Can we please talk kilometres, litres, Celsius, right-side driving, etc.?

[Marbe2]

Esperanto? English is the worlds current lingua franca.....

I just joined the septuagenarian club and have, “most of the time” - learned to adapt to whatever the measurements are. Driving a non automatic in Europe, (driving on the left with clutch on the left is a challenge) translating metrics to “English”, ordering cold cuts in grams..whatever...it is part of the fun of the adventure...no complaints here!

 

[Lillamy]

What is “normal” or “proper” anyway? Apart from the UK, South Africa and Australia, there surely are other countries where you drive on the “wrong” side of the road. Sweden changed sides - can’t remember which year. Any Swedes on this forum who can tell us how difficult that was?"

Sweden changed to right-hand traffic in 1967. I wasn´t born yet so can´t speak of any personal experiences, but I´ve heard it went quite well actually. People were very against it beforehand (82% voted against it), but when it was a fact it went smoothly.

 

[David Tallan]

This is great news for you then. Since velocity is distance divided by time (V=D/T} rearrange and T=D/V and this shows you that the greater the distance the more time you have to do it.

I may be mistaken as it has been a few years since high school, but I thought direction had a role to play in velocity, not just distance and time. If you are just talking distance and time, you are talking speed rather than velocity. So if you head off in the wrong direction, it is really affecting your velocity.

 

[Kathor1]

According to a Papal bull many centuries ago all people in Christian lands should ride on the left hand side of the road.

Let's put this commonly held belief to rest. Seen on websites, in books and even papers, which is really sad. Various versions: pope decreed that everyone / all pilgrims on the way to Rome / everyone in Rome / people on the Sant'Angelo bridge ... must walk / ride on their left hand side / on their right hand side.

There's no evidence whatsoever for any of this.

There are just about four lines in Dante's work that describe people walking over a bridge and say it's similar to the situation in the jubilee year 1300 when so many pilgrims came to Rome that arrangements were made for the Sant'Angelo bridge so that those who went towards the castle and St Peter's had to walk on one side and those going in the other direction had to walk on the other side of the bridge. It's impossible to conclude from these poetry lines where the left and the right lanes were in relation to the stream of people. It's not even certain that Dante went to Rome in 1300 and saw it with his own eyes.

 

[Kathor1]

I don't remember where I saw this on a wall somewhere on the CF but enjoyed it:

 

[David Tallan]

I don't remember where I saw this on a wall somewhere on the CF but enjoyed it:

View attachment 51156

I would have been so tempted to add one more line at the bottom: "Just the right number of steps"

 

[jmcarp]

I think it's time to move on to a more important topic, like which digit group and decimal separator to use:
1 234 567.89 or 1,234,567.89 or 1.234.567,89 or 1'234'567.89. Or maybe something even more controversial, like shoe sizes.

 

[alexwalker]

When hell freezes over: A clever university exam question

Bonus Exam Question: Is hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

The answer by one student was so ‘profound’ that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it.

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools down when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant of that.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most/all of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in hell, because Boyle’s Law states that, in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the volume of hell has to expand proportionately, as new souls are added.

This gives us three possibilities:

1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.

2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

3. Hell is expanding accordingly to the new number of souls.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my freshman year that, “It will be a cold day in hell before I sleep with you”, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that, since hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct … leaving only heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night in my chamber, Teresa kept shouting all night: “Oh, my God!” Oh, my God!."

This student received the only A

This gives us all hope. And all in metrics, of course...

 

[Marcus-UK]

The measurement of liquids in the US is (to my way of thinking) totally stuffed up. They use a pint of 20 fluid ounces. The trouble is that their Fl.O. is smaller than those used in Britain (and previously in Aust/NZ). Why I have not the slightest idea - all I know is that an Imperial Gal is around 4.546 litres and a US Gal is about 3.96 litres.

The US gallon used to be a legal measurement in the UK. It is the UK spirit gallon. It is a smaller size than the UK standard Imperial gallon since it allows for evaporation of volatile liquids in spirits. i suspect that once the US colonies separated from Brittain, their equivalent weights and measures just simplified the three or four different legal gallon measure to one standard for everything.

In a similar way how many ounces (oz) in a pound (lb) could 14,15,16,20 etc. to allow for spoiling of stored meat. Recruiting posters for the Royal Navy used to list the daily allowances for food and beverages and include the measurement of a full "X many ounces to the pound."
And please do not expand this argument to include the US system of 400 degrees in a circle proposed as the Gradian measure some years ago!

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

I use degrees Fahrenheit but I'm for degrees Celsius. But let's hear it for GPS decimal degrees.

 

[Marcus-UK]

And by the way, the reason the US did not convert to metric in 1976 was that commercial interests prevailed upon politicians to squash the change, which proves that science doesn't have a chance against politics--especially when there are re-tooling costs to consider.

I started an electrical engineering apprenticeship in the 1970s' in the UK. The college component utilised the SI Metric measurement system. When fabricating brackets for mounting equipment we used Metric. When drilling holes for the bolts we used imperial inch measurements since that was the tooling that was available!
For many years the UK government tried to convert people to using metric weights for buying meat and groceries. Older people did not like this and many grocers and butchers kept both metric and imperial weighing scales. Local council weights and measure department would seize imperial weighing scales and prosecute shop owners for selling goods by imperial weight. To be legal butchers would weigh and price in Metric then put the meat on the imperial scales to tell the customer that his sausages weighed 1Ib 8oz. ie the optimum size for a toad in the hole for a family of four!
Sometime in the 2010s' the UK government relented on the Metric V Imperial argument and people are now allowed to use both systems. The driving force for this was for exports to countries who had not adopted the Metric system.

 

[Peter Fransiscus]

I would have been so tempted to add one more line at the bottom: "Just the right number of steps"

Don't please , we don't do Grafity.

 

[jmcarp]

...
And please do not expand this argument to include the US system of 400 degrees in a circle proposed as the Gradian measure some years ago!

I'm in the US and I never heard of a 400-degree circle.

