...and just what is 'less accurate' about pounds, feet, cubic yards etc?
The metric system (I use the term loosely) is ideal for those people who
cannot do mental arithmetic and can only shift decimal points. All
'imperial' measurements can be defined just as the metre, kilogramme (and
there is a dodgy one...)can be.
Remember that the metre is originally based on (very) inaccurate French
surveying techniques, a yard would do just as well. As a (somewhat
middle-aged) physicist I'm perfectly happy with either system - although the
imperial system is obviously better :-)  . Just look what happened when NASA
tried to use metric measurements for that Mars probe......
And does it really matter anyway?

Paul Reeves,  G8GJA

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Palfreyman [mailto:jim77742@gmail.com]
Sent: 13 December 2011 09:28
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] gravity controlled pendulumn clock?

Gentlemen, gentlemen and gentlemen!

We are time-nuts. Accuracy is paramount. We are scientists.

Please steer clear of pounds, feet, cubic yards and other such rubbish.

Scientists speak in metric and so should you.

Please.

Jim

On 13 December 2011 16:24, Don Latham djl@montana.com wrote:

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.

This email, including any attachment, is a confidential communication
intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is
addressed. It contains information which is private and may be proprietary
or covered by legal professional privilege. If you have received this email
in error, please notify the sender upon receipt, and immediately delete it
from your system.

Anything contained in this email that is not connected with the businesses
of this company is neither endorsed by nor is the liability of this company.

Whilst we have taken reasonable precautions to ensure that any attachment to
this email has been swept for viruses, we cannot accept liability for any
damage sustained as a result of software viruses, and would advise that you
carry out your own virus checks before opening any attachment.

On 12/13/11 6:37 AM, Reeves Paul wrote:

But it wouldn't be a nice 10,000 km from pole to equator...

And besides that's the whole Britannia rules the waves so they get the
prime meridian and the French make good maps so they get the meter thing.

As a (somewhat

Actually, when a contractor used U.S. Customary units in data that was
supposed to be delivered in Metric.  NASA Deep Space Exploration  has
been metric for decades. I'd have to go look at some old documents to
see if Mariner, Ranger, Voyager were inch/pound or metric.  (Space
Shuttle and part of ISS are U.S. Customary (aka inch/pound) for legacy
manufacturing reasons..)

And surprise!  It still isn't!  It is more like 12,713.5 km.

... unless you measure it to one significant figure.

Metric vs English is purely about a set of arbitrary constants.

Decimal pounds, decimal inches and decimal seconds is just as
arbitrary, and just as easy to use as the metric system.

I think it was more that the French were so ghoulishly violent
with their revolution that the rest of Europe was afraid of them.

-Chuck Harris

On 12/13/11 8:19 AM, Chuck Harris wrote:

Huh?
For WGS84 ellipsoid
Equatorial radius 6378km * 2 * pi = 40080.4 km
Polar Radius 6357km

(Clarke 1866 is 6377.5, 6356.6)

At about 49 degrees latitude (e.g. Paris), the radius of curvature is
about 6366km which corresponds to 9999.68 km from pole to equator.  A
more precise calculation gives a meridional radius of 6367.4491 km for a
circumference 40007.86 km..

Delambre estimated 6377 for equatorial in 1810.

Yes, that might have had an effect...

I saw: "pole to equator" and read: "pole to pole", or diameter.

A simple literacy problem...

-Chuck Harris

Jim Lux wrote:

...

On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 08:19, Chuck Harris cfharris@erols.com wrote:

I would agree, as long as you stay within a single version of the
"English" system.

But where the metric system has an advantage is that the units with
the same name are the same size everywhere; that's not true of
"English" units.  I can remember mixing Kodak photographic chemicals
for darkroom use, where the mixing instructions are in terms of ounces
and gallons.  But I was in Canada, where the Imperial (British) ounce
and gallon are both different volumes than the American (and thus
Kodak) units of the same name.  I didn't have measuring cups with US
ounce markings.  We solved the problem by converting the "foreign"
units to ml and litres, which we were equipped to measure.

If I remember correctly, Ilford's photo chemical mixing directions
were already in metric, so they applied worldwide without any units
confusion.

Fortunately, the inch seems to be the same size everywhere, so I don't
have to figure out whether someone is talking about British inches or
American inches.  I have a small lathe with inch leadscrews, and a
small milling machine with metric leadscrews.  Neither measurement
system is particularly better or worse than the other.  Many of my
measuring tools can display in either system.

Imagine the chaos if the second was a different length of time in
different countries.

• Dave

Having spent more of my adult life in the US than in France, and having been thoroughly exposed to both systems, I can testify (in my own name) that it is easier and faster to get a good approximation when doing mental arithmetic on engineering problems using the metric system than the imperial system.

Of course, when you punch numbers in a calculator, the difference is less (even though there are fewer constants involved when using the metric system in general) so there is less typing involved.

