Tongue in cheek

[Maurice Cox 1Participant @mauricecox1]

Good things out of France! How about Mark Brunnel, Isambard's dad?

Maurice

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

You are looking at it now – the size of typefaces measured in points is French. Also interesting in that it was 1/144 of an inch showing that at one time people were quite happy using measurements not in in tenths or eighths. Quite logical if you divide a foot by 12, why not keep going on down in factors of 12.

[Gordon AParticipant @gordona]

Andre Chapelon, designer of the kylchap blastpipe and other steam things?

Gordon.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Well to chuck in my two-pennorth, and I'm old enough for that to be 1/120 Pond or half a groat.

I can remember phoning round the local timber merchants to price up some beech for the top of a woodworking bench I was about to build, only to be told " We sell it by the metric foot now sir" It eventually transpired that they priced timber in units of 300mm, but they "Could do it by the metre; which is a bit longer than a yard".

 

Re. good stuff from France, apart from the calvados and cheese, Michele Mouton for me, who rather excelled in the Audi Groups B rally cars, and even set a record time for Pikes Peak.

Edited By peak4 on 25/02/2016 00:38:25

[Colin WhittakerParticipant @colinwhittaker20544]

Imperial units? Reservoir volumes are measured in acre feet. Anyone got a feel for that? And in the oil industry mud density is lbs per gallon, but, that's an American gallon not an English gallon! And when I worked on the railways the civil engineer's track drawings came in miles and chains; before the internet that caused some head scratching.

The SI units that really upset me was when Shell Oil decided the cable tensions should no longer be displayed in lbs but instead, Newtons. However the safe working loads remained in lbs leading to a race between my powers of mental arithmetic and the safe rise in cable tension when the end became stuck. (Differential pressure sticking was best fought by a quick rise to the maximum safe cable tension.)

In comparison a 1000 psi pressure test (that was normal and not terribly high) that overnight became 7MPa was relatively trauma free.

Ah memories … Colin

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

Liquid measurements in Australia are unique, and they vary from state to state.

Thus we have the Stubby, the Pot, the Schooner, the Middy, the Pony, the Seven, the Ten, the Pint, the Jug, the half-pint and of course the Darwin stubby.

And you reckon you lot are confused? **LINK**

* Danny M *

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Ettore Bugatti ??

BobH

[michael coleParticipant @michaelcole91146]

the citroens up to the 1980s DS's and all the 2CV variants they didn't call the DS the goddess for nothing

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Pasteur, Monod, Jacob. ?

[its-smeeParticipant @its-smee]

Chris.

" I was once told by an old maths teacher who was avidly anti metric that the metric units were devised by Napoleon who had his best brains of the times measure the weight and circumferance of the world and then divide them repeatedly by ten until usable units were arrived at. Said teacher was delighted to tell us that both the original measurements were grossly inaccurate and that therefore metric measurements had no value what so ever. "

.

.

your old maths teacher was correct. I have a book called "The Measure of all Things" by Ken Alder. it is about the origin of the metric system initiated by Napoleon. in the book they measured the distance from Northern France to as far south in Spain as they were allowed to go. they then estimated one quarter of the Circumference of the Earth to calculate the length of the "metre" but they assumed the earth was round and we know it is elliptical, and that is where the error came in. and makes the metre 0.1mm short

[its-smeeParticipant @its-smee]

quote from the book

"Some talk of millimeters,and some of kilogrammes.

And some of decilitres to measure beer and drams.

But I'm a British workman, too old to go to school.

So by pounds I'll eat, and by quarts I'll drink, and

I'll work by my three foot rule."

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Thanks for that Danny – laughing like a drain is something I don't normally do this early in the morning.

Rik

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

We all know that a circle is 360 Deg. but it is also 400 Grad, and 6400 Mils. The latter 2 being devised to make calculations easier for surveyors and the Military.

The Mil has a circle divided into 6400 parts and that is derived from the fact that 1 mil is 1 meter at 1000 meters. This then means that at 2000 meters it is 2 meters and so on making it easy to apply artillery corrections from an observer who can see fall of shot. ( This was a Japanese invention) The 400 grad was to make it easier for the first Instruments used when surveying to work out the height difference on the surveys, much easier to calculate in decimal.