...
But let's hear it for GPS decimal degrees.

I personally don't like decimal degrees, but I guess it's more efficient for GPS to handle. Actually, when hiking and wayfinding with boots on the ground, I prefer to use UTM coordinates in concert with a map with UTM gridlines. Of course, that means I have to think in meters.

 

[jmcarp]

@Marcus-UK, in my working life I was an architect, and occasionally worked on projects in other countries outside the US. I was forced to think metric and to learn the equivalent dimensions of common building materials in the metric world.

 

[Northern Laurie]

For all of us who have successfully sailed through both eras. Australia adopted metric (or then it was labelled decimal currency on 14 Feb 1966).
We can still comprehend easily the old and the ‘new’ (sort of, lol). Height is measured metric here too but I still think or picture in my mind feet and inches .

My point is : I’m sure it is taken on board as naturally as (you) understand a few different languages? I’m pretty sure you’re multi lingual?

Good thread though. Very interesting stuff coming through. I hadn’t realised Canada used kilometres! It must be confusing crossing the border to USA. ?

Buen Camino
Annie

I’m a Canuck and work in building engineering. Our building codes are metric. Our construction materials in imperial. The only place I know you can buy 10m rebar (10mm) in 9 foot lengths. Why? Because the great construction market to our south. And I know exactly how big a metre is and how long a kilometre is, but 100mm must be converted to 4” in my head before I can hold my thumb and forfinger the correct distance apart. And I have no idea if an apartment 100sq m is large or small-but I daydream about an apartment that is 1000sq ft. And our code calls for guardrails a minimum of 1070mm in height. Why 1070? Because it is 3’6”.

Confused yet?

I grew up with only metric in school which means I know how to calculate with metric, but when working with wood the measuring tape is most likely in feet and inches. And recipes books are mostly US publications, so anything cooking related I understand in imperial. Except quarts and ounces. And if I have to figure out how many teaspoons in a tablespoon, I convert to ml first.

All of this without really thinking about it. Too much.

I find myself working in a company that has many professionals from outside of North America and we can barely communicate. Or at least I can barely keep up.

And my students wonder why they get answers wrong when the number is right but there is no unit of measure given...

 

[dougfitz]

I don't get it: Why don't we have common measurements? While the rest of the world is talking unified units, some places they measure all things outside the metric system.

If my memory serves me correctly, you are from one of the countries which I found most confusing when it comes to reference to distances. When I first walked in Norway, I was a couple of days walking from Oslo when I saw a mile post - yes, a mile post - indicating that I was five miles from Christiania. I wondered why anyone would move the mile post to the rather isolated spot where it was located.

Several days later, I met a young Norwegian serviceman - clearly trim, fit and active - who claimed to have only walked 3.5 miles that day. I had walked over 20 km, and I must have shown my surprise that he had only walked such a short distance. He had the courtesy to explain that a Norse mile is just a little longer than any other mile. It all became clear!

I wonder, @alexwalker, if you are proposing that the Scandinavian countries give up their miles with the same enthusiasm that you are proposing for the rest of us?

 

[Telboyo]

What word do those who measure distance in kilometres use when they talk ‘mileage’?

We have that covered in the UK, petrol is purchased by the Litre as£1.30 sounds a lot better than £ 5.90 per gallon ,less is better. When it comes to consumption we use miles per gallon because 50mpg sounds better than 5.65l per 100km. Higher is better.

 

[Saint Mike II]

It was a little bit more complicated. It's all over the internet, including NASA's initial report by the Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap Investigation Board, so easy to read up on. Yes, it was a problem of data that were used in English units (as they term it) instead of metric units in one particular software application. So also a story of garbage in, garbage out, of Lockheed and NASA, of quite complicated stuff. The units in questions were pound force seconds (lbs-s) vs Newton seconds (N-s), btw.

I was particularly intrigued by your comment that "one smart man (yes a man) used 50 mile (or 80 km) above the Martian surface". Maybe I'm misinterpreting the comment. Is it as in man vs alien or man vs machine or man vs woman? It happened in 1999. Women scientists, women software developers, women project managers weren't unheard of by that time. And the first woman on a spaceflight was Valentina Tereshkova in 1963.

Thanks for the explanation. The use of "pound force units" is even more complicated, still this is the mob that took us to the moon so they knew something. As for who "male" or "female", well it was a bit tongue in cheek but from my limited knowledge of female scientists - they double check & cross reference. Oh and yes being someone born before 1950 I know who Valentina Tereshkova is - she will be 82 on March 6th.

 

[Saint Mike II]

I'm in the US and I never heard of a 400-degree circle.

Hola @jmcarp . Well if you were a pilot during the mid-1970's it was being discussed as a means of increasing accuracy and also to make bearings (magnetic ones that is) easier to understand - N 000/400; E 100; S 200; W 300.
From what I can recall it never really took wings (so to speak) and when B747's came along with their "inertial reference" navigation systems and then during the 1980's GPS it just died. In fact until the above post I had not heard it mentioned for 20/30 years. Cheers

 

[Saint Mike II]

I’m a Canuck and work in building engineering. Our building codes are metric. Our construction materials in imperial. The only place I know you can buy 10m rebar (10mm) in 9 foot lengths. Why? Because the great construction market to our south. ..
I find myself working in a company that has many professionals from outside of North America and we can barely communicate. Or at least I can barely keep up.

And my students wonder why they get answers wrong when the number is right but there is no unit of measure given...

WE overcame the measurement issue by all but banning the import of tape measures that read in anything but metric units. I think it was only in the 1990's with tapes made in Taiwan (for both the US & Australian markets) that we had tapes the measured in both systems. It was a bugger if you were colour blind as the US were green and the Metric Red.
Of course you live in the country where one of the most famous aviation "incidents" occurred because the aircraft refueler mis-managed his Kilos and Pounds. By shear luck and great airmanship that the 70 people survived.Cheers

 

[alexwalker]

If my memory serves me correctly, you are from one of the countries which I found most confusing when it comes to reference to distances. When I first walked in Norway, I was a couple of days walking from Oslo when I saw a mile post - yes, a mile post - indicating that I was five miles from Christiania. I wondered why anyone would move the mile post to the rather isolated spot where it was located.

