Weights and measures

[Tessa K]

I seriously hope I am really ill and hallucinating.

Boris Johnson’s government has promised it will legislate to allow British traders to sell their wares in pounds and ounces, rather than grammes and kilos, as it unveiled plans to seek a deregulatory dividend from Brexit.

https://www.ft.com/content/23569cd6-edc ... ffe5ac5f1c

No one under the age of fifty will want this, will they? What about the costs involved? What about all the people over fifty who will have to relearn the old weights and measures and the young ones who will have to do both at school?

[Fishnut]

From your summary (link is behind a paywall and I cba to do the workarounds) it seems that it's allowing companies to do this rather than forcing them to and I can't imagine there's going to be many that will bother. As it is I see places (fruit & veg shop/butchers especially) giving prices in both already so I really can't really see that this is a massive freedom that's suddenly being granted.

[Boustrophedon]

An awful lot of things never really went metric. Your sheet of plywood at 1220 x 2440mm is 8'x4' and the thicknesses are still fractions of an inch.

I still find a lot of metal in stock sizes of rational multiples of 25.4mm, brass hex in 12.7mm AF? No problem.

Yeah the scientific and engineering world is metric but most people including the kids I taught, who theoretically should never have met imperial measure, thought mostly, or better in inches.

Johnson is still a tosser though.

[nekomatic]

Pleases the core pensioner vote… check
Trolls the Remainers… check
…which delights the swivel-eyed ERG loons… check
Unlikely to make any practical difference… check

So, a perfect Johnson policy, and the only surprising thing is it took them this long to get round to announcing it.

On the bright side, it will serve as a handy identifier for businesses run by Brexitist idiots, for ease of boycotting.

[veravista]

I still find a lot of metal in stock sizes of rational multiples of 25.4mm, brass hex in 12.7mm AF? No problem.

Brass and it's alloys, and to a large extent Al are for some reason still largely imperial, steels not so much unless they are US imports. AF's are generally both 'cos they're nut and bolt sizes.

[veravista]

ada.jpg (410.42 KiB) Viewed 1539 times

[shpalman]

The British quantum computer will use cubits.

[Gfamily]

The British quantum computer will use cubits.

The performance version will be based on ftbits

[dyqik]

An awful lot of things never really went metric. Your sheet of plywood at 1220 x 2440mm is 8'x4' and the thicknesses are still fractions of an inch.

I still find a lot of metal in stock sizes of rational multiples of 25.4mm, brass hex in 12.7mm AF? No problem.

Yeah the scientific and engineering world is metric but most people including the kids I taught, who theoretically should never have met imperial measure, thought mostly, or better in inches.

Johnson is still a tosser though.

Most well funded scientific and engineering world (the US defense and space industry) uses US standard units. Which are weird denominations of SI units.

[Bird on a Fire]

Well, it's one less thing for drug dealers to worry about on their charge sheet.

[Grumble]

At my work we buy pipe work and fittings in imperial units, but our oldest kit comes from the 60’s and we had to maintain compatibility.

I like to troll fans of imperial units by telling them I only work in real money, and ask them to convert miles to km.

[Martin_B]

At my work we buy pipe work and fittings in imperial units, but our oldest kit comes from the 60’s and we had to maintain compatibility.

I like to troll fans of imperial units by telling them I only work in real money, and ask them to convert miles to km.

You probably buy the fittings and pipe in imperial for diameter, but the pipe lengths in metric. Although it may be that the longest individual pipe length is 12.2 m (ie, 40 ft!)

In the oil and gas industry we commonly measure gas flowrates in millions of standard cubic feet per day (which is actually a measure of number of molecules, but based on feet) but liquids are in m3/h and more recent facilities now measure in standard cubic metres per day. Drilling wells is almost entirely based on US imperial units (well bore diameters in inches, drilling mud density in pounds per gallon (US gallon ), etc) but even they now measure drilling depth in metres.

Pressure used to be measured in pounds per square inch, but is more usually in kiloPascals now. But a lot of the design correlations still use the old psi calculations, so sometimes require you to convert kPa into psi for a calculation step, and then convert back again!

Pipe diameters go up in multiples of 50 mm; it used to be in multiples of 2" but thankfully *most* pipe suppliers have stopped selling, eg, 24" pipe at 610 mm diameter and now just sell pipe at 600 mm diameter.
Sometimes you still have to specify separator body diameters in multiples of 4" (101.6 mm) diameter (rather than multiples of 100 mm) if the fabrication yard which makes the ends is still using older machinery which is still based on the Imperial system, but thankfully most of these are converting, too.

So an industry which ~20 years was almost entirely using imperial measurement is moving slowly towards SI units. At least it keeps graduate engineers on their toes, having to convert from one set of units to another.

[Grumble]

You probably buy the fittings and pipe in imperial for diameter, but the pipe lengths in metric.

Yep. 6m normally.

[wilsontown]

At my work we buy pipe work and fittings in imperial units, but our oldest kit comes from the 60’s and we had to maintain compatibility.

I like to troll fans of imperial units by telling them I only work in real money, and ask them to convert miles to km.

You probably buy the fittings and pipe in imperial for diameter, but the pipe lengths in metric. Although it may be that the longest individual pipe length is 12.2 m (ie, 40 ft!)

In the oil and gas industry we commonly measure gas flowrates in millions of standard cubic feet per day (which is actually a measure of number of molecules, but based on feet) but liquids are in m3/h and more recent facilities now measure in standard cubic metres per day. Drilling wells is almost entirely based on US imperial units (well bore diameters in inches, drilling mud density in pounds per gallon (US gallon ), etc) but even they now measure drilling depth in metres.

