Metric vs. English system

[krazykatlady]

Hmm, I didn't know where to post this. This forum seems the closest fit.
So, here I am @ work, looking to convert some sq.cm into sq.ft for a report. I pop on the net & place "metric conversions" into google & get this: metricsucks.com (http://www.metricsucks.com/index.shtml).
Ehhh, what? Am I the only one that thinks these blokes need something better to do (ironically as I sit here NOT doing work & posting on a msg. board)?! :confused:
Furthermore, how can someone advocate a system as screwy as the English system? I can never remember anything. I'm cooking, & want to triple my recipe size, but I'll be damned if I can recall how many damn tsp are in a tbsp or cups in a qt. About all I can ever remember is 12" to 1', 3' to 1 yd & 5280' to 1 mile.
LOL, /rant. Someone tell me why the English system is so good, beause I just don't get it.
Ange =^..^=

[Hazel-rah]

The English system does suck.

But surely you've noticed the American people's resistance to change. Sure, it starts off with measuring things in meters instead of yards, but the next thing you know, people will be marrying their dogs.

[meritocrat]

I'm English and I see nothing intrinsically wrong with the Imperial system!

I suppose the metric system seems more logical but the Imperial system is just as easy to understand!

[Silent Acorns]

The English/Imperial system is only "easier to use" because you're used to it. With the possible exception of the foot, I can't think of a single Imperial unit of measurement that doesn't have an equally convenient metric equivalent.

As soon as you have to do some unit conversion however, the Imperial system sucks.

[Duck!]

Originally posted by meritocrat
I'm English and I see nothing intrinsically wrong with the Imperial system!

I suppose the metric system seems more logical but the Imperial system is just as easy to understand!

Huh? The only way to use Imperial measurements is to learn then off by hand. There's no "understanding" involved.

If you're using metric, and you hear something like kiloton, megawatt, centimetre, milliliter, etc. then it's easy to deal with. It's 100 or a million or 100 or a thousandth of some base unit.

But with Imperial measurements, you've got no logical progressions whatsoever. I still can't remember off hand if it's 14 or 16 fluid ounces in a pint or if it's 14 or 16 lbs in a stone. And a hundredweight isn't 100 lbs, it's 112 lbs. Apart from in America where some common sense prevails and it is 100 lbs.

Where's the sense or advantage in it?


Duck!

[Demosthenes]

yep the imperial system sucks beause it's difficult to convert between higher quantities when in the metric system all you have to do it tack on another zero to go to the next measurement.

[meritocrat]

Originally posted by Duck of Death
Huh? The only way to use Imperial measurements is to learn then off by hand. There's no "understanding" involved.

If you're using metric, and you hear something like kiloton, megawatt, centimetre, milliliter, etc. then it's easy to deal with. It's 100 or a million or 100 or a thousandth of some base unit.

But with Imperial measurements, you've got no logical progressions whatsoever. I still can't remember off hand if it's 14 or 16 fluid ounces in a pint or if it's 14 or 16 lbs in a stone. And a hundredweight isn't 100 lbs, it's 112 lbs. Apart from in America where some common sense prevails and it is 100 lbs.

Where's the sense or advantage in it?


Duck!

As I said, the metric system is more logical since measurements are based on a multiple of ten!


I guess people like Imperial measurements (though I'm not entirely sure what a hogshead measures!!) because it's tradtional!

[BDS]

The metric system is more logical, but it's less intuitive.

In the English system, a foot is as long as, well, a person's foot.

In the English system, if it's really hot out, it's 100 degrees, if it's really cold, it's zero. The Celcius system is based on the freezing and boiling points of water. Who cares? What does that have to do with the way most people think about temperature?

On the positive side for metric, a big guy is 100 kilos, and 2 meters tall.

Who cares whether the system is based on base ten or not. We all use calculators today anyway. There's a sort of arcane charm to a system that is mathematically obscure.

[Silent Acorns]

Originally posted by meritocrat
though I'm not entirely sure what a hogshead measures!!
Ahh, the hogshead. There are three kinds and all measure fluid volume. The UK has two kinds - one for wine, and one for beer - and the US has one for fluids in general.

