But strangely enough, the whole airline industry still uses the imperial system, except above the ex USSR countries...
Presumably because of the US. If the US didn't use miles, would the UK still continue with it? Possibly not.
But strangely enough, the whole airline industry still uses the imperial system, except above the ex USSR countries...
Why not go the whole hog - change all the road signs to km, start driving on the right hand side, adopt the Euro, - don't bother asking anyone because it is all for our own good whether you like it or not.
But strangely enough, the whole airline industry still uses the imperial system, except above the ex USSR countries...
Non-SI is only used for altitude, distance and speed except in US and some other American countries.
Nevertheless if it was not for the prevalence of US-built planes after WWII and more advanced state of aviation in the USA at that time, we would probably be using metric in Europe too as continental planes before WWII usually had instruments in metric.
- Altitude is in feet because 1000 ft happens to be reasonable vertical separation and 1000 ft is easier to calculate with than the corresponding SI figure 300 m. Also the procedures for instrument flying were first developed in the USA using feet.
- Distance is in nautical miles because it is related to the unit used for measuring latitude and longitude. 1 nautical mile corresponds to 1 minute latitude (and longitude on the equator), which makes it easier to calculate distances from navigational maps using the grid lines as scale (large area navigation maps need to preserve angles, so they can't have constant scale). If angles were converted to decimal, 1 km would be 1/100 gradian. Alas, angles and time were never converted to decimal.
- Speed obviously based on the distance unit in use.
Ireland first changed their road signs to km and then, a much bigger task, changed all their speed limit signs literally overnight, in 2005.
Well you can do that for yourself - as you say it's not exactly difficult. A display in km/h on Eurostar is better than nothing, which is what you get in the way of speed display for passengers on any UK domestic train.
I went to school from 1979 to 1992, and wasn't taught conversion at all.
Would I grumble if they changed from using miles to kilometers on the roads? Well, perhaps initially, but it wouldn't be a huge hardship considering that all our neighbours use metric.
I'm amazed anyone can still get aerated by metric over imperial. It's not exactly like metric measurements appeared overnight last week. I don't think I use anything imperial other than miles, in fact I spend more time getting annoyed with US recipes online giving everything in imperial rather than decent civilised metric.
I lived in Ireland at a time when all the distance signs were in km, but all the speed limits were still in mph. No-one thought it was odd. People just got on with life. (Similarly, the changeover from IR£ to € was really simple. Within two weeks you were thinking of everything in terms of €. Within a month you'd forgotten there ever was a different currency before!)Ireland first changed their road signs to km and then, a much bigger task, changed all their speed limit signs literally overnight, in 2005.
Why ? - shouldn't something as fundamental as changing our system of measurements have been put to a vote for the people to decide ?
Would you like to go back to using farthings and thruppenny bits? How about measuring lengths in barleycorns, cubits, rods or leagues?Why not go the whole hog - change all the road signs to km, start driving on the right hand side, adopt the Euro, - don't bother asking anyone because it is all for our own good whether you like it or not.
I bet you do use imperial sometimes. How tall are you; how much do you weigh? Use metric for those and most people will have no idea if you're short or heavy.
I lived in Ireland at a time when all the distance signs were in km, but all the speed limits were still in mph. No-one thought it was odd. People just got on with life. (Similarly, the changeover from IR£ to € was really simple. Within two weeks you were thinking of everything in terms of €. Within a month you'd forgotten there ever was a different currency before!)
Other countries such as Australia, New Zeland and Canada have made the switch to using km and km/h on the roads - and surprisingly the world didn't end!
Would you like to go back to using farthings and thruppenny bits? How about measuring lengths in barleycorns, cubits, rods or leagues?
Things change, people adapt.
I bet you do use imperial sometimes. How tall are you; how much do you weigh? Use metric for those and most people will have no idea if you're short or heavy.
Why not go the whole hog - change all the road signs to km, start driving on the right hand side, adopt the Euro, - don't bother asking anyone because it is all for our own good whether you like it or not.
I use miles for long distances but tend to use meters for short. I'll admit I use it for height but not weight.
Metric just makes more sense. 10mm to the cm, 100cm to a m and 1000m to a km makes far more sense than 12in to a ft, 3ft to a yard and 1760yds in a mile.
Change is fine as long as it isn't imposed without consent. We were never asked if we wanted these fundamental changes that altered out lives quite significantly. The arguments for and against should have been put to us and the people should have been allowed to decide rather than just bury the history and individuality of a nation for the sake of a bureaucrats 'project' - or is democracy only applicable if those running the 'project' win?
Change is fine as long as it isn't imposed without consent. We were never asked if we wanted these fundamental changes that altered out lives quite significantly. The arguments for and against should have been put to us and the people should have been allowed to decide rather than just bury the history and individuality of a nation for the sake of a bureaucrats 'project' - or is democracy only applicable if those running the 'project' win?
Hopefully it was actually overnight otherwise there would have been some awful crashes.And Sweden switched from left to right hand driving virtually overnight:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H
There will come a point, within about 20 years, when everyone alive that was taught imperial measurements will be drawing their state pensions. At that point there will be no excuse not to go metric on road signs. It will be quite an exercise (as Ireland found out).
Celsius is way more logical: 0 for freezing point of water and 100 for boiling point is utterly sensible and understandable. 32F for freezing point is just stupid!Should we stick with Fahrenheit for temperature too, as the Daily Express and Mail seem to prefer?