 0.1g and has accuracy down to 1g over 100kg. When I try out a recipe for the first time, I simply note the weight of each ingredient as measured by volume, and use the weights from that point onwards. BTW, the readout I prefer is in lbs/oz, not grams :)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
US sticks of butter are graduated in tablespoons on their wrapper. There's two tablespoons to an ounce, and 8 oz to a cup. So if a recipe calls, for, say 1/4 cup of butter (2oz), you know it's 4 "notches" on the butter stick's graduation, or 4 Tbsp of butter.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
In the US, this is not a practical issue. You go to a store and get a measuring cup. I haven't really had a need to know exactly how many ml is in such a cup... It also doesn't matter that other "cup" definitions exist out there. When you cook, you go by the measuring cup you get from the store. When you are a manufacturer of such cups, you should know what you're doing. Easy.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Switch back to that first. Then worry about the rest of the metric system.
Have gnu, will travel.
"1 cup of butter"
That's two sticks of butter. Also, the butter package is marked with lines, so you can see how many are in a T-spoon or whatever. Not saying I disagree that metric is nice for cooking, but these problems have been solved.
Looking at it another way, someone might say, "why do you always have to use a scale while cooking??"
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Why would you be measuring flour by volume anyway? Unless you're an idiot.
If metric is bad for cooking, why do Americans cook less than the rest of the world?
1 cup = 8 fl. oz.
Similarly to how a "foot" may be either a unit of measure of a body part.
Our butter comes with a package nicely marked at each 50 grams, so you can cut it without actually weighting it.
Right. This is specifying the recipe by weight, though. It's just specifying it by relative weights, using a very convenient custom unit system.
I think it also tends to be much faster, for the same reason. Add ingredient, zero, add ingredient, zero, etc. You can tear through measuring a complicated set of ingredients in no time.
I tend to use grams unless the recipe actually specifies weight in US customary or if there is some particular motivation for using lb/oz. (Brewing supplies here, for example, are all sold by the pound or ounce, so it's useful to stick with those units.
I saw a little boy almost die from a heroin overdose because a resident made a power of ten mistake that the nurse did not catch.
Well, I once saw a heavy metal performance ruined because the size of a stage element was specified in inches instead of feet.
Last time I checked in the US most medical doses are given in metric (milligrams, milliliters, etc.), and it doesn't seem to cause too many problems.
Give them a centimeter and they'll take a kilometer.... sigh...
// Is this because he hasn't a clue about science or because he is catering to a particular political base?
Both, I don't know, either.
There are numerous reasons for the UK to still teach Imperial, many of which benefit businesses.
For example, the Railway system in the UK uses Miles+Chains (Reason: Historical so that they can keep accurate records of the track maintenance; it would take more paperwork than a even a Vorgon would care for to change it). It's beneficial for anyone dealing with the railway system to understand what those are.
I'm sure you'll find similar things in other parts of the UK economy as well.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
No, microns are the only sensible way to measure small distances.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
You're inadvertently making a pretty good point: metric units' system of prefixes is just a bizarre reimplementation of scientific notation that uses arcane prefixes attached to the name of the thing you're counting to express quantities, instead of just using numbers.
> if you are wanting to supply your products globally it makes sense to have a single measuring system and metric is the easiest.
That's a bit absurd. It's like saying that if you want to supply your products globally, it makes sense to have a single language, and Esperanto is the easiest.
It's already necessary to do lots of localization work if you want to be globally competitive: you need to do translations, deal with diverse regulatory requirements, address differences in product demand due to cultural variation, etc. Doing a bit of arithmetic to convert measuring units is perhaps the most trivial aspect of marketing globally.
And if it were economically beneficial to use metric across the board, businesses would do so on their own volition, and there'd be no need to make a political question out of it. If they're not doing so, it's probably a good indication that the hypothesized benefits aren't actually there in practice.
It's also worth pointing out that the powers-of-ten prefix system isn't just not the advantage it's hyped up to be, but is a bizarre and superfluous gimmick: it's just a reimplementation of scientific notation that expresses the relevant power-of-ten factor via an arcane system of verbal prefixes that attach to the name of the thing you're counting.
If you have a truck that holds, say, 16,536 oranges -- setting aside the question of why you wouldn't just leave that representation intact -- why would you not just use "1.6536 x 10^3 oranges" instead of a bizarre construction like "1.6535 kilooranges"? Why would you ever use anything other than numbers to represent quantities?
If it's in the US, are they really "imperial" measurements?
Also, one of my grandmothers used all sorts of extremely obscure measurements. She knew the difference between a dash of salt and a pinch of salt. I suspect many cooks even in super-genius-enlightened EU countries do the very same thing, no one's going to measure out .35ml of of vanilla, they're just going to add a little.