1 UK hogshead of wine = 63 wine gallons where 1 wine gallon = 231 cubic inches.

1 UK hogshead of beer = 54 beer gallons where 1 beer gallon = 282 cubic inches.

Fortunately, 1 cubic inch is the same size for both wine and beer. Interesting tidbit, one hogshead of wine has more gallons than a hogshead of beer, but one hogshead of beer has more cubic inches than a hogshead of wine!

1 US hogshead = 1 UK hogshead of wine.

Do you still thnk the Imperial system is easier to use?

[Silent Acorns]

Originally posted by BDS
The Celcius system is based on the freezing and boiling points of water. Who cares? What does that have to do with the way most people think about temperature?
Who cares? Anyone who thinks there's a difference between snow and rain.

[Mr_Stratovarius]

The metric system is based mostly on the properties of water, 1000kg of water is 1 m^3, freezing, boiling points etc. It really doesent seam much easier than the imperial system untill you get into units like moment of inertia, radius of gyration etc, at which point working with units in the imerial system is a pain when all you have to do is move the decimal in the metric system to convert units

[Cutter]

"The metric system is the tool of the Devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!"

[Shadowy Man]

The main problem is that there is more than one system.

I am working on building an instrument that will end up in South Africa, and am mostly dealing in metric units. But, having been raised in the United States, I have learned a semi-intuitive feel for imperial units, and so I have to think through the metric units to know how big things are.

I think we should just switch to metric and be done with it. There will be an adjustment period, but in the long run it will be worth it.

[Starr]

I found it funny how even college students from the US were unable to grasp that other countries didn't use our measuring system. When I went to Jamaica for Spring Break last year, we were driving past a gas station and everyone was amazed that gas was only $25J(About 50 cents USD) I pointed out that this was in Liters, so it wasn't as cheap as everyone thought. I then proceeded to perform the typical College Liter-to-Gallon conversion based on the fifth of liquor. A fifth is 1/5 of a gallon, and 3/4 of a liter so a gallon is 15/4 liters giving a price of approx. $1.87 USD per gallon. No one else could quite understand WHY anyone would measure their gas in liters instead of gallons....

I think its the same reason some idiots^H^H^H^H^H^H people wonder why people speak languages other than english. After all doesn't everyone *think* in english! I remember reading that as a joke in a book somewhere and being suprised since I actually knew people who held that view.

[Loren Pechtel]

Originally posted by Starr
I found it funny how even college students from the US were unable to grasp that other countries didn't use our measuring system. When I went to Jamaica for Spring Break last year, we were driving past a gas station and everyone was amazed that gas was only $25J(About 50 cents USD) I pointed out that this was in Liters, so it wasn't as cheap as everyone thought. I then proceeded to perform the typical College Liter-to-Gallon conversion based on the fifth of liquor. A fifth is 1/5 of a gallon, and 3/4 of a liter so a gallon is 15/4 liters giving a price of approx. $1.87 USD per gallon. No one else could quite understand WHY anyone would measure their gas in liters instead of gallons....

I think its the same reason some idiots^H^H^H^H^H^H people wonder why people speak languages other than english. After all doesn't everyone *think* in english! I remember reading that as a joke in a book somewhere and being suprised since I actually knew people who held that view.

Ah, pounds are so much better than kilograms! :D :D

Various countries in eastern europe: We were travelling north at about the same rate as the peak of the fruit harvest. This was fresh-picked (that day) stuff far superior to anything I've ever had in the US and of course we ate a lot of it. Of course we only wanted to buy one day's worth at a time. Buying one kilo was no problem--point at the stuff you want and hold up one finger. Unfortunately, for a day's eating, a kilo of any given fruit doesn't allow for much variety of fruit.
Getting half a kilo was no problem if we had exact change (sign says 6, hold out coins worth 3 and point and you'll get a half kilo) but how in the world do you communicate you want half a kilo by sign language???

If they had used sensible pounds we would have had much more variety to eat! :D :D

[nermal]

Originally posted by BDS
The metric system is more logical, but it's less intuitive.

Who cares whether the system is based on base ten or not. We all use calculators today anyway. There's a sort of arcane charm to a system that is mathematically obscure.

Oh, how I miss using cubits and furlongs... ah, the days.

