This letter from an expatriate Brit in Switzerland may be of interest. It illustrates very well the frustration felt by many people (not only expatriates) at the insularity and ignorance of so many of our compatriots.
Continue reading “An expatriate’s perspective on metrication”
The age of high speed rail finally reaches London on November 14th, when the final section of High Speed 1 – or HS1 to its friends – opens, to complete the link from London to Paris and Brussels. This will cut the travel time to just two and a quarter hours, and even less to Brussels, by allowing high speed operation on the final 39 km of route from near Gravesend in Kent into London. But why have the media missed the opportunity to use even more impressive big numbers?
Continue reading “Why trundle at 186 when you can whizz along at 300?”
One of the claims sometimes made by defenders of imperial weights and measures is that they are “natural”. The metric system (they may say) is all very well for science and technical matters, but for everyday life imperial units like the foot conform to the human scale and are more “natural”, unlike the arbitrary metric unit, the metre. We examine this argument.
Continue reading “Are imperial units natural? (and some useful rules of thumb)”
Defenders of imperial units sometimes claim that using units from different systems simply contributes to the richness of our language and culture. People use whichever units are appropriate to the context (they argue).
Continue reading “What’s wrong with two systems?”
A correspondent recently complained that a university quoted photographic paper sizes to him in imperial units. This reminded me of an unpleasant discovery I made some years ago. Continue reading “Why are photo paper sizes imperial?”
A fellow metric supporter who admits to being a little weak on mathematics owned up to not understanding the difference between accuracy and precision when it comes to measurement.
He is probably right in saying that he is not alone and that many people fail to see advantages with metric in this respect.
I offer here two examples in an attempt to clarify the issue, one purely numeric, the other practical involving an everyday example of measurement.
Today’s TV news carried a leading story that units of alcohol will be appearing on all bottles, cans cartons etc of alcoholic drinks. People were asked in the street what they thought of this move. Several people asked, what’s a unit?
Continue reading “Units of alcohol – rational metric sizes would solve the problem”
From 1st June 2007, it will be mandatory for owners of residential property within England and Wales to commission Home Information Packs (HIPs) if they wish to sell their property. A similar scheme is also planned for Scotland, which has a different system for buying and selling property.
Continue reading “Home information packs”
I have submitted this blog article to draw attention to and allow comment on an historical account of metrication in the UK written in 1980. Continue reading “Metrication – a historical perspective”
Today I notice an item in “The Sun” newspaper a headline (approx from memory)
“Marathon runner collapses in 73° heat”
Continue reading “Sensationalising with the help of Fahrenheit”
Metric Views 