I've definitely seen butter measured by sticks in recipes. That's why most sticks also include measurements along the side on the wrapping, so that you can easily get 1/2, 1/8, etc. Ie, cut directly into the butter and the wrapper where the line indicates then pull off the wrapper afterwords.
That's a real benefit if you only ever work with water, and only at standard temperature and pressure. Deal with anything else, in any other situation, and the equivalence becomes little more than a superfluous gimmick.
The article is in response to David Cameron's opinion that he'd prefer school children to learn Imperial units instead of metric as their first means of measuring the world. It's what he wants 6 year olds to learn.
I'd agree it would be interesting to give people an insight into old measurements for those folk who want to work with equipment that still has legacy imperial hardware around that they might encounter, e.g. 16-20 year olds starting an apprenticeship in some engineering domains. But I don't think working with imperial measurements is the same level of priority as the majority of other subjects that 6-11 year olds should learn. Unless you live in the USA or Liberia (I think these are the only two countries in the world to use imperial measurements as their main system?). And I definitely don't think rocket scientists should learn them, we all know how well that US Mars spacecraft faired when there was a mixup on the US side between imperial and metric measurements ;-)
> It couldn't possibly be because he's older... was taught imperial when he was in school... and humans tend to go with what they know?
No.
I was born the same year as him and we were all taught metric units in England from the beginning of school, imperial units were never used. We were introduced to it in passing when we were aged about 8 or 9 as a funny old system that people used to use so we might come across from our older relatives it but not something we should pay very much attention to . Britain in the late 60s early 70s was still optimistic and looking to a scientific new future, white heat of technology and all that, and metric measurement was seen as part of the scientific new future (remember we had decimalisation of our currency at the same time, 1971, so we'd moved to 100 pennies to the pound from 12 pennies to the shilling, twenty shillings to the pound: imperial units were out of fashion). Metric measurement was pretty well known even by our parents at the time who'd gone to school in Imperial times (literally: pre 1947 when India, Pakistan and Burma were part of the empire, run from London) and taken for granted.
Of course I should be fair and note that according to wikipedia, DC went to an exclusive private school from the age of seven so perhaps they had rum ideas about education and believe the empire was about to return and taught the kids a dead measurement system... but if it followed the national guidance on curriculum, he would have learnt metric.
We still have a passing knowledge of imperial units in the UK, folk still know a handful, but it's a very partial and incomplete understanding and the majority of people under 50 would look at you as being a bit crazy if you said you wanted them to work in pounds and ounces and feet and inches. Most of them wouldn't know how many pounds were in a hundredweight or feet in a furlong.
DC is trying to out UKIP the UKIP and gain favour with the over 60s Little Englander vote.
In France you might see a "glass" as in glass of water, if the quantity is approximate. But mL, cL, grams etc. may be more likely. Soup spoon, coffee spoon and pinch (of salt, pepper etc.) certainly are prevalent. As for 250mL? you can always say a quarter liter, or 25cL. That's one standard serving for beer by the way but cooking books don't speak in beer servings.
A "cup"? coffee cup can be tiny, tea cups are bigger, and then we now have "mugs". So we don't know what's the size of a "cup".
My vote would be for teaching the metric system in math and science classes, and teaching the imperial units in history and social studies classes. We should not scrap knowledge of the past. We can respect the fact that the mile and furlong go back to ancient Rome, and make sure children know the history. But at the same time, it would be nice to have a system that is logical.
The problem with converting everything to the metric system is, not everything can be expressed in it using whole numbers. As was pointed out above, a tall person is over 6 feet tall. Maybe people just need to increase their size to an average of 2 meters :-)
Life's a lot like money-- you spend it, then it's gone. Spend wisely.
It doesn't –but measuring 100 grammes of cherry tomatoes makes things a lot easier ;).
You can do that if you aren't bothered about it being a rough approximation.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
The arcane prefixes are what make metric units easy to use, without having to invent new names for the same quantity at different scales (inches, feet, yards). "1E-3 liter", "a thousand grams", "a hundredth of a meter" are quantities you'll encounter every day, but these don't exactly roll off the tongue. "Milliliter", "kilogram" (or kilo) and "centimeter" are used in everyday life instead. And once you know what a kilogram is, you know what a kilometer is as well.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I asked the resident baked goods engineer at home, and she does indeed use the more correct version shown in the link.
Scooping ingredients directly from the container only works with fairly incompressible things like (white) or salt.
Probably the best way to make it happen is for the government to provide some tax benefits to companies willing to do the conversion, and allow the transition to occur a bit more naturally over time.
I think the best way for it to happen is for certain key parts of industry to demand the conversion. Let's say hypothetically that Ford, GM, Chrysler, Boeing and Caterpillar all demanded that their supply chains convert to metric. Doesn't have to be all at once but over the course of some years. All drawings, fasteners, etc has to meet a global standard. Heck, make it a part of ISO9000 or TS16949. That would force wide swaths of industry to convert whether they like it or not.