Is there not a standard meter set in a pavement in France somewhere? I can imagine someone running up to ensure they had received a correct measurement of something. Since 1960 it has been defined as the wavelength or part thereof of red light from Krypton burned in a vacuum.

Also the original materiel was iron with 2 marks on it but later the Parisian officials used an alloy of 90% Platignum and 10% Iridium as the materiel as the standard.

Clive

Edited By Clive Hartland on 25/02/2016 09:52:29

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 25/02/2016 09:50:33:

Is there not a standard meter set in a pavement in France somewhere?

Yes, well in a wall anyway, Rue de Vaugirard.

Best thing to come out of France, red wine. Try a glass or two of our local Chateaux Caladroy with your lunch if you have nothing to do in the afternoon.

Russell.

[colin hawesParticipant @colinhawes85982]

Interesting that the almost obsolete imperial system, being a binary progression, is more closely tied to digital computers and their components than the metric system replacing it is. Colin .

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

The division of a circle into radians was missed out. There are 2 x pi radians in a circle. The definition of a radian being the angle of radius r whose arc length is r. The useful part of this is that when working in milliradians a good approximation of rise or fall at a given distance horizontally is 1mm per metre per milliradian for small values of milliradians.

Martin

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Many years ago, I was in consultation with Council Planners, who insisted that all my drawings had to be metric. Which was ok by me as I was well down the road of having converted to metric. Then one day, I contacted them to discuss a finer point of what I was doing. The conversation went like this:

CP. "Of course, we're not really bothered about the odd inch or two".

Me, after a suitable pause. "Er, excuse me, what are these inches you've just mentioned?"

A further suitable pause, and,

Me. giggle, giggle, giggle!

Hoist by their own petard, me thinks, whatever a petard is!

Peter G. Shaw

p.s. I did get my plans passed.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 25/02/2016 10:45:05:

Hoist by their own petard, me thinks, whatever a petard is

.

Peter,

A petard is (a) a bomb, and (b) [vulgarly] a fart.

… Hence the Shakespearean joke.

MichaelG.

[its-smeeParticipant @its-smee]

The original Metre Bar was made of copper in 1793 which measured 443.44 Lignes in old Paris units. ( you can see why they changed. ) it was changed later to a bar of 90% Platinum / 10% Iridium but now is determined by the wave length of light in the Krypton 86 atom. The metre is now the distance travelled in 1/299,792,458 seconds. I think I will stick to ft & ins. it is easier

[Geoff TheasbyParticipant @geofftheasby]

A petard also gave the name 'Peterman' to a safeblower, and, by back-construction, a safe became a Peter.

Also intrigued to be informed that the French had eight feet. This must make walking about much easier, but does not explain their enthusiasm for cycling, unless you have a bicycle like that of The Goodies.

Geoff

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by its-smee on 25/02/2016 11:35:08:

The original Metre Bar was made of copper in 1793 which measured 443.44 Lignes in old Paris units. ( you can see why they changed. ) it was changed later to a bar of 90% Platinum / 10% Iridium but now is determined by the wave length of light in the Krypton 86 atom. The metre is now the distance travelled in 1/299,792,458 seconds. I think I will stick to ft & ins. it is easier

The original aim was for it to be one millionth of 1/4 of the prime meridian through Paris.

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 25/02/2016 12:13:38

[its-smeeParticipant @its-smee]

Neil. if you look at my previous post they assumed the earth was spherical and as the earth is not, this screwed up their calculations and as a result the metre is 0.1mm out

[John FieldingParticipant @johnfielding34086]

A petard also gave the name 'Peterman' to a safeblower, and, by back-construction, a safe became a Peter.

I think Geoff you will find the name Peterman is derived from the ingredients of gunpowder, one of which is potassium nitrate aka saltpetre and hence the name was associated with someone proficient in using black powder blasting chemicals. IIRC the ingredients of gunpowder are carbon black, sulphur and saltpetre, but it is a long time since I messed with it!

[VicParticipant @vic]

Once the speed of light was determined with an accuracy to satisfy most scientific minds the metre should have been recalculated as a fraction of a light year but of course we're dealing with the French here so not much chance of getting them to see sense.

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

John,

"carbon black, sulphur and saltpetre" and there was I thinking that it was fertilser and sugar!

[Author]

Posts