Several days later, I met a young Norwegian serviceman - clearly trim, fit and active - who claimed to have only walked 3.5 miles that day. I had walked over 20 km, and I must have shown my surprise that he had only walked such a short distance. He had the courtesy to explain that a Norse mile is just a little longer than any other mile. It all became clear!

I wonder, @alexwalker, if you are proposing that the Scandinavian countries give up their miles with the same enthusiasm that you are proposing for the rest of us?

One mile=10 kms. Metric system again.

 

[Kathor1]

He had the courtesy to explain that a Norse mile is just a little longer than any other mile. It all became clear!

How interesting! I had no idea that the Scandinavian mile is in use in Norway and Sweden. But, as @alexwalker explained, they did the sensible thing: when the metric system was introduced, which is essentially just another step of many standardisation steps throughout the centuries, their mile was equivalent to roughly 11.3 km in Norway and 10.7 km in Sweden. So they decided that 1 mile would mean 10 kilometres from now on.

Similar to what happened in France and Germany and many other regions where the old pound (livre or Pfund) was set to 500 g when they switched to metric units while it had been equivalent to various weights ranging between 400 g and 700 g, or the Zentner, similar to the English hundredweight, was set to 100 (new) Pfund. Similar for Maß (beer drinkers may know what it means). The old denominations were kept and are still in use today, just with a somewhat different definition. And that's not something very revolutionary if one looks a bit further into the past history of standardisation.

So, we showed the way! One English pound will be 500 g, one pint will be 500 ml (= half a litre), and one English mile will be 1.5 km or 2 km which is even better. Easy peasy. Go on, courage, if we could do it you can do it, too.

 

[Kathor1]

Mentioning the Bavarian Maß for ordering beer reminded me of the fact that the quantity of beer you get can vary significantly from region to region when you say the equivalent of "a beer, please" in the local language. And led me to a website that says that Spaniards hardly ever order "una cerveza, por favor“ but use a multitude of other expressions like caña, copa, tuba, doble and, again, the quantity of beer you get may vary depending on the town or region. True?

 

[dougfitz]

One mile=10 kms. Metric system again.

Indeed, but it fails the fundamental point you made in starting this discussion that we needed common measurements. In this case a couple of countries cause confusion by having non-common measures within a metric system. You can choose one or the other but clearly not both while we have oddities like the Scandinavian mile.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

This is the reason my head never stops spinning on this thread! I probably should give up reading as I only go deeper into the well of confusion!

 

[William Marques]

Pot, jug, pint, schooner, midi, seven, pony, stubby. Even in one country these can mean different measures from state to state!

The old John O'Grady's book "It's your Shout Mate" relates how back in the 70s the measures were different from town/brewery to town/brewery.

 

[jmcarp]

Hola @jmcarp . Well if you were a pilot during the mid-1970's it was being discussed as a means of increasing accuracy and also to make bearings (magnetic ones that is) easier to understand - N 000/400; E 100; S 200; W 300.
From what I can recall it never really took wings (so to speak) and when B747's came along with their "inertial reference" navigation systems and then during the 1980's GPS it just died. In fact until the above post I had not heard it mentioned for 20/30 years. Cheers

That sounds good on paper, but some "great" ideas deserve a quiet death. But you bring up an issue in navigation that has always been troublesome: true north vs magnetic north (and the southern hemisphere equivalents).

 

[oursonpolaire]

Almost 4 liters - 3.78541 liters in a gallon, but close enough government work.

More realistically, given that it is eastern Ontario, a close enough to be a fair measurement when siphoning someone else's gas from their tank.

 

[Oravasaari]

There's simply no way the US could ever change over from pounds to kilograms.....

.....there'd be mass confusion.

That was one of my best jokes....I'll get mi coat....

 

[KinkyOne]

...Driving a non automatic in Europe, (driving on the left with clutch on the left is a challenge) translating metrics to “English”, ordering cold cuts in grams..whatever...it is part of the fun of the adventure...no complaints here!

Coming from Europe and used to drive left hand steering wheel cars with gears I tried similar 20 years ago in Sydney, Oz. Driving automatic right hand rent-a-car it went quite well actually (or is it just my imagination and memory gap???) until the first roundabout...

Thank you Australia but never again

 

[alexwalker]

For clarification:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_of_measurement

and I quoute from the latter:

"A multitude of systems of units used to be very common. Now there is a global standard, the International System of Units (SI), the modern form of the metric system. "

"Metrication is complete or nearly complete in almost all countries. US customary units are heavily used in the United States and to some degree in Liberia. "

Cool.

 

[dougfitz]

When it comes to consumption we use miles per gallon because 50mpg sounds better than 5.65l per 100km. Higher is better.

I see it as one of the great wonders of the human mind that it is able to cope with what would clearly be a counter-intuitive construct like miles per gallon. When lower fuel consumption is better, one might expect that reduced fuel consumption would be achieved by lower numbers. Yet we remain perfectly comfortable with a system where the higher numbers are better.

I was taught physics in an odd combination of FPS and CGS units as Australia was making the transition from 'imperial' measures and currency to a 'decimal' system and SI units. It took some time, but I now happily don't translate my fuel consumption from li/100km back to mpg.

Unfortunately, the OP didn't distinguish between the advantages of a 'metric' system for how we count, and the SI system for what we measure. Conflating the two is almost as confusing, particularly when there are so many non-metric and non-SI systems around that the rest of us quite clearly cope with without becoming befuddled.

If it were otherwise, we wouldn't measure our fuel consumption in li/100km - a mix of SI and non-SI measures, or our speed in kph (or km/hr) - a mix of a metric and non-metric counting systems.

 

[alexwalker]

Unfortunately, the OP didn't distinguish between the advantages of a 'metric' system for how we count, and the SI system for what we measure.

Count your fingers. Metric.
Count your toes. Metric.

