h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No, for some reason decimalised currency is ok with them. Maybe because it still has the Queen's head on it, and is still inherently British. Whereas a nutty kind of nationalist sees kilos and metres as a threat imposed from Europe. Or maybe because while a lump of butter can be measured either way - ie, the two systems can be used in parallel - decimal currency is the only kind that's minted, so they had to learn to put up with it back in the '70s.

But I wouldn't over-emphasise the number of people who think like that. It really is just the odd ones.

brits might go metric, but the stays "imperial"
I ain't a european (never will be) and I ain't englishI'm a Yorkshire man (all that's needed)followed by being british

and I miss "our" money system

http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/moneyold.htm

What, bartering pieces of flint?

ooh har Jim lad, I'll swap ar' lass fer your cow

Personally, I think the IMF should push the wampum standard. It would improve the economies of countries with a lot of beachfront.

I am inclined to support that suggestion, Dmitri

You all are far to quick for me to keep up with, spending as much time as I do in an office. I would have liked to point out that in the US we actually have 2 sorts of miles, the common (or statute) land mile of 5,280 feet and the nautical mile of 6,078 feet. The sea mile is actually one minute of longitude
http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/miles.htm

I also wanted to mention the beauty of the setting sun through the Temple window at the start of Shabbat, but I think I missed that one totally.



FS

It's worse than that. The US Statute Mile and the International mile are both used in the US, one being 1/8 inch longer.

Here, there's an Irish mile, which started off the same as five English miles, but changed to about 1.3 English miles in the 1600s, and the Scottish mile, which varied according to whereabouts in Scotland you were. Until as late as 1926, some counties in Ireland used the English mile, some used the Irish mile, and some used both of the two depending on what they felt like that day.

I still buy meat by the pound (lb)
I've never lived in a time when we used pounds and ounces
but my granny did it and it stuck with me

In Sweden and Norway (but not Denmark) a mile is no less than 10000 metres. Before the metric system was introduced (in 1889) it was 10688.54 metres. The word mile (for 10000 metres) is still used unofficially among people but officially only kilometres and the other metric measurements are used

KB - I KNEW it. That Irish mile business explains something.

Back in the late 1970s, we were travelling by horse caravan down an Irish road, in the direction of a town called Inch. We were worried about how far it was, and this was before satnav. We kept asking passersby how far it was.

'It's a couple of miles,' said one.

We went down the road a ways. 'It's 4-5 more miles,' said another.

Finally some children scratched their heads. 'Oh, it's turrible far,' was the answer.

We finally got there. About two people in the little place admitted to speaking English. The place was haunted, but the cats were pretty friendly.

It's a long Way to Tipperary!


can't I just tip the "rary" down the bottom of garden ?

KB

You make me do a bit of maths;

>It's worse than that. The US Statute Mile and the International mile are both used in the US, one being 1/8 inch longer.


Earth's circumference = 24,901 miles (40,075km)

If add 1/8 of an inch to every mile the total difference equals less than 100 metres.

Showing my work;

24,901 (the circumference) times .125 (the decimal equivalent of 1/8)

Equals 3,112.625 inches or divided by 12 equals 259.3854 feet.

259.384 feet = 79.06 metres

Why would anyone even mention a such a small difference

I suspect it is only a rounding error, I have never heard of anyone in the US using International Miles, but it is a big place and I suspect there may be a few

Not to argue, but you did bring it up

After reading your list of the different European miles it is small wonder you went metric.

FS

Hmmm, as for why it makes a difference - I'd agree, it doesn't look like it would! And to be honest, I'm not enough of a geographer to list the reasons.

But I'm sure there are some. Eg, there are GPS units now that are accurate to within a couple of millimetres...so on their scale, 100m would be a pretty massive margin of error.

A few points;

If there is a GPS that is accurate to with a few millimetres it would have to have small target printed on its face to show the exact spot of the measurement. I can't think of any useful application that would require that degree of accuracy. For most bombs close is good enough In most cases where a measurement of a mm or two is important they are close enough to use a calliper or micrometer.

I know the military has far more accurate GPS than is available for civilian use, as well as observation satellites. We are not allowed to know how accurate as a security measure. Mine is good enough to say if I am at home or next door.

Also the GPS output is latitude and longitude, miles (or kilometres) only come into play when computing the distance between two points.

Have you read my entry on 'Tolerance'? It just hit the FP today, you might enjoy it

FS

Computing the distance between two points is one of the functions that GPS units have, though. As I said, I'm not enough of a geographer.

It's quite likely that there is *no* practical use for changing from the US survey mile (which is defined as being 5280 US Survey Feet, to the International Statute Mile, which is defined as exactly 1609.344 metres. But change they did.

When you say you know of nobody in the USA who uses the statute mile, it's likely that most of them do (it's the most common usage in the states now), but the difference is so small nobody noticed it changed around 1959.

That explains the extra half teaspoon of gas (petrol) it takes to get to w*rk each morning, and I had been blaming the fuel shortage!

FS

I thought that was global warming. Makes the tyres keep sticking to the road and wreaks havoc with fuel economy!

Let me share a quick story, as part of it takes place in North Carolina and it involves the hills, I'm sure Dmitri won't mind too much

I once had a desk next to an older worker, I don't remember how we got on the subject, but we got to talking about surveying, or camping. He told me that when he was a kid in the 1930's his father was a surveyor on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

http://www.blueridgeparkway.org/v.php?pg=46

He said that every few weeks his father would take him overnight camping on one of the mountains. The real purpose was that his father had to move his transit (surveying telescope) to a new location and he had to take several star angles to confirm its location.

It is amazing how far we have come in less than a hundred years.

It was 'Survey miles I was unfamiliar with, although that is the number of feet we use, I have always said 'statute miles' without the 'international' part. (when I'm not using Nautical Miles, but they only occur at sea)


FS