New (to me) "metric" unit

[zdas04]

There was a homework question this morning in Piping (thread378-388505) that is pretty sure to vanish by Monday. The guy actually photocopied his text book. Here is a screen shot:

In the first line the text's author says "... enters the bearing at 250 N/hr". Does anyone have any idea what an "N/hr" might be?

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[SomptingGuy]

and milk comes in 568ml bottles

568ml is 1 UK pint to within a tiny drop.

Steve

 

[cswilson]

My (American) daughters were in track and field in high school, which has a weird mix of units. The distances for the running events are now in meters (they weren't when I was a kid), but the jumps and throws are still measured in feet and inches.

However, the distance runs are 1600 and 3200 meters, to keep them close to the old 1-mile and 2-mile runs (1609 and 3218 m), whereas the standard international distances are 1500 and 3000 meters.

This presented a problem for one of my daughters' teammates, who was the best mile-range runner in the US. To qualify for the Junior World championships, the authorities demanded a 1500-meter qualifying time, even though she was so good that 15/16 of her 1600-meter time would qualify her. She had to fly clear across the country to run in an accredited 1500-meter race to qualify.

 

[zdas04]

Don't you love it when decision makers have zero latitude? This whole no-tolerance culture we are implementing is going to end up costing an end to any respect for authority (if you send a 1st grade kid home from school for a week because he CHEWED A CRACKER INTO THE SHAPE OF A GUN, you know that that kid is never going to give more than lip service to rules ever again).

In this silly mode we are in, if the girl had been allowed in without a qualifying time at a sanctioned distance in an accredited distance, some parent of a slower kid would have sued. With that threat always looming, officials will always fall back on a policy rather than make a decision.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[hokie66]

1600 and 3200 metres for humans? I thought that was only for horses.

 

[waross]

I have never seen a high school text book in Canada which gave the correct conversion from U.S. gallons to Imperial gallons.
The text book answer is that the American gallon is 128 ounces and the Imperial gallon is 160 ounces. 160/128 = 5/4 Text book answer.
I saw one text book that gave the weight of an Imperial gallon as 10 lbs. and rounded the weight of a U.S. gallon to 8.25 lbs.
That book still gave the ratio as 5/4 (5/4 = 10/8.25)??
Hint; No one ever check and so did not discover that as well as the gallons being different sizes, the fluid ounces are also different sizes.
An Imperial fluid ounce weighs one ounce and an Imperial gallon weighs 160 ounces or 10 pounds. A U.S. fluid ounce does not weigh one Imperial ounce.
{Rant off}

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[LittleInch]

Ok, as someone who lived through most of this historical stuff, my view and answer to the key items AFAIK is:

The UK went through a period of "metrication" where all official weights and measures were metricated, hence the issue about selling things in kg and g instead of lbs and ounces, etc . There is a permanent get out for beer which is sold in pints / half pints and distances on roads / speed in miles per hour. The discrepancy between people telling you things in imperial or metric is essentially one of age. Those 40 and under were only ever schooled in metric and hence tend to use those units all the time - the only exception seems to be the weight of babies which although "officially" measured in kg is announced to the world in lbs...)

Decimalisation referred to the change in currency from 12 pennies to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound, complete with strange coins such as the "threpany bit" - 3 pennies and a 10 shilling note - to a decimal system of 100 pence (initially called "new pence") to the pound, all of which were coins, thought he 1/2p was always a problem and disappeared a few years later.

This occurred on a single day in 1973, though of course a dual system existed for some time after to cash in old coins etc.

The issue between US units and Imperial units is still a key one as there are some considerable differences and I still ask people are they using US GPM or imperial GPM as they are quite different. Length and weight seem to be the same, but not volume for some reason....

BTW if you want official designations of SI and conversions BS 350 is an excellent document - interestingly it now calls imperial units "UK pt, fl oz etc" and quotes 1 UK gal to a US gal at 1.20095 US gal to the UK one.

Interestingly Ireland has, over the 20 something years I've been visiting, changed gradually from miles to km and km/hr as new roads and systems were built using EU money and is now virtually wholly metric. If you saw a dual sign in the UK it was an error, although many trucks and buses have signs saying they are limited to xx km/hr as these are EU wide speed limits (trucs are 90km/hr - 56 mph). Al lot of roadwork signs are now in m as it's pretty much the same as a yard when you're talking those sort of vague distances.