It all begins there. If we had 8, we would have a octogonal system. if we had 16, we would have a hexagonal system.

Measures are just a prolonging of the metric system. But those Wiki articles describe that nicely.

Edit: The words "'imperial' measures", are sending bad thoughts to me... Better go metric.

 

[dougfitz]

For clarification:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_of_measurement

and I quoute from the latter:

"A multitude of systems of units used to be very common. Now there is a global standard, the International System of Units (SI), the modern form of the metric system. "

"Metrication is complete or nearly complete in almost all countries. US customary units are heavily used in the United States and to some degree in Liberia. "

Cool.

This is useful as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units .

I still think that you haven't made a clear distinction between the alleged advantages of using a decimal system of counting and calculation in preference to a fractional system, and what is generally a coherence that the SI system of units achieves. I agree with the latter, not the former. And whether we drive on the right or left is an arbitrary matter that seems largely the result of convention, not logic or science.

 

[dougfitz]

Count your fingers. Metric.
Count your toes. Metric.

I can (almost) just as easily count in binary on my fingers (and toes). It is not a good argument when it is so easy to establish such clear contradictions.

I would say:
count to 10 on your fingers - base 10 mathematics,
count to 31 on your fingers - base 2 mathematics.

 

[alexwalker]

This is useful as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units .

I still think that you haven't made a clear distinction between the alleged advantages of using a decimal system of counting and calculation in preference to a fractional system, and what is generally a coherence that the SI system of units achieves. I agree with the latter, not the former. And whether we drive on the right or left is an arbitrary matter that seems largely the result of convention, not logic or science.

Look at children learning to count: The begin by using fingers. Decimal system .

But: instead of debating, I shall choose to lean on the decisions of most governments going for metric, with the exceptions of USA, Liberia, Burma (with its completely own units), and GB (there may be other odd countries that I haven't visited or heard about). And a Mile is 10 kms.

 

[alexwalker]

I can (almost) just as easily count in binary on my fingers (and toes). It is not a good argument when it is so easy to establish such clear contradictions.

I would say:
count to 10 on your fingers - base 10 mathematics,
count to 31 on your fingers - base 2 mathematics.

Of course, But then, you (and I, as I am holding an engineering degree in computer science for 40+ years), can easily go for binary counting. But the rest of the world will prefer finger counting before electrical current on/off digits, and go metric,

The End.

 

[galliano]

Indeed, but it fails the fundamental point you made in starting this discussion that we needed common measurements. In this case a couple of countries cause confusion by having non-common measures within a metric system. You can choose one or the other but clearly not both while we have oddities like the Scandinavian mile.

Actually, in Norway we talk about one mil, not mile. A mil is not really a measurement, but just a another way of saying 10 km. Like, say 1000 grams are 1 kg.

 

[Saint Mike II]

Coming from Europe and used to drive left hand steering wheel cars with gears I tried similar 20 years ago in Sydney, Oz. Driving automatic right hand rent-a-car it went quite well actually (or is it just my imagination and memory gap???) until the first roundabout...

Thank you Australia but never again

I had a similar experience in France back in 2017. Luckily when picking up the car I took up the offer of an automatic car and one with a sat-nav system. Another plus was that the sat-nav voice was in English. As for adjusting - well when everyone else is driving on the right hand side of the road you just "follow the leader". Cheers

 

[Kathor1]

Look at children learning to count: The begin by using fingers. Decimal system .

You do realise that learning to count to ten by using your fingers the way you are most familiar with is not a natural thing ? Kids have to be taught to do so. Also, we are having a rather euro-centric discussion as in some parts of the world, Asia for example I think, they are taught to count to 12 by using the fingers of a single hand: The thumb acts as a pointer touching the three finger bones of each of the fingers, starting with the outermost bone of the little finger.

And that all this is not as natural as it seems to us is probably also the reason why it took us thousands of years before we cottoned on to the decimal system. Thanks to some people who developed it in India and thanks to some other people who transmitted it to us via the Arab world and via Spain.

Ouf, another feeble connection to the purpose of the forum - pilgrimage - found: we learnt about the decimal system and its advantages sometimes during the Middle Ages, thanks to cultural exchange, not only but also thanks to pilgrims but more so thanks to clerical scholars and tradespeople.

 

[Kathor1]

BTW, I totally agree with @alexwalker: distances are to be measured in metres, with special terms not only for 10 to the power of 3, 6, etc and -3, -6 etc but also -2, -1 or 4.

See Metric prefix for all the terms that are already in common use, among them nanometre, decimetre, hectometre ...

 

[William Marques]

I am not sure that any measurement is more easily identifiable than another. A pint of beer - a litre of beer, a mile - a kilometre., a pound of tomatoes - a kilogram of tomatoes, these are all instantly identifiable to those who are used to using a particular system. Metric units may be best for science and calculation but in everyday life whatever you call any unit of measurement does not matter.

 

[Kathor1]

In the discussion, I think, two things get mixed up: a decimal system and a common system (for counting, measuring etc.)

Think of the decimalisation of the pound when 1 pound was all of a sudden 100 pence vs the introduction of the euro when 166.386 pesetas were all of a sudden 1 euro.

 

[Saint Mike II]

Think of the decimalisation of the pound when 1 pound was all of a sudden 100 pence vs the introduction of the euro when 166.386 pesetas were all of a sudden 1 euro.

Yes the changes from "pesetas" to Euros must have been a real cultural shock. Oh to have been in Spain on the cold day in January (1998?? or '99). Everybody lining up at the bank to exchange the notes that had been hidden since Franco's time!!

 

[Bradypus]

Yes the changes from "pesetas" to Euros must have been a real cultural shock. Oh to have been in Spain on the cold day in January (1998?? or '99). Everybody lining up at the bank to exchange the notes that had been hidden since Franco's time!!

