Are you still imperial?

[dbulmer]

I have a picture in my mind of you trying to coax that little baby to work - it brings tears to my eyes

 

[discrepancy]

Boys we use DIN and Metres over here

Yep dbulmer. You're right. No offence intended. In fact, I think the UK may have ditched your old pounds, shillings and pence before us in Aus (14 Feb 1966).

Either way, it's pretty clear the international jury has returned a 'metric' decision.

 

[Blox]

To add to the confusion, as far as I can tell everyone uses nautical miles when refering to distances on the ocean or in the air. Both ships and aircraft world wide measure speed in noutical miles per hour.

The poll is incomplete, I use both systems all the time. I live in the US, trained as an Engineer and I am a pilot. All aeronautical terms are metric (except for distance and speed).

At least I can understand how a Nautical mile worked out to be 1852 m - 1second on the equator.
I don't know how many yards are in a nautical mile though :06:

 

[discrepancy]

Blox,

When I went to school, there were:

2026 yards in a nautical mile
1760 yards in a mile,
5280 feet in a mile,
39.37 inches in a metre
can't remember cables, but it was a nautical thing, like knots (how many cables in a nautical mile?)

I'd have to dig deep to remember rods and perches (Old English, but still used in real estate), but...the big one was a chain was the length of a cricket pitch - 22 yards

 

[Charlie99]

The electric system was made by, guess, LUCAS! The man who invented DARKNESS....

I thought Lucas invented refrigerators ............ and warm beer.

 

[Blox]

Blox,

When I went to school, there were:

2026 yards in a nautical mile
1760 yards in a mile,
5280 feet in a mile,
39.37 inches in a metre
can't remember cables, but it was a nautical thing, like knots (how many cables in a nautical mile?)

I'd have to dig deep to remember rods and perches (Old English, but still used in real estate), but...the big one was a chain was the length of a cricket pitch - 22 yards

Actually, a cable is supposedly 1/10 mile (damn... who got imperials and metrics all mixed up??). While a knot is ofcourse speed of (nautical) miles per hour.

 

[Don Burke]

At least I can understand how a Nautical mile worked out to be 1852 m - 1second on the equator.

That would actually be one minute of latitude anywhere on earth or one minute of longitude at the equator.

 

[Don Burke]

Here we always go by the actual size of the tank

Considering the amount of "creative rounding" throughout the world, I would have to measure some cylinders myself before I bought off on that.

 

[Don Burke]

Ok, here's my proposal: From tomorrow the USA swithches to metric. You'll have a struggle for about a week, but then you've all figured it out. And as a bonus, gas will be cheap again since you will be calculating the price in liters


Ok?!

A better plan would be to redefine the meter as one two thousandth of a minute of latitude and adjust the rest of the metric sytem to match.

In twenty years, the only use for "statute" would be as an answer on "Jeopardy"

 

[Rick Murchison]

1 mil = 1/1000 of an inch.

No, no... one mil is one foot deflection at 1000 feet range, or one meter at 1000 meters, etc... unless, of course, we're talking wetsuits, where a mil is 1/1000 meter.
Just glad I'm here to help...
Rick