Brexit Thread

[Husar]

Apparently there are 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard and 1760 yard in a mile....or 63360 inch. Yep, clearly better than the metric system in many ways.

AFAIK among British and American scientists and engineers metric units have been used since time immemorial...but those are experts, and Michael Gove says that Britain has had enough of them

Ok, now you gave me an excuse to post this again:

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

"The British, especially English, legal system was built up from the bottom" And I though that the Magna Carta, base of the entire legal system in UK I was told, was imposed to the King by the Barons... Your bottom is not that deep...
And by the way, you should go to the Ceremony held in a Church were new and old Judges show the Sovereign's power... The symbolic is quite telling...

No, that's just the first Statute, English Law, as you well know, predates Magna Carta by several centuries.

Ok, now you gave me an excuse to post this again:

Except, as he demonstrated, it does all hang together. Nobody uses all those measures, people use some of them depending on what they're doing, and all those measures were applicable in their given context.

For example, a Nautical Mile was originally 1/60th of the distance between two lines of latitude, which makes it useful for traditional navigation using the sun and starts - now it isn't, so if you use a modern Nautical Mile and a Sextant you're going to have odd numbers.

A League in Imperial (on land) in three statute miles, which is about what a man can walk in an hour carry a pack/leading a pack horse. Therefore, a distance of 8 Leagues can be understood as a day's walk.

Interestingly (and I just discovered this) a Roman League is 1.5 Roman miles, which means a Roman League is roughly the distance you can walk in half an hour because the Romans had miles 5% shorter than Statue Mile, and they generally reckoned you covered ground somewhat faster than in later periods.

[Husar]

Except, as he demonstrated, it does all hang together. Nobody uses all those measures, people use some of them depending on what they're doing, and all those measures were applicable in their given context.

For example, a Nautical Mile was originally 1/60th of the distance between two lines of latitude, which makes it useful for traditional navigation using the sun and starts - now it isn't, so if you use a modern Nautical Mile and a Sextant you're going to have odd numbers.

A League in Imperial (on land) in three statute miles, which is about what a man can walk in an hour carry a pack/leading a pack horse. Therefore, a distance of 8 Leagues can be understood as a day's walk.

Interestingly (and I just discovered this) a Roman League is 1.5 Roman miles, which means a Roman League is roughly the distance you can walk in half an hour because the Romans had miles 5% shorter than Statue Mile, and they generally reckoned you covered ground somewhat faster than in later periods.

Amazing.
How many sextants are used to fly an aeroplane from London to New York?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Amazing.
How many sextants are used to fly an aeroplane from London to New York?

None - but if your computer breaks in the middle of the Atlantic and your pocket calculator falls overboard you'll be cursing the metric system whilst you're there with charts and tables, repeatedly carrying the one.

The point is, all he did to "rubbish" the Imperial system was reel off all the different sub-divisions, he spent no time talking about why they all exist. That could have been a really interesting video.

For example, a Nautical Mile is is 1/60th of the distance between two line of latitude, or one navigational Minute, this is then divided into 10 cables, Cables being a usable measure at see. So, if you know the location of one ship and then run a cable to another ship, and take a bearing, you can likewise detmine the location of the other ship even without making any observations from it. This has navigational implications with regard to undersea hazards and is generally useful.

By contrast, the Statue mile is 1/3 of a League on land, which is the distance a man can walk in an hour. One explanation for the variation of the length of a mile is the difficulty in traversing the ground (and therefore the time taken) in different parts of the country.

The point is, for many day-to-day activities Imperial works better than metric, it arguably even works better when you're building a house, say, because Imperial works on multiples of 12 and so do degrees.

But no, he just rubbished the system by referring to a medieval English Statue that defines an incg in relation to three dry barley corns.

[Gilrandir]

Your bottom is not that deep...

Now, Husar, do you still think low of my reading of Vodafone?

For example, a Nautical Mile was originally 1/60th of the distance between two lines of latitude, which makes it useful for traditional navigation using the sun and starts - now it isn't, so if you use a modern Nautical Mile and a Sextant you're going to have odd numbers.