No question the metric system is a far superior system of measurement--it's easier to move up and down in units, and conversion from volume to "weight" is much simpler (how many people know a cubic foot is about 7 and a half gallons? Almost none; How many people know a gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds? A few more...)

However, for general use, a gallon is a much more useful unit than a litre. A foot is a much more useful unit than a meter. I mean, a litre is ok for soda pop, but not much else. A meter is ok for golf, and target shooting, but for carpentry, or cabinet building, NOT.
However, millimeters are MUCH better than fractions of an inch for auto work (hmmm....what comes between 7/8, and 15/16?)

If the metric people could come up with a measure that is "about 4 litres" and another that is "about 1/3 meter" then the conversion would go much smoother. All other measures are ok, as far as I know.

Ed

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by nermal
However, for general use, a gallon is a much more useful unit than a litre. A foot is a much more useful unit than a meter. I mean, a litre is ok for soda pop, but not much else. A meter is ok for golf, and target shooting, but for carpentry, or cabinet building, NOT.
However, millimeters are MUCH better than fractions of an inch for auto work (hmmm....what comes between 7/8, and 15/16?)

If the metric people could come up with a measure that is "about 4 litres" and another that is "about 1/3 meter" then the conversion would go much smoother. All other measures are ok, as far as I know.

A gallon is only more useful because that is what you are familiar with and that is what is used here in the U.S. I buy milk in 1 gallon containers but that's 128 oz. Wouldn't 100 oz be more useful? It would if that's what was sold. When I was a kid we never heard of an actual gallon of milk. We got our milk from the milkman and it came in 1/2 gallons and quarts, some other milk products came in pints. Oh how is we manage!

The same goes for your point about carpentry, building houses in other parts of the world that don't use feet and yards must be very inefficient. It must be so hard to build a house with meters instead of feet, oh how do they do it!

All joking aside, I vaguely remember some house building carpentry (from 20 years ago) and I think I recall that using 2x4s you space a frame 16" on center, using 2x6s it's 24" on center. I don't think that if you build a house in Europe that they convert that to metric, they just have different codes. It might be close in measurement but probably just as easy to remember. A 2x4 (in inches) becomes a 5x10 (in cm) and the studs are spaced every 40 cm. (Of course I could be wrong and the rest of the world also builds in the Imperial system)

The difficulty for the US is having to change the "standards" to fit the metric system. It's like that old story (http://www.angelfire.com/or/owosso/tracks.html) about why railroad tracks are spaced as they are. If we wanted to build them to suit the metric system we might make railroad tracks 2 meters wide but as it is we have to build them the same width as the Romans would have, which is now 1.4351 meters

P.S. If anyone does know what the wood framing standards are in countries that use the metric system, please let us know.

[liquid]

That roman railroad story isn't actually true, although it almost should be! Illustrates the point well though.

[McGargoyle]

Originally posted by nermal
If the metric people could come up with a measure that is "about 4 litres" and another that is "about 1/3 meter" then the conversion would go much smoother.
Where is the problem in buying, say, 4 1-liter-cartons of milk? Or if you want a single container, make it hold 4 liters.
I comes all down to familiarity, in carpentry you measure in centimeters, in engineering you use millimeters, I learned it that way and it sure is intuitive for me.

[Gunbuster]

If the metric people could come up with a measure that is "about 4 litres" and another that is "about 1/3 meter" then the conversion would go much smoother. All other measures are ok, as far as I know.

How very intriguing you say that actually. I'm Australian and of course brought up in the metric system. I'm a weapons maintainer in the Australian Navy and I work on an American 5" gun. My metric mind has so much difficulty sometimes picking out imperial socket sets with 7/16 of an inch and the like. I carry a tradesmans 6" steel rule around with me just to use the conversion table on the back.

Mind you we do reference to inches every now and again depending on what we measure. I think international standard is to measure your penis with inches so who are we to go againt that unwritten rule?

One foot is roughly 30 centimetres and from school level, 30cm rulers are used in classrooms. So your 1/3 of a meter would be 33.3 centimeters, or 333 milimetres (more often than not refered to as 'mil'. For example: The bore diameter of the gun is 127 mil.)

A decent bottle of coke (ie something to share between 2-4 people) is a 1.25 litre bottle of coke. It rolls off the tongue down here believe it or not.