I found my bill listed in both euros and pesetas in A Coruna in 2016 - 14 years after the switch to euros. Posted about it at the time in a thread which took off in a very similar direction to this one

https://www.caminodesantiago.me/com...eseta-still-alive-and-well.38728/#post-383483

 

[Kathor1]

Yes the changes from "pesetas" to Euros must have been a real cultural shock. Oh to have been in Spain on the cold day in January (1998?? or '99). Everybody lining up at the bank to exchange the notes that had been hidden since Franco's time!!

I wasn't in Spain but I was in the eurozone and, frankly, I now barely remember a thing about it. Just some excitement when holding the small starter kit in my hand for the first time, a small plastic bag with shiny shiny coins, about 20 € in total. You could get it at a bank already in December but didn't have to get it at all. And then, for a while, the excitement of finding a "foreign" euro coin in one's purse, ie one where the national face showed that it had been minted for another country.

I see that the people in Spain have until the end of 2020 to exchange their peseta notes for euro notes so there was no need to queue at the bank on a cold day in January. During the first few months, we could pay in cash with either national currency or euros anyway.

 

[TerryB]

My fingers aren't the youngest anymore and started already to hurt when I had counted to 8. In fact, I needed my other hand to keep my binary 0s and 1s in place.

As to the traditional method of counting on fingers: apparently, Americans usually start counting with the index finger as the number 1 while we in Continental Europe tend to start with the thumb as the number 1.

We spent a number of years working alongside the Wichi Amerindian people in Northern Argentina. Their system of counting (shared by other groups including the Guarani of Paraguay) included the numbers 1- 4 only. Wayhatha (one), Takfwas (two) Najit-tufwai eth (three) Tufwantes ihi (four). They could use "Okwe wayhatha" (one handful). Anything more was "los" (lots). The local Spanish speakers still reckoned in leagues.
After a few years one finds oneself thinking like it, rather than having to do a mental translation!
Maybe in years to come even we Brits will change?

Blessings
Tio Tel

 

[Marcus-UK]

I'm in the US and I never heard of a 400-degree circle.

The gradian has 400 degrees in a revolution. Actually a French innovation in the 18th C. I was told at college it was an Americanism. But we did not have Wikipedia then:-} I had a Grad option on my Rockwell calculator and asked my Math tutor what it was.

For military purposes there are 6400 Mils in a circle. I have used this for calling down artillery support in my youth.

See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian

Also quoting Wikipedia "In the 1970s and 1980s most scientific calculators offered the grad as well as radians and degrees for their trigonometric functions.[7] In the 2010s some scientific calculators lack support for gradians.[8] "

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

Also quoting Wikipedia "In the 1970s and 1980s most scientific calculators offered the grad as well as radians and degrees for their trigonometric functions.[7] In the 2010s some scientific calculators lack support for gradians.[8] "

Back in my college days scientific calculators cost about as much as 3 months room and board at the college dorms. One maker produced a bunch with an error and in a national magazine ad was selling them as a great deal and flawless except that you had to remember what the sine (or was it cosine?) of 0 degrees was.

 

[Bradypus]

Back in my college days scientific calculators cost about as much as 3 months room and board at the college dorms. One maker produced a bunch with an error and in a national magazine ad was selling them as a great deal and flawless except that you had to remember what the sine (or was it cosine?) of 0 degrees was.

Walking the Via Francigena in Italy I only needed a compass on one occasion. In the middle of a featureless stretch of rice paddy in the Po valley on a damp day with 100% cloud cover. Took me quite some time to work out that a recent update to my smartphone operating system had a bug: the compass reading was 180 degrees out and North now read as South. I was not happy as anyone who was within 100 metres or so and could understand very colloquial English would have understood

 

[Francois de Meillon]

I don't get it: Why don't we have common measurements? While the rest of the world is talking unified units, some places they measure all things outside the metric system.

Can't these countries please start measuring things in proper units (metric system), drive on the right side of the road, and respect the majority of the sane world?

This creates a lot of problems: how far is it from one village to the next, how much water do you need, how hot is it? I do not understand these measures, and I am in the vast majority of the world population. And still I have to translate our logical metric system to those who have no clue.

F.ex. Water freezes at 0 Celsius; 32 F. What is 32?

30F sounds hot to me. But it is 2 below the freezing point of water, so a little chilly... Snow in the air...

One km. is 1000 metres. 1 step is almost 1 metre. What could be difficult with that?
And how long is a foot? what is an inch? 2.54 cm. What does it MEAN? It is certainly within the metric system... What is an Oz???

In most countries, only drunk drivers drive on the left side of the road. In f.ex. England, I need a few pints before I can drive safely.

An expensive satellite was lost in a cooperation between USA and Europe because US course calculations were done in inches (!?) sic) instead of proper centrimetres, and the next course calculation done by the US went pretty wrong...

We have 10 fingers. 10 toes. the basics of the metric system. Please join us.

Please get it right, leftists...

Great opportunity to broaden your general knowledge.

 

[dougfitz]

Actually, in Norway we talk about one mil, not mile. A mil is not really a measurement, but just a another way of saying 10 km. Like, say 1000 grams are 1 kg.

Indeed, and my memory might not be serving me well here, but when it was discussed in English, the word 'mile' was what I heard. Perhaps I wasn't well attuned to the nuance at that time. Last year, walking in Sweden, the couple of times I heard the word used, it sounded more like 'meal' than either 'mil' or 'mile', but it was clear in the context that a distance was being discussed.

 

[David Tallan]

Count your fingers. Metric.
Count your toes. Metric.

It all begins there. If we had 8, we would have a octogonal system. if we had 16, we would have a hexagonal system.

Measures are just a prolonging of the metric system. But those Wiki articles describe that nicely.

Edit: The words "'imperial' measures", are sending bad thoughts to me... Better go metric.

We have two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs. Everything should be in binary.

Or count your fingers AND toes. Units of 20 (which have the additional advantage of being evenly divisible by four, in line units of ten).

Our decimal system is arbitrary.

 

[David Tallan]

Of course, But then, you (and I, as I am holding an engineering degree in computer science for 40+ years), can easily go for binary counting. But the rest of the world will prefer finger counting before electrical current on/off digits, and go metric,

The End.