The government is already doing this to a significant degree. Suppliers to the military and government can and should require metric. However they should take it to the next level. Require all packaging of food products to be in metric units. Start by requiring the metric unit to be prominent and then slowly phase out the US Customary units over time.
The tough one will be the construction industry. They are soooo ingrained to non-metric measurements that getting them to switch is going to be a bear because there is no single company or group aside from the government that can mandate the change.
If you have a screw with a 1 inch head you use a 1 inch tool to manage it.
No one is going to ask you to call that screw a 26.xx mm screw, now will the tool be renamed.
I think you misunderstand me. I'm not talking about simply relabeling drawings to be metric. It would be pointless to simply label things differently. I'm talking about actually designing the products using existing metric standards going forward. Instead of using a 1/4" screw you use a 6mm (M6) screw when you design the product. Lengths are specified in drawings in metric. Wire gauges are mm^2 instead of AWG. Etc. The goal is to get to one set of measurements, one set of tools. Not one set of measurements with two sets of tools.
Maybe having to learn odd measures is a good introduction to units analysis and the need to pay attention. As a discipline not a set of facts. Just sayin', there may be more going on here than just imperialistic rhetoric.
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
He didn't actually say anything of the sort. I'm not a fan of his by any means, but to be fair, the question posed was (something along the lines of) 'which do you prefer, imperial or metric?'. This was in the context of the interviewer Evan Davies trying to achieve his openly stated aim of giving the British public a firm image of David Cameron. The conjecture at that point in the interview was that he can sometimes seem somewhat woolly in his stated views, and it's difficult to see how he's going to appease both the right and the centrist elements of his party. He then went on to answer that question by saying that he personally prefers pounds and ounces. This has thus been put through the press grinder and now it's 'David Cameron Says Brits Should Be Taught Imperial Measures'. He doesn't, it's simply nonsense.
If it is the law, follow the law. If folks don't like the law, change the law then follow it.
... "When you pry the source from my cold dead hands."
Patriotism in UK is a favorite device of persons with something to sell.
Casteism
1cm=0.3937".
HTH.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Piece of piss.
Fill the cup, the tip it until whatever's in it meets the base. Skim if necessary (like for flour or sugar) from base corner to brim. PRECISELY half a cup.
If you are anything like organised in a kitchen, you'll have a cup you roughly know the capacity of. My scaleless cup is precisely 200g of refined sugar skimmed to the brim. That's roughly half a pound. For most purposes, I can take any multiple or half multiple thereof of pretty much any ingredient using that one cup. It's not scale marked, but I can use it to measure 100g of (whatever) with no problem at all.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
we have butter here sold in 2 stick and 4 stick sizes (250g and 500g), the packets are so marked. I'll read off this Co-Op salted butter 250g wrapper: 1/4 stick, half stick, 1 stick, 2 stick - marked along the edge of the wrapper. England, by the way.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
when they say large onions I usually go for the Spanish variety - on a good market day I can pick one up that's the size of a Bocce ball.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
uh... actually, "Pence" is the collective subunit, "Penny" is the singular subunit usually and only correctly referring to 1p coins. The words NEW PENNY were inscribed above the portcullis of the 1p coin up until 1981. From 1982 the inscription changed to ONE PENNY. The 2p coin changed from "NEW PENCE" above the plume and "2" below to "TWO PENCE" above and "2" below in 1982. From 2008 all British coins started to be minted with sections of the Dent-designed Royal Shield on various values which, when placed together, formed the entire shield (the key for which jigsaw is represented on the reverse of the £1 coin). Both the 1p and 2p coins lost the numerals on the reverse to make room for the shield segments, leaving "ONE PENNY" and "TWO PENCE" to fill the whitespace.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
here in England, yarns and cordage are usually measure by breaking strain.
(I shit you not, I have a spool of Dacron that's rated at 75kg, it's barely thicker than 35lb fishing monofilament. In fact I'd say it's thinner. Look for "Terko Satin", there's just one site I can find that actually sells the stuff, and it's by the mile. $Deity, that stuff is amazing - I just finished canvas stitching a custom trailer cover for my bike with the stuff)
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
So anyone who disagrees with the OP "hasn't a clue about science." Wow. You could not ask for a better example of ignorance, arrogance, and projection, all at the same time. Yes, the metric system has numerous advantages over the imperial one, and yes, it would be much better for almost everyone if those remaining places that have not adopted it would do so. But to say that anyone who doesn't "hasn't a clue about science" says only that the OP hasn't a clue about science. It is a method of learning about the world and universe around us. It is NOT a priesthood. It is not a popularity contest. And it is not a fixed, unchanging, dogmatic body of conclusions, verified by a circle-jerk of industry- and government-funded "peer review." There will be far too little real science done until people, including even some people who unjustifiably fancy themselves to be "scientists," get this through their amazingly ignorant heads.
Nonaggression works!