"Can I please have a one point two five litre bottle of coke?"

Your flavoured ounce system makes my brain hurt. A can of coke over here is 375 mililetres. Mili being one thousanths of a liter. 37.5% of a litre.

The volumetric change from one flavoured ounce to two flavoured ounces is signifigant. I guess the metric system provides versitility.

Mind you I went to Jakarta recently (I'm still at sea at the moment) and their currency system was weird. $1.50 Australian dollars was 10,000 rupiers. Dealing with buying things for 10,000 was weird as.

Looking at my bank statement in Jarkata and having it say I had 5,000,000 in the bank gave me a stiffy until I performed the calculations.

[Hazel-rah]

flavoured ounce
Um.... fl. oz. stands for "fluid ounces."

Not that I could tell you how many are in a pint or a quart...

[Gunbuster]

D'oh.
See I wasn't meant to be American :)

[N.Wells]

Originally posted by Loren Pechtel
..... but how in the world do you communicate you want half a kilo by sign language???

If you are e.g. at an apple stand, pick out three apples and look puzzled. Alternatively, write "1/2" on the notepad you should have with you for bargaining, or punch "/2" on your calculator & show the display. If you want to wave hands around, bring your hands together cupped downward as if pulling loose sugar into a pile. Then use your right hand to make a slow karate chop down to divide the pile, & then sweep them outward (held vertically) to separate the figurative half-files. Repeat if you just want a quarter. If they haven't got it yet, gather one imaginary half toward yourself and push the other imaginary half back toward the seller. My apologies for overkill if you were just asking a rhetorical question for humorous effect.

[Tufted]

I'm often amused by clerks in a liquor store who don't know what a 375 is. When I point to it, they say " oh, a PINT". I say , no, a 375ML. If I really want to break chops, I ask for a fifth of Jim Beam. They point to the shelves where the 750ML bottles are. I argue that we are now metric, and the standard unit for liquor is the liter. Ergo, a fifth is now 200ML. Of course they call that a half pint!

While the so called pint is actually 12.6 oz, the 750ML is in reality very close to the fifth (of a gallon) that it replaced.

While most clerks humor me ("The customer, wise ass or not, is always right"), some really do get pissed.

[anthrosciguy]

Originally posted by Loren Pechtel
Getting half a kilo was no problem if we had exact change (sign says 6, hold out coins worth 3 and point and you'll get a half kilo) but how in the world do you communicate you want half a kilo by sign language???


My Indonesian friends do it with a bent finger ("half a finger"). Maybe growing up with the metric system makes you smarter. :)

[Loren Pechtel]

Originally posted by anthrosciguy
My Indonesian friends do it with a bent finger ("half a finger"). Maybe growing up with the metric system makes you smarter. :)

Never worked for my father.

[McGargoyle]

Originally posted by Tufted
I'm often amused by clerks in a liquor store who don't know what a 375 is. When I point to it, they say " oh, a PINT". I say , no, a 375ML.
Now you only have to get that upper/lower case thing right, ml stands for milliliter, Ml would be a megaliter and I doubt anybody can drink that much...:D

[DMB]

Being English, I am of course prejudiced against the metric system because it was invented by our enemies, the French. ;)

Seriously, however, I'd like to go a bit further into the intricacies of the Imperial and US systems of measurement. No-one seems to have remarked on the fact that when it comes to liquid measure, as well as when to comes to hundredweights and tons, they are different.

Both systems agree on what a fluid ounce is. However, a US pint is 16 fluid ounces, while an Imperial pint is 20. Since both maintain the 2 pints = 1 quart and 4 quarts = 1 gallon relationships, that means that a US quart is four-fifths of an Imperial quart and a US gallon is four-fifths of an Imperial gallon. Heh! heh! :D (If a Brit tries to use US recipes or vice-versa, beware of the pints! -- and a "cup" in an American recipe is half a US pint, not half a British pint.)

Another point to mention is that in the Imperial system (I really don't know about the US system) there are two sorts of ounces: Troy and Avoirdupois. The latter are our normal ounces, which are 16 to the pound and the former come 12 to the pound.

Many years ago, when I used to teach mechanics using the Imperial system, there was the agony of converting from practical units such as pound-force to absolute units such as poundals, plus the ghastliness of "horsepower". Metric is so much easier, even if the metric I originally learned was cgs rather than mks.

