No matter what measuring system is used in track and field, Roger Bannister will still be the first man to break the 4 minute mile barrier.
Yeah, but the āfour-minute-1.609-kilometersā barrier sounds like a record someone made up just to get into the books.
Iām reminded of June 25-26th, 1990. The previous all-time temperature record here in Phoenix was 118 degrees Fahrenheit, and this record had stood since the end of World War I. On the 25th it pushed all the way up to 120. People leaving town could tell their friends for years to come that they had been in Phoenix on its hottest day ever.
Until the following day.
On the 26th it topped out at 122. All the commercial flights at the airport were grounded because, even though the planes could fly at that temperature, the charts telling the pilots how to set their control surfaces only went up to 120, so there was no āofficialā right setting they could go by. I didnāt find out about the high until I saw the weather report that evening; I had been cleaning out my storage shed. Later someone made t-shirts commemorating the date and temperature as ā6+26+90=122ā.
It was only later that I realized that, on that day, we had finally experienced our first official daily high temperature in the fifties (Celsius).
The latest car I owned that still had fractional fasteners on it was a 1979 Mustang Pace Car replica. It was mixed, as I found out when doing a clutch replacement. Started in with my metric tools and found bolts on the u-joints that had 1/2" 12-point heads. There were also fractional bolts on the bellhousing, which made no sense because it had the 2.3L turbo, a German Ford design. My next new American-made car was a 1991 Explorer and it was all metric - except for the tires/wheels, of course. Come to think of it, arenāt all tires (except for Michelin TRX) still in inches for diameter and millimeters for width?
You just revived a 6 year old thread with a 143 posts on it.
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Sorry, it popped in my notifications for some reason. I was last on in November (2017), so I donāt know why.
Even though most countries are Metric (the USA, Myanmar and Yemen excepted), many English system measurements live on. Wheel sizes for bikes, motorcycles and cars are still in inches. In the UK, road distances and speeds are still in miles and miles per hour. In Canada, Metric since 1978, floor coverings are still sold by the square foot or yard
My wife has many cook books, and the older ones are in English measurements, but even the newer ones stick to ounces and pounds.
Hospitals in Canada weigh new babies in kilos, but give the new parents the weight in pounds!
Our favorite steak house still has the steaks on the menu in ounces.
The car companies are officially metric, and any new designs are in metric. But the old small block Chevy is still not metric, I believe.
I used to have a 200mm (nominally 8 inch) crescent wrench.
Thatās so they can give the proper dose of medications if needed. Pediatric medicine is dosed mg/kg most of the time
Of course; the medical profession is trained in metric. However, Canadian parents like their babies to weigh 5-7 lbs or so.
My wife was trained in the 60s and medication then still used āgrainsā instead of mgs.
Talk to airline pilots and they still talk about their planeās speed in āknotsā or nautical miles per hour.
For some reason I canāt āfathomā that!
I may still have a few of those around, used to have a bicycle that required them.
This forumās software is a little weird. It keeps notifying me of threads I started 2 software upgrades ago, even though thereās been no activity in them for years. Iāve learned to ignore the suggested threads and just read the ānewā section.
I think we use it because itās more accurate and easier to use than the English system is. There are actually a few medications that can still be dosed in grains (typically Armour Thyroid, some brands of Baby Aspirin show the strength in mg and grains)
"How many cubits is your boat?
As others have pointed out, there are a variety of different measurement systems used depending on the idustry. In addition to those already mentioned, oil is traded in barrels and wheat is traded in bushels. The entire construction industry is in inches, feet, and yards. The lumber industry even calls a 1-1/2"x3-1/2" board a ā2x4ā. And measurements are in āboard feetā. I have saws with 5/8" arbors, some take 10" blades, some 12". Should I replace them all?
Countless pieces of machinery, countless heavy equipment, countless aircraft still in service are all SAE. And the countless millions of design drawinga that their replacement parts are manufactured to are in inches. Should those drawings be recalculated and redrawn? What of the billions of tolerances that donāt convert directly? Will interface parameters all need to be reevaluated (yes)?
The problem of converting to metric is more complicated than it appears. And the benefits donāt come near justifying the cost. The auto industry, one of the few truely global industries, has done so because itās global. It also is in a mode of constant redesign. Most indutries arenāt."
7 years later, thatās my sentiment.
But the age old question is still why the British still drive on the wrong side of the road? Hope that doesnāt cause consternation in Briton so Iāll be banned from entrance.
And ships are measured in gross tonnage which has nothing to do with weight!
Always found that one amusing.
We had a lengthy post on why some drive on the left (āwrong sideā) of the road.
It dates back from the days when you either travelled on foot or by horse. Since most men and women are right handed, you would draw your sword in case of on coming danger from the left side with your right hand! The quickest way to be combat ready.
Therefore one passed oncoming traffic on the LEFT! There is ample proof from Roman England that the Romans drove their oxcarts on the left. The LEFT was thus the correct side to drive or ride on.
Napoleon, unfortunately, was left handed and a revolutionary! So he dictated that all of Europe he controlled (except the British Isles) drive on the RIGHT!
With motorized traffic and the lessoned use of swords and daggers, the side of the road became anatomically irrelevant.
Unfortunately, today, shifting gears with your left hand in a British car takes more work, and I always rent an automatic while over there.
We lived in Malaysia (an ex-British colony) for 5 years and got a local car with automatic. It takes a few months to feel at home in left hand traffic.
The metric system is the devilās spawn I tell ya!
UndĆØr 7 pounds is small for a baby. That must be the wifeās preference. All three of my children were 7.5 to 9 pounds at birth, and they werenāt considered large. One of my daughters just had her 36 week exam, and the obstetrician estimate her child at 7 pounds and he has 4 weeks to go before birth.
You may agree with the American Rodeo Cowboys Association who believed for many years (and many still do) that the Metric System is a Communist Plot to overthrow the United States. Itās hard to call a āquarter horseā a 0.250 horse.
We can thank Napoleon (not those Godless Commies who adopted it in 1917) for it and the many problems it solved for international trade. The basic unit of measure, the metre, is 1/40 millionth the circumference of the earth at the Equator. That gives a very odd number in miles or yards!
Our kids were both ends of the scale; our daughter was 8+ lbs and our son came early at 4.5 lbs. The son is now 6ft 3.
Wikipedia- The US is the only industrialized country where the metric system does not predominate. Only the US, Liberia and Myanmar donāt officially use the metric system of measurements.