Does that mean I can start driving at 130km/h on a motorway? I haven't got the mental energy right now to try to convert the speed limit signs/highway code/speedo in my car, but I recall that when I went to that there europe it was the speed limit of a motorway when I left IMPERIAL and went METRIC
No. 70mph is 112 kph. or near enough the 110kph limit some places use. As a rough conversion, 50kph, 65kph, 90kph, 110kph are UK speed limits in metric (spot the person who used to drive a Dutch car in the UK).
The speed limits on motorways varies by country, in some places it's 130kph, other's it's 110kph or 120kph. You should check the local legislation before driving.
Having been brought up with imperial units at home, and metric units at school and uni, I find translating between the two is relatively easy, you only have to remember a few conversion factors. 1.63km to the mile, 568ml in a pint, 28.3g in an oz, 2.2lb in a kg, 454g in a lb etc... And for many of these things you can actually round to much more easy to use numbers for a lot of what we're doing 25g to an ounce is close enough, 500ml for a pint, etc...
You can also know basic common numbers. 2.4m or 2440mm is 8ft, 1.2m or 1220mm is 4ft, 6ft is 1.83m etc...
Now if you won't mind, a friend is talking about her new horse and how many hands it is, and my 30cm ruler won't reach up to its arse.
1 hand is close enough to 100mm as makes no odds. You could even use a decimeter (common unit in some countries).
The thing is that metric is all about multiples of 10. Conversions within it are simple, and you can still use fractions if you wish.
Metric has been the on the books in the UK for over a generation, it's the international language of metrology. By insisting on using stupid backward barbarian units, people are basically saying "we don't want to be part of a global community".
There are members of the Tory party who want to move us back to using imperial units (Jacob Rees-Mogg insisted on it within his department). But the reality is, if you want to work with the rest of the world, you need to accept that they are going to use metric. They are going to expect you to be using an M6 screw, not a 1/4-20, they are going to ask for the 150mm diameter on this part. If the tories were serious about Global Britain, they would convert everything fully to metric once and for all.
Tooling for a metric world is also simpler, for starters, the typical "standard" machinists set of tools for drilling holes is considerably smaller for metric. You don't need the fractional sizes, and the letter series, and the number series. (drilling size for a 1/4-20 tap is a number 7, for M6 it's 5mm, #7 doesn't tend to see much other use).
I spoke in the tool junky thread about how I had a machined to order part delivered from the UK to operate with a part being made in Czechia, and sold via a German retailer. All I had from the spec sheet was "24mm x 5mm thread" and I could see it was trapezoid. This meant that I could rely on the fact that ISO has standardised on a metric trapezoid thread form. So even tho these parts are made 2000km apart, they work together. The equivalent imperial thread form is called ACME, and even if the measurements for the distances were close enough (say a 25mm/1"), one uses 29° for the angle, vs 30° for the other.
Many people seem to make it a point of pride to use good ole fashioned English units! But the reality, is you're just making life harder for yourself, and harder for those who come after us. There is no excuse for hanging on to the barbarian units.
It took me 30 seconds for that to register, then I got it.
It took me much longer trying to work out a metric unit to refer to half of a minute. I gave up in the end.
The second is the SI unit for time. It's one of the 7 fundamental units, from which all other derived units originate. Not knowing this would suggest a fundamental failure of the UK education system.
But that worried me in case I was giving a compass bearing instead of a time unit.
Well given the SI unit for angle is the radian, that does not seem to result in any confusion. Amazing this SI metric system isn't it!
My emphasis. No, it hasn't. The UK embraced the metric system, but did not exclusively adopt it. It is still perfectly legal to offer and buy stuff in imperial quantities. There was a spurious attempt many years ago to claim the the EU 'forced' the UK to go metric. It didn't. Indeed, distances and speeds and all measurements to do with roads and rail are, by law, in imperial units.
The metric system is all that should have been taught in state schools since at least the 80's...
Sciu, ĉar la UK estas metrika ekde antaŭ ol vi naskiĝis, eble nun estus bona tempo por vi provi efektive uzi la metrikan sistemon anstataŭ la malantaŭajn barkajn derivitajn barbarajn unuojn?
Nur penso.
That's lovely, but why are you saying what I said, but in Esperanto?
Those would be in radians. Because it makes the maths easier(!)
No, it would be radians because that is the SI unit for angle... It just happens to also make the maths easier...
And of course, let us not forget, for all those insisting on imperial units, they are all, ultimately, defined by their metric equivalence. The inch is defined in both UK and US law as 25.4mm. The mm of course being 1000th of the meter, thus 25.4mm is short hand for 0.0254m, the metre defined at the time of the legislation based on the International prototype metre, of which the UK has been issued National prototype number 16, which was calibrated against the original IPM. National prototype number 16 is held at the National Physical Laboratory, along with our prototype kilogram, which was calibrated against the IPK in Paris.
Even if the inch was originally the length of three barley corns, fat and round, laid end to end...
J
