Kilogram conflict resolved at last

In the 60's, it was predicted that we would adopt the metric system sometime in the 70's. So maybe this is that beginning, just 40 years late. And now it begins -- with pot. I wonder what the history books will say about this in a hundred years?

 

Buying soda by the liter didn't get us to stop using the gallon.

 

They could have made kilos and meters exact, easy multiples of imperial, saved SO much grief, give designers a fighting chance of incorporating products made in one system into a project using the other. But nope.

 

No, they should have used the US standard.
Or perhaps some traditional Eastern standard of measurement.

"There have historically been five different English systems of mass: tower, apothecaries', troy, avoirdupois, and metric. Of these, the avoirdupois weight is the most common system used in the U.S., although Troy weight is still used to weigh precious metals. Apothecaries weight—once used by pharmacies—has been largely replaced by metric measurements. Tower weight fell out of use in England (due to legal prohibition in 1527) centuries ago, and was never used in the U.S. The imperial system, which is still used for some measures in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries, is based on avoirdupois, with variations from U.S. customary units larger than a pound." - United States customary units - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another interesting read; Metric system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. "None of the other base units rely on a prototype – all are based on phenomena that are directly observable and had been in use for many years before formally becoming part of the metric system."

This news means all of the metric systems units no longer rely on some prototype or standard. Unlike most other systems.

 

Please....12 inches in a foot, 5280 feet in a mile, 42,560 sq. feet in an acre? Or 1000 meters in a kilometer, 1000 sq. meters in a hectare, etc., etc.

 

My issue, and the bane of consulting engineers all over: converting between imperial and metric, a necessity on every project employing imperial components on a metric job. Or metric revisions to an existing imperial plant site.

would have been nice, if the folks that established the millimetre decreed there would be 25 of 'em per inch, not 25.4.

And even that used to be an approximation; back a few decades it was 25.4 something something, and that little subtlety played havoc with civil projects encompassing miles, erhh kilometres.

 

Would have been nice, but the metric system was started by the French.
On the other hand, there were multiple gallons in use across the British Empire at the time. There was the dry, wine, and ale gallon being used, with some variation of how much they actually were changing over time and locale. The first Imperial gallon to replace them all didn't appear until 25 years after the start of the metric system. In fact, without the French and their start of the metric system, Imperial gallon has it exists today may not have come to be, "Inspired by the kilogram-litre relationship, the imperial gallon was based on the volume of 10 pounds of distilled water weighed in air with brass weights with the barometer standing at 30 inches of mercury and at a temperature of 62 °F." - Gallon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Now everyone needs to build their own Watt balance. NIST has kindly provided instructions, using Lego!
[1412.1699] A LEGO Watt Balance: An apparatus to determine a mass based on the new SI

 

I just like using a blank stick and putting my own markings on it. I'm a non-conformist.

Bill the Engineer

 

This is just a French tactic to raise money. Now they can get some cash for all the iridium and platinum now available.

 

I guess what bugs me is the nary a backward glance, burn yer bridges, we won't be needing those units any more, folks are gonna throw down their yardsticks an follow us dutifully attitude, of every new unit zealot.

 

I guess Furlongs per Fortnight is out of the running.

 

I will add that one real crappy result of the metric system is the screws designed to metric units. When you start optimizing threads per unit of measure you can get some crappy screws. Whether I like metric or not, it just seems that metric style screws are more prone to cross threading and damage compared to the American screw threads per inch. That is not the fault of the units, but it does show picking engineering parameters based on conformance to integer units of any system is dumb.

 

I was on a job that was more-or-less replicating an existing imperial job. The new client had a policy that if there were ANY metric fasteners on the project, the project had to be completely done in metric. In this case there was a single component with FOUR metric bolts. So we had to convert everything.

One thing I tried to push, if there was any metric converted center-to-center dimension that was gonna be split in two, ie: dimensioned to a centerline, always round it to an even number, avoid something really silly: 0.5 mm.

 

First frost in Columbus, Ohio, last night. First hard freeze coming tonight! WAY too cold to work under the car. C'mon Indian Summer!

Bill the Engineer

 

15C here, supposed to go down to 12 tonight. Actually very mild for mid October.

 

Sadly, the only temperature in Celsius that I know for sure is 0C which is 32F. Living in Ohio, we never see degreesC anywhere, so I don't have a good feel for the conversion without a calculator!

 

A dual scale thermometer is helping me here: 15C about 60F and 12C about 54F.