BTW, in continental western Europe, there is such a thing as a "metric pound". This is a hangover from the system, similar to the Imperial system, that was found in most countries before metrication. Such a pound is 500 g or half a kg, so just a bit more than the Imperial pound. In French, you ask for "une livre", in German "ein Pfund" and in Dutch "een pond". I imagine there are equivalents in other languages. So that's what you ask for when you want a pound.

[Tufted]

Originally posted by McGargoyle
Now you only have to get that upper/lower case thing right, ml stands for milliliter, Ml would be a megaliter and I doubt anybody can drink that much...:D

Well, perhaps in a hundred lifetimes. By the way, no excusing my error, but I just checked my stash and Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Courvoisier and Martini & Rossi all say ML. Only Tribuno and Woodford Reserve (a premium bourbon) have ml.

[Duck!]

Originally posted by Tufted
Well, perhaps in a hundred lifetimes. By the way, no excusing my error, but I just checked my stash and Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Courvoisier and Martini & Rossi all say ML. Only Tribuno and Woodford Reserve (a premium bourbon) have ml.

Here in Ireland, booze is sold in shops in metric amounts only. Beer - 330ml bottles, 500ml cans. Spirits - 350ml bottles, 700ml bottles. In pubs it's pints or half-pints or 330ml bottles.

Drinks like Coke come in 330ml cans.


Duck!

[liquid]

I'm studying for a master's in Aerospace engineering, and as a Euro engineer (well, as far as my degree goes) in a US unit dominated industry, this is an issue close to my heart.

And I'm very pleased to see that all comments are for metric except on the basis of familiarity. I've been banging my head against the brick wall of some US engineers on occasion trying to explain why having to apply a conversion factor to practically every calculation is an inefficient annoyance.

Don't get me started on "when you say pound, do you mean pound mass or pound force?"!

[Ojuice5001]

Ah, I was just going to start a thread about this, but there's one already. I was wondering, why is the United States virtually the only holdout for a non-metric system? You guys are right to point out ways that the Imperial system has intuitive attractions. But what's the explanation for the United States being the last country on Earth to switch over? I know we're somewhat arrogant and anti-intellectual, but is there anything else to it?

[McGargoyle]

Originally posted by Ojuice5001
I was wondering, why is the United States virtually the only holdout for a non-metric system?
I guess, most of it is the inertia of a large economy. Switching bottles to liters is no problem, but getting tool makers and the makers of tool making machines from inches to millimeters is expensive and slow. Most other countries switched to metric before the industrialisation.

Then there is the fear, that adopting an international standard would be the first step towards the takeover by the UN...

[DMB]

Britain has been in the process of switching to metrication since the 1960s. We buy most packaged foods by metric weight, but milk is still sold in pints (with litres in brackets). Beer is in pints too. The medical profession weighs people in kg, but they weigh themselves in pounds and stones. Car speedometers are still in miles per hour (with km per hour somewhat smaller on the dial) and road signs give distances and speed limits in miles and miles per hour respectively. Most people have now become accustomed to weather forecast temperatures in Celsius rather than Fahrenheit.

One of the most bizarre things I have come across is someone buying a length of wood: "I'll have two metres of four by two" -- that is four inches by two inches.

Give us another forty years or so and maybe, just maybe, we will have completed the transition from Imperial to metric.

[EarlFlynn]

Australian Cokes are 375 mL? The Coke I'm drinking right now is a puny 355 mL...damn. We get ripped off in Canada, assuming we pay the same price...I'm paying $1 CDN for my 355 mL can.

This might make an interesting thread in itself. How much is a can of Coke in the States, or the UK? How big are the cans? When you factor in the exchange rate, who's getting the best value?

Thank goodness we have the IIDB to discuss these world-shaking issues! :D

[Theli]

I've always wondered, how do you name really small scales using the imperial system?
I'm talking about areas as small as say 3 nano-square-meters = 3 billionths of a squaremeter.
Or if you wished to express the mass of an oxygen atom.
Do they use prefixes?

[McGargoyle]

Originally posted by Theli
Or if you wished to express the mass of an oxygen atom.
I don't think scientists use the imperial system at all.

Remotely related question: Is it true, that the US military uses metric, too?

[Silent Acorns]

Originally posted by Theli
I've always wondered, how do you name really small scales using the imperial system?
Simple. You don't.

[EGGO]

Originally posted by BDS

In the English system, if it's really hot out, it's 100 degrees, if it's really cold, it's zero. The Celcius system is based on the freezing and boiling points of water.


Actually, Celcius is metric, Farenheit is American, where 32 degrees is freezing and whatnot.

[Silent Acorns]

Originally posted by EGGO
Actually, Celcius is metric, Farenheit is American, where 32 degrees is freezing and whatnot.

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/fahrenheit_daniel_gabriel.shtml) (1686 - 1736)
In 1695 Guillaume Amontons improved the gas thermometer by using mercury in a closed column, and in 1701 Olaus Roemer devised the alcohol thermometer and developed a scale with boiling water at 60° and an ice/salt mixture at 0°. Fahrenheit met with Roemer and took up his idea, constructing the first mercury-in-glass thermometer in 1714.

This was more accurate because mercury possesses a more constant rate of expansion than alcohol and could be used over a wider range of temperatures. In order to reflect his greater sensitivity, Fahrenheit expanded Roemer's scale using body temperature (90°F) and ice/salt (0°F) as fixed reference points, with the freezing point of water awarded a value of 30° (later revised to 32°).

Using his thermometer, Fahrenheit was able to determine the boiling points of liquids and show that liquids other than water also had fixed boiling points that varied with atmospheric pressure. He also researched the phenomenon of supercooling of water: the cooling of water below freezing without solidification, and discovered that the boiling point of liquids varied with atmospheric pressure.
Anders Celsius (http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.astro.uu.se/history/Celsius%5Feng.html) (1701-1744)

For his metereological observations he constructed his world famous Celsius thermometer, with 0 for the boiling point of water and 100 for the freezing point. After his death in 1744 the scale was reversed to its present form. The term "Celsius" was adopted in 1948 by an international conference on weights and measures.
BTW, strictly speaking, the Kelvin Scale is the true metric temperature scale.

[Ninasgrandpa]

Originally posted by Cutter
"The metric system is the tool of the Devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!"

I think even Concorde did better than forty rods to the hogshead!

1 rod = 1/320 miles
1 hogshead =54 gallons

40 rods/hogshead= 432 gallons/mile!

Originally posted by DMB
"Both systems agree on what a fluid ounce is."

Actually this is not true.
An american fl oz is 29.57 ml
An imperial fl oz is 28.41 ml

here (http://www.bartleby.com/61/46/F0204600.html)

(I think the imperial one is actually the volume of one ounce of water, whereas the american one is derived from 1/32 quarts, and a quart is defined as 57.725 cubic inches)

[SiliconWolf]

Originally posted by Theli
I've always wondered, how do you name really small scales using the imperial system?
I'm talking about areas as small as say 3 nano-square-meters = 3 billionths of a squaremeter.
Or if you wished to express the mass of an oxygen atom.
Do they use prefixes?

1 mil = 1/1000 inch (commonly used in things like car engines and industrial equipment)
weights of small things like pills used to be measured in grains, drams, and such.

There are a bunch of other such poorly-known terms, and somtimes we just say five zillionths of an inch and don't use any fancy terms at all. Most of the time the really big and really small numbers are used in science and given in metric.

Along I-55 in central Illinois, there are two signs giving the distance to Chicago in miles and kilometers. I think they were placed there during the Carter administration, the last time there was any serious talk about moving the US to the metric system. Of course, Canada actually did it around that time and they still have signs reminding people that the speed limits are in km/h. Maybe just for the "cool, I get to drive 100" USians, I suppose.

[kwigibo]

Originally posted by McGargoyle
Now you only have to get that upper/lower case thing right, ml stands for milliliter, Ml would be a megaliter and I doubt anybody can drink that much...:D

Then you'll also remember that Litre (or Liter if you prefer), is always denoted by an uppercase L. ;)

[McGargoyle]

Originally posted by kwigibo
Then you'll also remember that Litre (or Liter if you prefer), is always denoted by an uppercase L. ;)
Erm, no, it isn't, at least not around here.