They prefer finger counting because that is what they are taught as children. They are taught that as children because we use the base 10 Indo-Arabic numbering system. That's the root of the "natural" preference for counting by tens. We prefer finger counting because we count by tens, not the other way round.

I'm not arguing that metric doesn't make sense. I'm just arguing that it isn't based in our biology. It is based in our culture and the numeric system we use. Other cultures used different numeric systems and had different measures.

 

[AlanSykes]

Mr Celsius meets Mr Fahrenheit, via English comedian John Finnemore:

 

[sunwanderer]

Count your fingers. Metric.
Count your toes. Metric.
It all begins there. If we had 8, we would have a octogonal system. if we had 16, we would have a hexagonal system.

We have 10 fingers and 10 toes, but we now have a hexagonal hexadecimal system anyway.

 

[alexwalker]

We have 10 fingers and 10 toes, but we now have a hexagonal hexadecimal system anyway.

Correct. One of my metric fingers slipped here.

 

[nycwalking]

This afternoon, I could have purchased a “dry liter” of tomatoes or a pint.

I chose the pint.

That “dry” business: huh!

 

[oursonpolaire]

A Canadian government lawyer of my acquaintance was given a measuring wheel by her great-uncle when she qualified as a notary (Québec version of a solicitor). It turns out that there were three varieties of arpent (sort of an acre), royal, Canadian, and a third whose name I cannot recall, and parcels of land were often described as one in a deed when it had been surveyed as another. The wheel with its three gears was a way of verifying which arpent and perch had been used. She whipped it out when she was auditing a sale of government surplus land, much to the dismay of the developer present.

We perhaps should be grateful that the Spanish ceased using Spanish leagues (4.18km) and Arabic miles (1.4km).

I stand by my long-held position that kilometre in Spain is a subjective measure; some are very short, but some are very long indeed.

 

[jmcarp]

...
I stand by my long-held position that kilometre in Spain is a subjective measure; some are very short, but some are very long indeed.

You mean like when they're used in Camino guidebooks?

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

I stand by my long-held position that kilometre in Spain is a subjective measure; some are very short, but some are very long indeed.

The long kilometers tend to be the uphill ones. Also, 1,400 meters is longer than 1.4 kilometers and much longer than 0.0014 megameters.

 

[David Tallan]

The long kilometers tend to be the uphill ones. Also, 1,400 meters is longer than 1.4 kilometers and much longer than 0.0014 megameters.

I found steep downhill ones just as long as the uphill ones, but the last kilometres of the day were the longest.

 

[wtrimble]

The globe having 360 degrees is geometrical, not metric. A circle at any latitude has 360 degrees as do all circles.
The angle from the sun to the horizon can be used to determine your latitude, i.e. how far you are north or south of the equator. Your latitude is measured in 0 to 90 degrees north or south of the equator. The latitude is 0 at the equator and 90 degrees N is the north pole. Lines of latitude are parallel and do not intersect.
In order to find your longitude, you need an accurate clock set to GMT and a chart of the sunrise time for that day of the year in Greenwich, England. Hence, your longitude ends up in degrees, minutes and seconds. Lines of longitude are not parallel and converge to meet at the poles. Think of how a shadow would fall on a sphere when lighted from a source across the room.
Yeah, this measurement stuff is confusing, isn't it.

 

[wtrimble]

The official measure of temperature in the metric system is Kelvin. 0 Kelvin is about -273 degrees Celcius. It is the temperature where all molecular motion in a perfect crystal stops. Zero Kelvin is sometimes referred to as "absolute zero".
A temperature difference of 1 K is the same as 1 degree Celcius.

 

[Kathor1]

The globe having 360 degrees is geometrical, not metric. [...] In order to find your longitude, you need an accurate clock set to GMT and a chart of the sunrise time for that day of the year in Greenwich, England. Hence, your longitude ends up in degrees, minutes and seconds. Lines of longitude are not parallel and converge to meet at the poles. Think of how a shadow would fall on a sphere when lighted from a source across the room. Yeah, this measurement stuff is confusing, isn't it.

It's only confusing when you don't pay attention to the measuring system and the units you are using. For example, when I want to know the coordinates of the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela and request them from the appropriate app or device, I get the following answer for latitude and longitude coordinates:

42.880596, -8.544641. No minutes and seconds to be seen. Confused?

I find 42.880596, -8.544641 easier to handle - and to type! - than N 42° 52' 50" W 8° 32' 41".

 

[Camino Chrissy]

When reading through this thread (hit and miss) of the 265 various posts, it makes me feel like I am in school again. I don't think I'm absorbing too much, so this class will probably only garnish me a C...but not for Celsius.

 

[Marcus-UK]

Count your fingers. Metric.
Count your toes. Metric.

It all begins there. If we had 8, we would have a octogonal system. if we had 16, we would have a hexagonal system.

Measures are just a prolonging of the metric system. But those Wiki articles describe that nicely.

Edit: The words "'imperial' measures", are sending bad thoughts to me... Better go metric.

In India people count with their thumb against the joints of their fingers so the natural unit is 12.
In my digital electronic days I used to work in Binary base 2, Octal base 8 and Hexadecimal base 32. When working on IBM equipment I used Binary coded decimal or Extended Binary coded decimal. i also worked on base 5 Baudot coding. The Computers I worked were based on 4 bit, 8 bit, 16 bit, 24 bit, 32 bit, 48 bit and 64 bit architectures.
Now I am retired and try to work only in decimals of Pints and multiple fractions of a Gil and am much happier and a less confused person.

 

[alexwalker]

In India people count with their thumb against the joints of their fingers so the natural unit is 12.
In my digital electronic days I used to work in Binary base 2, Octal base 8 and Hexadecimal base 32. When working on IBM equipment I used Binary coded decimal or Extended Binary coded decimal. i also worked on base 5 Baudot coding. The Computers I worked were based on 4 bit, 8 bit, 16 bit, 24 bit, 32 bit, 48 bit and 64 bit architectures.
Now I am retired and try to work only in decimals of Pints and multiple fractions of a Gil and am much happier and a less confused person.

