US going metric?

DMW wrote
I believe that was one of the probes to Mars.
One group used metric (manufacturing/development end),
the other (NASA) used Imperial.

It was the other way round. NASA followed the specification and used
metric. Lockheed Martin failed to follow the specification and used
non-metric units.

The official report is at:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codeq/...mib_report.pdf
"the root cause for the loss of the MCO spacecraft was the failure to
use metric units... of Newton-seconds (N-s). Instead, the data was
reported in English units of pound-seconds (lbf-s). ... The SIS, which
was not followed, defines both the format and units"

Greg Johnson wrote
why was the usage of the explanatory "centigrade"
changed to the astrological "celsius"?

The name was not actually 'changed'. 'Celsius' co-existed with
'centigrade' and 'centessimal'. In 1948 they decided that only one
name would be used.


See the official SI website:
www1.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/appendix1/decisions_base_units/decisions_temperature.html
1948 From three names ("degree centigrade", "centesimal degree",
"degree Celsius") proposed to denote the degree of temperature, the
CIPM has chosen "degree Celsius".

On 01/04/2004 6:04 PM jj plucked Senior Frog's Magic Twanger and said:

I'm curious, has there ever been an attempt at going metric in the US? e.g.
using Celsius? How do people feel about it?

jj




The US go Metric? Yeah, and I'm the Queen of Gay Paris. Ha, ha, ha.

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"Dave Smith" wrote in message
...
alohacyberian wrote:

But, as I said, media weather reporting and forecasting is unlikely to
use
decimals. KM

What difference would it make? They aren't usually very accurate anyway.

I realize the weather forecasting isn't very accurate, but, didn't realize
the reporting was inaccurate. KM
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"Frank F. Matthews" wrote in message
...
Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:


But local pints not real pints. FFM

"Real" is subjective. I would say they are real pints because thats what we
use here, and of course, everything in Great Britain is automatically the
world standard ;-)

"me" wrote in message
om...
"Bob Myers" wrote in message
...
"me" wrote in message
om...

Funny, my recollection of driving in places like France is that
they DO have bridges there, and yet I don't think French truck
drivers tend to run their vehicles into them any more often than
in the U.S.. Wonder how they do it? :-)


Cause when the bridge says 6 meters, they don't drive their
5.sumpin' meter truck under it. But the US driver will take his
16 foot sumpin' truck under the 18 foot bridge. It's called
increase productivity.

It's ok. We can understand measurments given to decimal places in Europe

"alohacyberian" wrote in message
...

But, as I said, media weather reporting and forecasting is unlikely to use
decimals. KM

True. But the forecasts are never that accurate to mean 20C is likely to
give different weather from 20.5C.

I've grown up with nothing but the celcius scale being used on forecasts.
Unfortunately newspapers always use Farenheight when reporting hot
temperatures as they are bigger numbers so looks more impressive!

"DMW" wrote in message
...
Richard wrote:

My dad recently bought me a tape measure (I couldn't find mine one day
when
he was visiting and needed it). It was Imperial only -- probably seemed
fine to him. I didn't realize that until the first time I went to use it.
I don't recall what I was measuring, but I needed metric (I needed to do
some algebra with the measurement and it was getting cumbersome with
inches
and feet) and either found a ruler or had to convert the measurement to
cm. I've since found my two other tape measures, both of which have
metric
and Imperial.

All rulers and tape measures I've ever seen in my whole life (in England)
have had both metric and imperial. One edge for each, or in the case of some
tapes, turn it over.

(Jo Stoller) writes:
Greg Johnson wrote
why was the usage of the explanatory "centigrade"
changed to the astrological "celsius"?

What is astrological about the name of the Swedish astronomer
Anders Celsius?

The name was not actually 'changed'. 'Celsius' co-existed with
'centigrade' and 'centessimal'. In 1948 they decided that only one
name would be used.

Was "centigrade" ever widely used in other languages than English?

It would certainly not have been a good choice to introduce another
unit name (in addition to kg) that starts with an existing decimal
prefix. Would 10 degrees Celsius have been 1 decacentigrade or
1 decigrade?

NIST SP811 today lists millidegrees Celsius as one of the possible
useages

http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec06.html#6.2.8

though using kelvin for temperature differences is probably
more popular now.

Markus

Stephen Dailey wrote:

The Seattle Times had a very interesting article on metric measurements a
few weeks ago. After receiving many letters from readers pointing out
the advantages of the metric system, the Times' home improvement reporter
visited a Home Depot near Vancouver (British Columbia, not Washington :-)
) and made a few observations, including:

- Dimensional lumber was sold in US sizes (e.g., 2x4, 4x6)
- He couldn't find a metric tape measure

I don't know why he would have trouble finding a metric tape measure in Home
Deport, even if it is American owned. I found one there. He should have used the
Imperial tape that he could find to measure the 2 x 4s to see if they were 2" by
4".
One thing we have to deal with is a few generations of homes built with
imperial measures and 16" studs.