If you don't care about being accurate, then the imperial system is fine :)
A gallon ( a yard, a pound,...) are not the same depending on where you are, and I am not talking about relativistic effects (or maybe I am...). Who cares how much is an ounce of water anyhow?

Didier KO4BB

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...

-----Original Message-----
From: Reeves Paul Paul.Reeves@uk.thalesgroup.com
Sender: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:37:44
To: 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'time-nuts@febo.com
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
time-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] gravity controlled pendulumn clock?

...and just what is 'less accurate' about pounds, feet, cubic yards etc?
The metric system (I use the term loosely) is ideal for those people who
cannot do mental arithmetic and can only shift decimal points. All
'imperial' measurements can be defined just as the metre, kilogramme (and
there is a dodgy one...)can be.
Remember that the metre is originally based on (very) inaccurate French
surveying techniques, a yard would do just as well. As a (somewhat
middle-aged) physicist I'm perfectly happy with either system - although the
imperial system is obviously better :-)  . Just look what happened when NASA
tried to use metric measurements for that Mars probe......
And does it really matter anyway?

Paul Reeves,  G8GJA

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Palfreyman [mailto:jim77742@gmail.com]
Sent: 13 December 2011 09:28
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] gravity controlled pendulumn clock?

Gentlemen, gentlemen and gentlemen!

We are time-nuts. Accuracy is paramount. We are scientists.

Please steer clear of pounds, feet, cubic yards and other such rubbish.

Scientists speak in metric and so should you.

Please.

Jim

On 13 December 2011 16:24, Don Latham djl@montana.com wrote:

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.

This email, including any attachment, is a confidential communication
intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is
addressed. It contains information which is private and may be proprietary
or covered by legal professional privilege. If you have received this email
in error, please notify the sender upon receipt, and immediately delete it
from your system.

Anything contained in this email that is not connected with the businesses
of this company is neither endorsed by nor is the liability of this company.

Whilst we have taken reasonable precautions to ensure that any attachment to
this email has been swept for viruses, we cannot accept liability for any
damage sustained as a result of software viruses, and would advise that you
carry out your own virus checks before opening any attachment.

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.

On 12/13/11 12:26 PM, shalimr9@gmail.com wrote:

Oh, then you're getting into all sorts of interesting units.  Gallons,
corn gallons, Scots gallons, etc.

And when speaking of drink, for some amount of time in England, if you
bought it in a bar, it could only be served and priced in fractions of a
gill (for distilled spirits) or no less than a pint (for cider, beer,
etc.) (a pint is, of course, 4 gill (except in Scotland), and since a
gill is 5 fluid ounces, that makes the pint of beer some 20 ounces).

And we are not speaking here of archaic units that haven't been seen in
centuries.  I think the UK went away from the gill fraction thing in
bars (I don't recall seeing the sign about "all spirits sold in this
establishment..." last winter in Heathrow), but it certainly existed in
the early to mid 90s.  (There's this weird alcohol unit thing, but I
have no idea what that is.. probably some quasi metric measure of
equivalent ethanol).  I think, also, that in Australia, the "pint of
beer" varies among states.

And the stone is still used as a measure of human weight (and for
perhaps other purposes) My wife's English relatives talk about gaining a
stone over the holidays.  And when hiring a horse to ride in the
southwest of England, they tend to ask what you weigh in stone (but the
horse business is the epitome of archaic.. Even in the more modern US we
run races in furlongs, timing them in 1/5ths of a second, measure height
of the horse in hands, although we do weigh jockeys in pounds)

There are also a whole host of "fair weight and measure" laws in most
countries which regulate the minimum sale quantity of something (e.g.
you cannot buy a loaf of bread weighing less than a pound in the state
of Oregon, raising an issue if you wish to purchase a demi-baguette).
Likewise, vegetables and fruit have minimum sale quantities (the odd
"dry pint").  I think in Germany, there's a minimum sale quantity for
beverages, as well.

I don't understand at all the arguments against the metric system and
the polemic remarks about. I second the statements of Neville and Jim.

Without these intelligent french Astronomers like Jean-Baptiste-Joseph
Delambre, Pierre-François-André Méchain and J.J. Lalande (more infos:
Ken Alder, The Measure of All Things), we would still have the severe
problems they had centuries ago!

Reading WIKIPEDIA, http://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/German_units_of_measurement,
we find a good example of weird units (just for only a part of Germany):

"Before the introduction of the metric system in Germany, almost every
town had its own definitions of the units shown below, and supposedly by
1810, in Baden alone, there were 112 different standards for the Elle
around Germany. The metric system was a much-needed standardisation in
Germany."

This was not only a german problem, and we still have today some
problems in the world in this area.

I believe we should think more about what we are saying and doing, so we
would do a big step forward to become a world community. ...

Sorry for this personal opinion and comments,
let us come back to timing problems with scientific and technical
discussions,

regards,

Arnold

Am 14.12.2011 00:15, schrieb Jim Lux: