A few days ago, a news story appeared about the possible redefinition of the second. The BBC reported that scientists have invented a clock that loses just one second in 300 million years.
Tag: measurement units
A statement from UKIP
UKIP’s recent electoral successes have resulted, quite rightly, in increased scrutiny of its policies. Here, we take a look at a recent statement by the Party’s Trade spokesman on the subject of measurement units.
The 1895 Select Committee on weights and measures
This article looks back to the findings and recommendations of the 1895 Parliamentary Select Committee on weights and measures.
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Will EU-US trade agreement bring in metric-only labelling in the US?
A key point of President Obama’s State of the Union address on 13 February was the proposed EU-US trade agreement, which has been under preliminary discussion for the past year. (See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/13/state-of-the-union-free-trade-europe). As this agreement is supposed to remove regulatory barriers to trade, there should now be a serious opportunity to remove the US ban on metric-only labelling of most packages.
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1862 report from the Select Committee on weights and measures
The question of adopting metric measures in the UK is not a new proposition; in 1862 Parliament’s Select Committee on Weights and Measures considered the matter and came down firmly in favour of metrication. A century and a half later, we are still waiting for the government to finally complete the job. The full report can be read here. A summary follows:
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Myths, misinformation and fallacies (1) – Are imperial units “natural”?
The claim is often made by last-ditch defenders of miles, feet, pints and acres that “Imperial units are natural whereas metric units are artificial”. In the first of an occasional series of articles on “myths, misinformation and fallacies” used by opponents of completing metrication, we examine this claim.
A list of such myths is summarised in a webpage on UKMA’s main website at this link entitled “Briefing note for UKMA representatives”. This note arose from a discussion at UKMA’s 2012 annual conference about the abysmal standard of debate heard on local radio phone-in programmes. The original intention was (and remains) to help UKMA members and supporters to make the case in radio and television interviews, in newspaper correspondence and online.
In the coming months we shall be discussing particular arguments from this list and opening them up to readers of MetricViews. This week we look at the claim that:
“Imperial units are natural whereas metric units are artificial”
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Cabinet Office gets its kilowatts in a twist
Visitors to the Cabinet Office website will see that this branch of the Government is measuring its energy use in “kilowatt-hours per hour”. It is a sad reflection on the quality of civil service support given to this crucial part of the Government machine that such an incongruous and scientifically illiterate measure should be published.
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Metric traffic signs – an issue that goes round in circles but will not go away
The reply to a recent parliamentary question prompts thoughts about joined-up government in relation to measurement units.
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Supersized Earth
A new series on BBC1 shows how our planet is being “re-engineered”, and it provides pointers to the future, some of them unexpected.
Thinking of buying a fridge?
A recent survey of their web sites leads us to speculate on where retailers see themselves: most plump for the present, but a few appear to favour the last century.
Metric Views 