Then we are two of us... (hex base 16)

 

[Marcus-UK]

Then we are two of us... (hex base 16)

Or 0010

 

[RENSHAW]

Even though I have been metricated from the start I still feel that it is with consideration that I observe the alternative when answering or commenting on a post written by an OP from the USA or UK?

 

[Michael; Camino-addicted]

Hallo Camino friends,

I´m from Germany and in normal life we use only the metric system and for the wights only kilogram etc.

But cooking with Oma is not normal life and it gets really exciting for young people in Germany, when it comes to the weights of the ingredients.

Granny keeps talking about pounds, half a pound, a dozen, half a dozen, a cup, a teaspoon, a tablespoon.....

And if you go to the supermarket in the department, where the sausage is freshly cut and say very salop: "A quarter of salami please," which is common, then you will get only 125g, because the traditional elderly housewife in Germany always use the pounds system in case of sausage and meat.

Do you have any traditions like this? I know from USA oder Canada? a really collection of spoons on a ring.

Michael

P.S
We have always suspected on the Camino that Spanish kilometers are different than German. If they write:
5 kilometers to Sahagun - after 5 kilometers you can see Sahagun for the first time in the distance.

 

[Anamiri]

Hallo Camino friends,

I´m from Germany and in normal life we use only the metric system and for the wights only kilogram etc.

But cooking with Oma is not normal life and it gets really exciting for young people in Germany, when it comes to the weights of the ingredients.

Granny keeps talking about pounds, half a pound, a dozen, half a dozen, a cup, a teaspoon, a tablespoon.....

And if you go to the supermarket in the department, where the sausage is freshly cut and say very salop: "A quarter of salami please," which is common, then you will get only 125g, because the traditional elderly housewife in Germany always use the pounds system in case of sausage and meat.

Do you have any traditions like this? I know from USA oder Canada? a really collection of spoons on a ring.

Michael

P.S
We have always suspected on the Camino that Spanish kilometers are different than German. If they write:
5 kilometers to Sahagun - after 5 kilometers you can see Sahagun for the first time in the distance.

Like the people at those roadside stalls , who tell you just 4 kms more. Considering they never asked where I was headed, 4kms to where?

 

[Delphinoula]

Some of us still use pounds, like three quarters of an pound (= 375 g) for a pot roast. Or time telling we say it’s 5 past quarter to ten meaning meaning 9.50. Coming from the time telling by the church bells ringing. A Schoppen is a normal measure for wine, and not to forget the Mass of bear in Munich.
So if nothing goes right go left.

 

[Delphinoula]

Of course, But then, you (and I, as I am holding an engineering degree in computer science for 40+ years), can easily go for binary counting. But the rest of the world will prefer finger counting before electrical current on/off digits, and go metric,

The End.

so counting to three is ... ah... but you can right?

 

[Michael; Camino-addicted]

Hola,

Delphinoula, you might be from the south of the white sausage equator? Bavaria?

As you say, we handle the time telling very special in Germany. We use in my area after 25 minutes the system which looks to the next full hour, it´s more or less the standard version:

7:25 five before half eight
7:30 half eight
7:35 five after half eight

In the south and the east they start earlier and say what it´s done of the next full hour:

7:15 quarter eight
7:30 half eight
7:45 three quarter eight

Is it only in Germany confusing like this, or is it somewhere else?

Michael

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

So, what's the problem the metric system is trying to solve anyway?

 

[David Tallan]

Hallo Camino friends,

I´m from Germany and in normal life we use only the metric system and for the wights only kilogram etc.

But cooking with Oma is not normal life and it gets really exciting for young people in Germany, when it comes to the weights of the ingredients.

Granny keeps talking about pounds, half a pound, a dozen, half a dozen, a cup, a teaspoon, a tablespoon.....

And if you go to the supermarket in the department, where the sausage is freshly cut and say very salop: "A quarter of salami please," which is common, then you will get only 125g, because the traditional elderly housewife in Germany always use the pounds system in case of sausage and meat.

Do you have any traditions like this? I know from USA oder Canada? a really collection of spoons on a ring.

Michael

P.S
We have always suspected on the Camino that Spanish kilometers are different than German. If they write:
5 kilometers to Sahagun - after 5 kilometers you can see Sahagun for the first time in the distance.

As a Camadian, outside temperature is given in Celsius and oven temperatures are typically Farenheit. Volume measurements in cooking are often given in both on the things we measure in. Recipes tend to be in cups and spoons or in both.

 

[Delphinoula]

Hola,

Delphinoula, you might be from the south of the white sausage equator? Bavaria?

As you say, we handle the time telling very special in Germany. We use in my area after 25 minutes the system which looks to the next full hour, it´s more or less the standard version:

7:25 five before half eight
7:30 half eight
7:35 five after half eight

In the south and the east they start earlier and say what it´s done of the next full hour:

7:15 quarter eight
7:30 half eight
7:45 three quarter eight

Is it only in Germany confusing like this, or is it somewhere else?

Michael

I don’t claim Bavaria. Lol no north of the river.
But on the Camino I only have a happy watch.

 

[C2]

I come from the States. I wish we’d have gone metric when we had a head of steam moving that direction in the seventies. I have to admit though that I much prefer Fahrenheit to Celsius. 90 degrees Fahrenheit just sounds hot. A funny thing happened to me when I walked the CF in 2015. By about halfway I was thinking in kilometers, not miles. I quit doing the conversions in my head. I’m slowly getting used to kilos and grams, although I still do conversions in my head for those.

As an aside, is Celsius really metric? Just because freezing is set for zero doesn’t necessarily mean it’s metric does it? Come to think of it, does metric even apply to temperature? Other things I’ve wondered about is why don’t we have a metric time system? If you’ve ever had to do time-based math you’ll know how frustrating it can be. Why is the globe divided up into 360 degrees? These are things I wonder about.