Pressure used to be measured in pounds per square inch, but is more usually in kiloPascals now. But a lot of the design correlations still use the old psi calculations, so sometimes require you to convert kPa into psi for a calculation step, and then convert back again!

Pipe diameters go up in multiples of 50 mm; it used to be in multiples of 2" but thankfully *most* pipe suppliers have stopped selling, eg, 24" pipe at 610 mm diameter and now just sell pipe at 600 mm diameter.
Sometimes you still have to specify separator body diameters in multiples of 4" (101.6 mm) diameter (rather than multiples of 100 mm) if the fabrication yard which makes the ends is still using older machinery which is still based on the Imperial system, but thankfully most of these are converting, too.

So an industry which ~20 years was almost entirely using imperial measurement is moving slowly towards SI units. At least it keeps graduate engineers on their toes, having to convert from one set of units to another.

My personal oil industry favourites are volumes measured in acre-feet and velocity measured in microseconds per foot.

[El Pollo Diablo]

The GB railway currently works off miles, chains and yards, but will be moving to metric as ETCS systems get rolled out across the country. Which will be a relief, to be honest, because there are a surprisingly myriad number of ways to f.ck up data recording in imperial measures, and comparatively few with metric.

[Tessa K]

From your summary (link is behind a paywall and I cba to do the workarounds) it seems that it's allowing companies to do this rather than forcing them to and I can't imagine there's going to be many that will bother. As it is I see places (fruit & veg shop/butchers especially) giving prices in both already so I really can't really see that this is a massive freedom that's suddenly being granted.

Is it paywalled? I didn't have any trouble reading it.

There's more coverage of the story today - try this one https://inews.co.uk/news/pounds-ounces- ... es-1204109

I use a mix of old and new. Weights I do in metric for cooking and at the gym (and my weight) whereas distances/lengths are a bit of a mash-up. I still think in miles rather than km but for measuring eg when sewing I use a bit of both - but not at the same time or I'd end up with the Spinal Tap Stonehenge version of a skirt.

[shpalman]

I'm looking at a relative pressure gauge which goes up to +2.0 bar and down to -1.0 bar but the positive scale is also labelled up to 30 psi and the negative scale is labelled down to (+) 30 inches of mercury.

(Some vacuum scientists might be more familiar with the torr, which historically corresponded to a mm of mercury but is now exactly 1/760 of a standard atmosphere. More "recent" vacuum gauges tend to display millibar even if the useful levels of vacuum start at a thousandth of that and carry on down to about a billionth* of it. Nobody says "microbar" they say "ten to the minus 3 millibar". Or usually just "ten to the minus 3".)

* - US billion.

[Aitch]

The GB railway currently works off miles, chains and yards, but will be moving to metric as ETCS systems get rolled out across the country. Which will be a relief, to be honest, because there are a surprisingly myriad number of ways to f.ck up data recording in imperial measures, and comparatively few with metric.

Does that mean they have to replace ALL the bridge plates?

The old Staines Station footbridge bridge plate by SteveH, on Flickr

[Tessa K]

I am now trying to calculate my height in ells. Which were different in England (114cm) and Scotland (94cm). Or a Viking ell (46 cm). I think in English ells I'm about 1.62 or in Viking ells 4.02.

bl..dy ell (I thought I'd say it before someone else did)

[dyqik]

An awful lot of things never really went metric. Your sheet of plywood at 1220 x 2440mm is 8'x4' and the thicknesses are still fractions of an inch.

I still find a lot of metal in stock sizes of rational multiples of 25.4mm, brass hex in 12.7mm AF? No problem.

Yeah the scientific and engineering world is metric but most people including the kids I taught, who theoretically should never have met imperial measure, thought mostly, or better in inches.

Johnson is still a tosser though.

Most well funded scientific and engineering world (the US defense and space industry) uses US standard units. Which are weird denominations of SI units.

It's important to note that US standard units aren't the same as UK imperial measures, so there's no real advantage for trade with the US for anything requiring precision.

And then there's the measures with the same name that aren't even close. Remember, "a pint's a pound the world round" is a common saying in the US.

[El Pollo Diablo]

The GB railway currently works off miles, chains and yards, but will be moving to metric as ETCS systems get rolled out across the country. Which will be a relief, to be honest, because there are a surprisingly myriad number of ways to f.ck up data recording in imperial measures, and comparatively few with metric.

Does that mean they have to replace ALL the bridge plates?

The old Staines Station footbridge bridge plate by SteveH, on Flickr

They'll have to replace all signage with the current mileages on, yes. We're talking over a period of about 20 years or so, though.

[Martin Y]

Remember, "a pint's a pound the world round" is a common saying in the US.

I never heard of it, but now it's going to bug me even more than US/Imperial pints being different does, because it suggests they aren't.

[Grumble]

Remember, "a pint's a pound the world round" is a common saying in the US.

I never heard of it, but now it's going to bug me even more than US/Imperial pints being different does, because it suggests they aren't.

US and U.K. fl.oz are different too.

[Tessa K]

Remember, "a pint's a pound the world round" is a common saying in the US.

I never heard of it, but now it's going to bug me even more than US/Imperial pints being different does, because it suggests they aren't.

US and U.K. fl.oz are different too.

And they do their cooking weights in cups, whatever they are.

[Imrael]

Car tyre sizes are brilliant in combining inches, mm, a ratio and a rating band