UK was too slow to adopt Metric System
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The Metric System in the UK
We make nothing, import everything, export nothing, are subservient to all other industrial nations, yet make ourselves out to be successful. Britain is a nation of complacent leaders, who have been unable to run anything!
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Everyone who gripes about the metric system has contributed to the loss of all UK motor and engineering factories, which continued manufacturing their products designed in inches after 1975.
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Visitor |
| 14-8-2010 | Any noticed how all the voice overs and commentaries on TV shows have gone metric, why?
I use metric myself when measuring anything, to the nearest mm is better than nearest 1/16th of an inch.
All our road signs are in imperial so why are commentators using Kilometres?
It is sometimes farcical.
I was watching a documentary, filmed in the u.sa., on TV the other day
the commentary was in metres and kilometres but the participants on the program were using imperial. | Jacky |
| 10-6-2009 | The reason BMC / BLMC / British Leyland / Rover Group etc. went under had nothing to do with metrication and everything to do with the fact that they were unable to sell their overpriced, outdated and unreliable cars. | Congo |
| 15-9-2007 | gray (Gy)
the SI unit of radiation dose. Radiation carries energy, and when it is absorbed by matter the matter receives this energy. The dose is the amount of energy deposited per unit of mass. One gray is defined to be the dose of one joule of energy absorbed per kilogram of matter, or 100 rad. The unit is named for the British physician L. Harold Gray (1905-1965), an authority on the use of radiation in the treatment of cancer. | L. Harold Gray |
| 15-9-2007 | Pray tell us what unit of measure the "Gray " is used for?
Is this the relative amount of cloud cover over Britain on a miserable winter's day?
A HectoGray equal to 100% percent cloud cover
A milligray equal to a single whisp of cloud in the sky. | KiloGruesome |
| 15-9-2007 | All these tired old comments about how horrible the metric system is seems to leave out one important factor. The whole world is metric and metric countries and growing and prospering, not only at the expense of the UK worker, but at the expense of the American worker.
Germany, a solid metric country where no one debates obsolete versus metric issues, is the worlds largest exporter. They flood the world with metric products. As does China and every other country in Asia.
The US and UK are in deep financial trouble as a result of exporting their manufacturing to metric countries. As long as imperialists hide behind the disguise of tradition the world will continue to do their buying elsewhere and play a major role in impoverishing both the US and the UK. A deserved punishment. | Dan |
| 14-9-2007 | The newton, joule, degree kelvin, farad, dalton and gray are all SI units. What else do they have in common? They were all named after British scientists or engineers. No other country matches this record.
Who was the first person to propose a coherent system of measurement based on decimal numbers? John Wilkins, first president of the Royal Society in 1668. It should be noted that Gabrielle Mouton published his proposals in 1670.
Who cast the current prototype kilogram? James Mathey & Co of London in the mid 1880’s. They also cast the prototype metre which was in use from 1889 until 1960 when the meter was defined by reference to a particular wavelength of light rather than to a particular artefact.
Who says that the metric system is not British? | MartinV |
| 14-9-2007 | Oracle2007 said:
"Firstly, don't try to obtain a quarter of a quantity using the metric system. You can't do it without resorting to fractions"
Mr 2007, isn't a quarter a fraction? Or am I missing something? 1/4. That looks like a fraction to me. 1/4 inch - an imperial fraction. 250 mm (1/4 metre) - a metric fraction?
Get your "facts" right before lecturing others on theirs. | Dave the Rave |
| 11-9-2007 | We should all be using God's counting system, in sevens, The septenary system. | The Miracle of Septenary Design |
| 11-9-2007 | Our resident tradtionalist, Oracle2007, probably still believes, scout's honour, in the Holy Trinity
God, Queen and Country
The Paris Commune did not happen until 1871
There was nothing "Communist", in the modern sense with the French Revoution
The French "Communes" were very similar to the English Parishes. They had their poor laws too. Nothing Communist about these parishes either.
English, too, is full of stupid words like
hemidemisemiquaver
floccinaucinihilipification
Oracle2007's feeble history of science beggars belief
Don't take a bag of 12 or 16 apples if you're going to a party of seven.
Metric prefixes Deka- and Hecto- are in very common use; as are Milli, Centi- and Deci-
Kilo- is the most common.
Oracle2007 failed to provide us with a formal definition of what a pound was.
Oracle2007 is probably a diehard on the currency: a believer in the English Pound Sterling. Would he like to explain what a Troy pound of sterling silver is? | SI Unitarian |
| 11-9-2007 | SI Unitarian probably thinks the Communards were a pop group. | Suabian |
| 11-9-2007 | In a bid to outdo each other in either inventive insults or supposedly clever economic argument you miss a key point. I'd be keen to know your views: if you were introducing a system of weights and measures to a people who had none, would you really choose imperial over metric? If the answer is no - and most whom I've asked who were in favour of retaining the imperial system have been honest enough to answer "No" - then why stand in the way of the nation changing to a simpler and more unversally understood system? I would genuinely be keen to hear from someone in favour of retaining imperial measurements who can help me understand a future benefit to the nation in retaining this system, rather than referring to past building projects created using imperial measurements, or the 'it's our tradition' route. | ShudBWorkin |
| 11-9-2007 | Gosh, it gets boring when the metric fanatics always serve up the same tired, pointless
arguments if you show them the flaws in their thinking! As I posted my previous
comments, I thought "Here come all the insults about chains, furlongs, barleycorns, etc.,
again. Surely someone will have a new angle this time?"
But, no. SI Unitarian, desperate to parade his knowledge of archaic terms, wades in with
the usual mishmash of obsolete measurements to support his immature view that the
imperial system is out of date and should be laid to rest. In case you haven't noticed, SIU,
nobody uses such terms any more - except those who have run out of anti-imperial system
arguments.
What SIU overlooks (perhaps deliberately) is that the metric system itself is riddled with
equally potty terminology, unintelligible to the point of lunacy to the average human
being. Try using the prefixes deca, hecto, tera, peta, exa, zetta, yotta, atto, zeppo, yocto, etc., in everyday speech and count the baffled looks you receive. But, hey, it's metrication so it's good for you.
As for Communism starting in 1848, SIU should go back to his history books and study
what was happening in the French Communes. Marx, Engels and Co., just wrote down
and extrapolated what was already established fact. But I forgot: nowadays they don't
teach history prior to the late Nineteenth Century, do they?
It's sad really. As predicted, this metrocrat ignored practically every single one of the
points I made. I suggest he goes back to measuring the distance between the Equator and
the North Pole in yoctometres. But don't take along a bag of 10 apples if you're in a party
of 3: you'll go mad before you find a way of dividing them evenly. | Oracle2007 |
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