I think Celsius IS metric as it takes 1 calorie to heat one liter of water by one degree centigrade - all perfectly aligned - even appreciates by a Brit albeit I can convert pretty much anything in my head - an odd gift maybe!

 

[Kitsambler]

7:30 half eight

Hello Brits! Does it work this way in the UK? (In the US, it's "half past seven".)

 

[Deleted member 73526]

Hello Brits! Does it work this way in the UK? (In the US, it's "half past seven".)

I think Michael's post is talking about the German language.
English speakers in the UK say "half past seven," or "half seven," for 7:30.

I have heard that there are some isolated English dialects where "a half of eight" can be understood to mean 7:30. But I don't know where those dialects exist. I suspect that they might be in some corners of the US that were settled by Germans who were trying their very best ...

 

[jmcarp]

... I can convert pretty much anything in my head - an odd gift maybe!

I've taken a couple of driving trips through Canada, as well as rented cars in Europe, and I got a headache every time we had to fill the tank. If you can convert "x" € or $Cdn per liter to "y" $US per gallon" in your head, you're a genius in my book.

I think Michael's post is talking about the German language.
English speakers in the UK say "half past seven," or "half seven," for 7:30.

I have heard that there are some isolated English dialects where "a half of eight" can be understood to mean 7:30...

Silly me, I always thought half of eight was four, but I guess basic arithmetic is different when telling time

Just to further extend the frivolity, there was a time when pounds and pesos were divided -- actually cut -- into eight bits. Thus the term carries over into modern US slang as "two bits" for 25 cents or "four bits" for 50 cents.

 

[CWBuff]

But if we go metric everyone can get their kicks by driving at 100 kph.

I actually get my kicks by driving 100 mph

 

[Deleted member 397]

This is an interesting thread reminding me a problem on the camino.

Spain has the right side driving. I saw some pilgrims walking on the right side and some on the left side. Then the driver on the left side facing us waved and shouted to us pilgrims to walk all at one side - the left side. It seems walkers on both sides frightened the Spanish drivers.

My question: Is it right that walkers should walk on the left side in Spain?
This is a question about safety for pilgrims.

Always walk facing the traffic is the usual sensible advice..I'd rather see whats coming towards me than coming up behind

 

[Deleted member 397]

Spelling people!......it's grammes, kilogrammes and kilometres..when did the travesty to abbreviate and turn letters around come from?!
Here in Oz we, of course, follow metric except I do notice that births are often expressed in pounds and ounces

 

[Leibniz]

Okay, I did not know that. I was wondering what the 100 point meant. Now I know.
[/QUOTE]

And it takes 1 calorie to heat up one millilitre of water by 1 degree Celsius.

Super metric.

 

[Leibniz]

Spelling people!......it's grammes, kilogrammes and kilometres..when did the travesty to abbreviate and turn letters around come from?!
Here in Oz we, of course, follow metric except I do notice that births are often expressed in pounds and ounces

Errr it’s not! US spelling is gram.

 

[Deleted member 397]

Errr it’s not! US spelling is gram.

err..it is!..comes from the latin to French...somewhat before the US

 

[Leibniz]

Yes we’re all aware of the etymology. It doesn’t change the fact that the US spelling is gram, the UK spelling is gramme.
There are many divergences in spelling between US and UK English, it doesn’t make either of them “incorrect”.

As many users of this forum are from the US they can reasonably expect to be allowed to use their received spelling, surely.

 

[Deleted member 397]

ok..permission granted!

 

[Leibniz]

I thank you on their behalf

 

[VNwalking]

OMG how did I miss this thread?!

Please get it right, leftists...

Don't get left behind...

Ah Alex, you know full well that the distances between two points on this poor benighted planet remain the same no matter how we measure them, even in degrees, minutes & seconds.

Snap.

Since it's all made up, the chaos is predictable.
Reading this thread feels like watching Monty Python.

 

[Bradypus]

OMG how did I miss this thread?!

Perhaps unlike some of us you actually have a life to get on with?

 

[Lirsy]

I can not understand what the problem is! The only reasonable way to measure a stage is in beers and coffees!

e.g.: Leon - Hospital de Orbigo is a 2 Coffes + 3 Beers stage: Coffe with churros in Leon, coffe and toasted bread with olive oil in La Virgen del Camino, beer in San Miguel del Camino, beer and tortilla in Villadangos del Paramo, beer in San Martin del Camino and .... you are there! in Hospital de Orbigo!!

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

Spelling people!
...
when did the travesty to abbreviate ... come from?!
Here in Oz ...

Oh, the irony.

 

[CWBuff]

Spelling people!......it's grammes, kilogrammes and kilometres..when did the travesty to abbreviate and turn letters around come from?!

Hmmm... all my life I never had a problem with g, kg, m, km (cm, l, ml, etc....) same with oz or lb(s).

Besides like other things of the same nature - (center vs centre for example) both versions are correct:


Ngram shows a much wider usage of kilogram vs kilogramme in BrE, especially from the early 20th century:
Dictionaries give both spellings:
kilogram or kilogramme:

• The SI unit of mass, equivalent to the international standard kept at Sèvres near Paris (approximately 2.205 lb).

(ODO)
kilogram (n.) etymology:

• "one thousand grams," standard of mass in the metric system, 1797, from French kilogramme (1795); see kilo- + gram.

(Etymonline)

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

Gramme? Isn't that a music recording industry award?

 

[CWBuff]

Gramme? Isn't that a music recording industry award?

Or an endearing term for your Mom's or Dad's Mother?

 

[VNwalking]

I can not understand what the problem is! The only reasonable way to measure a stage is in beers and coffees!

This. Is. brilliant.

But it is still kind of chaotic.
De gustibus non disputandem est and all that...and some of us don't even drink beer.
(I know...horrors, right?)
And if you are a morning person you'll need less coffee than the rest of us.
Regardless...hmmmm...this could work, with a little tweaking.

 

[Deleted member 397]

Gramme? Isn't that a music recording industry award?

As opposed to gram who was a musician from the 70's?