For example, a Nautical Mile is is 1/60th of the distance between two line of latitude, or one navigational Minute, this is then divided into 10 cables, Cables being a usable measure at see. So, if you know the location of one ship and then run a cable to another ship, and take a bearing, you can likewise detmine the location of the other ship even without making any observations from it. This has navigational implications with regard to undersea hazards and is generally useful.

For God's sake, let them Leave.

[Kralizec]

For example, a Nautical Mile is is 1/60th of the distance between two line of latitude, or one navigational Minute, this is then divided into 10 cables, Cables being a usable measure at see. So, if you know the location of one ship and then run a cable to another ship, and take a bearing, you can likewise detmine the location of the other ship even without making any observations from it. This has navigational implications with regard to undersea hazards and is generally useful.

By contrast, the Statue mile is 1/3 of a League on land, which is the distance a man can walk in an hour. One explanation for the variation of the length of a mile is the difficulty in traversing the ground (and therefore the time taken) in different parts of the country.

The modern nautical mile is derived from the metric system: it's defined as exactly 1852 metres whereas you can only give an approximate conversion in yards or feet. It was established at an international convention and is included in the SI system, the traditional imperial unit is obsolete.

Having 1.000 different kind of measurements for different crafts and professions might be beneficial for those people themselves, but not for others who are trying to make sense of it. If I want to buy a rope, it would be much preferable to measure it in a unit that is clear and understandable to everyone rather than some arbitrary measurement that's only relevant to salesmen in the 17th century. In a few cases (such as the nautical mile) it might be worth to use a non-typical measurement, but otherwise it's much preferable to use universal, decimal units.

I wonder why I bothered to reply though...PVC seems to ignore my posts.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The modern nautical mile is derived from the metric system: it's defined as exactly 1852 metres whereas you can only give an approximate conversion in yards or feet. It was established at an international convention and is included in the SI system, the traditional imperial unit is obsolete.

Yes, I am aware of this - I was pointing out that the traditional Nautical Mile is not, in fact, an "Imperial" unit but a navigational one ultimately determined by the diameter of the Earth. The Modern Nautical Mile is an arbitrary metric measurement, this is preferable when using a computer but disadvantageous when using a Sextant and chart.

Obviously, in an age of GPS the modern Nautical Mile is more convenient, but if your GPS goes down and you have to rely on a chart, Sextant and and a piece of paper for your sums you suddenly have to work with bits of numbers.

Having 1.000 different kind of measurements for different crafts and professions might be beneficial for those people themselves, but not for others who are trying to make sense of it. If I want to buy a rope, it would be much preferable to measure it in a unit that is clear and understandable to everyone rather than some arbitrary measurement that's only relevant to salesmen in the 17th century. In a few cases (such as the nautical mile) it might be worth to use a non-typical measurement, but otherwise it's much preferable to use universal, decimal units.

In practice the Imperial System uses yards, feet, and inches for most measurements. Despite what that video implies most of the other measures are either nautical (and therefore only applied at see) or they are measurements "of record", used in land deeds and they are standardisations of common practice.

For example, paces. Say you were going to buy a house and, when first viewing the property, you want to know how long the garden is. You pace it out, you'll get a surveyor in to check everything with fixed measures later before you buy, but first thing you do is pace it out, because you know how long your pace is. So, naturally, when you get the surveyor's report it's in standardised paces and multiples of paces (rods and chains).

Given how many people have trouble visualising area and volume an anthropomorphic measure is useful even if a measure of mm is more accurate. The last part is debatable, though, as an inch rule is usually divided into 1/32 of an inch, which is smaller than a mm.

I wonder why I bothered to reply though...PVC seems to ignore my posts.

In response to your previous post - did you know you can half a mile 32 time and still retain a measure in whole inches? 55", to be exact, and you can divide it again (64 times) for 27 1/2". Division of a kilometre 64 times gives 15.625cm.

[CrossLOPER]

though, as an inch rule is usually divided into 1/32 of an inch, which is smaller than a mm

I am convinced that, at some point, you were replaced with a chatbot.

[Gilrandir]

If I want to buy a rope, it would be much preferable to measure it in a unit that is clear and understandable to everyone rather than some arbitrary measurement that's only relevant to salesmen in the 17th century.

What? You want to drop ells and fathoms?