The beer / foam issue arose about 19 years ago when the new labour government came to power and initially promised to pass legislation so that you got a full pint of liquid plus a head. However despite personally writing to the deputy prime minister to ask what happened, it seems the lobby powers of the brewers, who then normally only sell 90-95% of a pint had prevailed. It is common to ask the person serving to "top it up" when the foam has reached ridiculous levels, but 1/2 " (1cm) is common.

we've drifted off the original topic, but this is much more interesting!

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[zdas04]

This is also Tech Side where foray's into the weeds is not only allowed, but expected and even encouraged. The damn moderator (me) never deletes anything (although I was tempted to edit AFAIK into "AFAIK [moderator: As Far As I Know]" after looking it up. Thanks for the history lesson.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[KENAT]

The rule of thumb we used to use on foam was 'one finger of foam' was permissible, more and you asked for a top off.

One hell of a shock when we went to France and got 'demi litres' of beer that were nearly 50% froth.

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[btrueblood]

The French don't know beer.

 

[JohnRBaker]

The rule of thumb we used to use on foam was 'one finger of foam' was permissible...

Isn't that mixing your metaphors?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[KENAT]

Not when the thumb master is also mister weights & measures as often happens at small drinking collectives.

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[dgallup]

Growing up in the US but always summering in Canada on a lake, I knew the approximate conversion of 6 gallons US = 5 gallons Imperial at an early age from buying boat gas. It was always more difficult to figure out the amount of oil to add as you had to figure out which country the oil originated in, frequently that was not noted. It got easier when they started putting the metric volume on the oil cans as well as the other units. I also learned the approximate metric equivalent of an Imperial Quart at an early age as the duty free stores entering Canada have the unusual size of 1.14 liters.

Just to keep things interesting, we also have the little used US dry gallon defined as 1⁄8 US bushel (4.405 l).

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[SomptingGuy]

I never understood why cheap nasty liquor often comes in plastic "1.75 liter" containers in the USA. Seems like an odd size and even more odd to use metric for it. I've not seen this size used elsewhere either.

Steve

 

[JohnRBaker]

Speaking of 'odd' sizes for containers of alcohol, at one time liquor in the US come in 'Fifths', or 1/5 of a gallon. However, in the 70's, at the urging of the distilling and spirits industries in the country, the US actually did 'metrify' one segment of our society (although the brewers appeared to have been left out of this scheme) where all wine and liquor bottles are now in nice 'even' metric units. So a 'fifth' became 750 ml, and a 'Magnum' became 1.5 L, etc. As for the 1.75 L size, from what I can find with respect to that various sizes of wine and liquor bottles, I didn't find any mention of that being listed as any sort of standard.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[dgallup]

There are some decent spirits that come in 1.75 L bottles, Tanqueray gin, Dewars Scotch and Grey Goose vodka among others. The 1.75 l bottles were the replacement for the US half gallon. My Father was furious at the time as the volume decreased 7.5% but the price didn't. I was recently introduced to a new colloquialism for the big bottles, a "handle" as in "pick me up a handle of gin" because most of the bottles are molded with an handle in them.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

 

[JohnRBaker]

It appears that the issue of whether the US should move fully to the Metric system or not has popped-up, in of all places, in the 2016 presidential race. Well at least one candidate has thrown his support behind the US moving in that direction (it would be interesting if someone were to bring this up during the debates next year as it could prove to be as controversial as those questions about evolution):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/07/lincoln-chafee-metric_n_7520402.html

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[IRstuff]

Well, good luck with that one. The Mars Climate Orbiter example is an example of incomplete journalism. While the units mismatch was indeed a root cause, NASA and its contractors had massive and systematic organizational missteps up until the last course correction prior to losing the MCO to its final fate.

Military contracts specifications routinely have a mix of US customary and metric units, and a disciplined organization with the right tools can handle the tasks required.

TTFN
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[JohnRBaker]

Like I said, IF the question was asked, the response could prove entertaining ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[IRstuff]

These pols can barely get the politics correct; I shudder to think what they would do with actual science.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529


Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
There is a homework forum hosted by engineering.com:

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

 

[EmmanuelTop]

As far as drinking is concerned, in the area where I come from there is a saying (more like a wisdom if you actually think about it): "For a good pig, there is no bad food".
This applies not only for the packaging quantity or units, but it goes for the quality as well.


Dejan IVANOVIC
Process Engineer, MSChE