Actually both (http://www.ex.ac.uk/cimt/dictunit/dictunit.htm#volume) are possible.

[kwigibo]

Originally posted by McGargoyle
Erm, no, it isn't, at least not around here.

Actually both (http://www.ex.ac.uk/cimt/dictunit/dictunit.htm#volume) are possible.

Every text I've used specifies that it's proper to use an upper-case L because the lower case too closely resembles a 1 in written notation.

On further research it appears a lot of national standards don't care which way anymore, what with word processors and all. It's still the rule here though. I wasn't trying to be pedantic, honest, just a throwaway comment, I rarely follow the rule anyway.

[DMB]

I don't know what the ISO says now, but back in the 1960s I used to have to follow ISO units a lot of the time. The usual rule then was that only units derived from proper names merited a capital letter and the others were in lower case. So a Newton was N, a Watt was W, but a gram (gramme) was g. So I would suppose that a litre would be lower-case l.

PS. I just checked out the ruling on litres and it seems that either l or L is allowed, going against the usual rule and for the reason given above, confusion with the numeral 1. I think here in Europe lower-case l is more commonly used.

Thanks, Ninasgrandpa, for putting me right on fluid ounces. It is even worse than I thought!

[N.Wells]

Originally posted by DMB
So a Newton was N, a Watt was W, but a gram (gramme) was g. So I would suppose that a litre would be lower-case l.


Finally, something important to grouse about. Someone came up with a logical, simple, comprehensible system of weights and measures (the metric system), which is about the most astounding and unlikely miracle in the history of humanity, and then immediately we start screwing it up by abandoning the logical terms and start substituting honorifics named after famous scientists. And then the Geological Society of America insists that we talk about mega-anna (mA) instead of million years (m.y.). Why do we do this to ourselves?

[DMB]

I don't know why you object to units like a Newton. If you stick to absolute units, it's true there aren't many of them, but isn't 1 N easier than 1 kg.m s^-2? If one is going to have practical units, I can't see why they shouldn't be named after famous scientists.

[McGargoyle]

Originally posted by N.Wells
And then the Geological Society of America insists that we talk about mega-anna (mA) instead of million years (m.y.). Why do we do this to ourselves?
Mostly because not every language has it's word for 365.25 days beginning with a "y". Units are international and we have agreed on using Greek (e.g. metron) or Latin (annus).

[Al Chemist]

How can anyone not love a system of measure which includes conversions like these?

1 gill = 1 noggin
1 bushel = 3 bags
1 kilderkin = 2 firkins
1 firkin = 9 gallons
1 gallon = 2 pottles
1 peck = 64 noggins
1 peck = 2 gallons
1 bushel = 4 pecks
1 seam = 8 bushels

:D

But seriously, in chemistry at least, about the only non-metric (or SI, to be more precise) units that we use anymore are angstroms (1 A = 10^-10 meters -- also defined as being a very small amount of angst ;) ).

[N.Wells]

Originally posted by DMB
I don't know why you object to units like a Newton. If you stick to absolute units, it's true there aren't many of them, but isn't 1 N easier than 1 kg.m s^-2? If one is going to have practical units, I can't see why they shouldn't be named after famous scientists.

No, I really do like the original units. When you get out of an area that you work in regularly, the original units are readily comrehensible and are easily put to use in dimensional analysis. Otherwise you have to start reaching for a reference book.

From McGargoyle: Mostly because not every language has it's word for 365.25 days beginning with a "y". Units are international and we have agreed on using Greek (e.g. metron) or Latin (annus).

But clarity and communication of results are virtues in science, and m.y. is widely understood. Pointless jargon is exclusionary and self-important.

To Al Chemist: one of my fondest moments with a dictionary was browsing in The Dictionary of Archaic and Obsolete English and finding "Barriket, a small firkin", followed moments later by "Firkin, an eight gallon container." That sort of answered the question of why we no longer use "barriket".

[chapka]

As a homebrewer, I support the use of the metric system for everything except beer, because I don't want to have to get all new recipes and equipment. Of course, homebrewers also use measurements so obscure that I don't even know if they're "metric" or "imperial," like International Bitterness Units (IBU) and degrees Lovibond.

What's the metric equivalent of a barrel? And would metric units make it easier to calculate wort utilization from specific gravity?