[time-nuts] gravity controlled pendulumn clock?

Jim Palfreyman jim77742 at gmail.com
Wed Dec 14 01:50:21 UTC 2011


The beautiful irony in all of this, is that the negative statements about
metric and the desire not to change to the metric system comes from the US,
yet it was Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson who took the original
idea to France when they were ambassadors. The French ran with it and the
US didn't (missing out by only a few votes).

Oh well.

Jim


On 14 December 2011 12:01, Arnold Tibus <arnold.tibus at gmx.de> wrote:

> I don't understand at all the arguments against the metric system and
> the polemic remarks about. I second the statements of Neville and Jim.
>
> Without these intelligent french Astronomers like Jean-Baptiste-Joseph
> Delambre, Pierre-François-André Méchain and J.J. Lalande (more infos:
> Ken Alder, The Measure of All Things), we would still have the severe
> problems they had centuries ago!
>
> Reading WIKIPEDIA, http://en.wikipedia.org
> /wiki/German_units_of_measurement,
> we find a good example of weird units (just for only a part of Germany):
>
> "Before the introduction of the metric system in Germany, almost every
> town had its own definitions of the units shown below, and supposedly by
> 1810, in Baden alone, there were 112 different standards for the Elle
> around Germany. The metric system was a much-needed standardisation in
> Germany."
>
> This was not only a german problem, and we still have today some
> problems in the world in this area.
>
> I believe we should think more about what we are saying and doing, so we
> would do a big step forward to become a world community. ...
>
> Sorry for this personal opinion and comments,
> let us come back to timing problems with scientific and technical
> discussions,
>
> regards,
>
> Arnold
>
>
> Am 14.12.2011 00:15, schrieb Jim Lux:
> > On 12/13/11 12:26 PM, shalimr9 at gmail.com wrote:
> >> Having spent more of my adult life in the US than in France, and
> >> having been thoroughly exposed to both systems, I can testify (in my
> >> own name) that it is easier and faster to get a good approximation
> >> when doing mental arithmetic on engineering problems using the metric
> >> system than the imperial system.
> >>
> >> Of course, when you punch numbers in a calculator, the difference is
> >> less (even though there are fewer constants involved when using the
> >> metric system in general) so there is less typing involved.
> >>
> >> If you don't care about being accurate, then the imperial system is
> >> fine :)
> >> A gallon ( a yard, a pound,...) are not the same depending on where
> >> you are, and I am not talking about relativistic effects (or maybe I
> >> am...). Who cares how much is an ounce of water anyhow?
> >>
> > Oh, then you're getting into all sorts of interesting units.  Gallons,
> > corn gallons, Scots gallons, etc.
> >
> > And when speaking of drink, for some amount of time in England, if you
> > bought it in a bar, it could only be served and priced in fractions of a
> > gill (for distilled spirits) or no less than a pint (for cider, beer,
> > etc.) (a pint is, of course, 4 gill (except in Scotland), and since a
> > gill is 5 fluid ounces, that makes the pint of beer some 20 ounces).
> >
> >
> > And we are not speaking here of archaic units that haven't been seen in
> > centuries.  I think the UK went away from the gill fraction thing in
> > bars (I don't recall seeing the sign about "all spirits sold in this
> > establishment..." last winter in Heathrow), but it certainly existed in
> > the early to mid 90s.  (There's this weird alcohol unit thing, but I
> > have no idea what that is.. probably some quasi metric measure of
> > equivalent ethanol).  I think, also, that in Australia, the "pint of
> > beer" varies among states.
> >
> > And the stone is still used as a measure of human weight (and for
> > perhaps other purposes) My wife's English relatives talk about gaining a
> > stone over the holidays.  And when hiring a horse to ride in the
> > southwest of England, they tend to ask what you weigh in stone (but the
> > horse business is the epitome of archaic.. Even in the more modern US we
> > run races in furlongs, timing them in 1/5ths of a second, measure height
> > of the horse in hands, although we do weigh jockeys in pounds)
> >
> >
> > There are also a whole host of "fair weight and measure" laws in most
> > countries which regulate the minimum sale quantity of something (e.g.
> > you cannot buy a loaf of bread weighing less than a pound in the state
> > of Oregon, raising an issue if you wish to purchase a demi-baguette).
> > Likewise, vegetables and fruit have minimum sale quantities (the odd
> > "dry pint").  I think in Germany, there's a minimum sale quantity for
> > beverages, as well.
> >
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