That's an American gallon! eyebrow The British gallon is more - 4.55 liters.RonDawg:
Are you still imperial?
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discrepancy
Contributor
Absolutely correct RonDawg. Old habits die hard. Many places still use both systems for some things.RonDawg:
This one's been around for a while, but it illustrates the same point.
(Adapted from http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html)
US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches. Why? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the first US railroads were built by English expatriates.
Why did the British start building them like that? Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. The people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing.
The wagons were built that wide because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads. Because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts. Those first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The Roman roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts? They were first made by the wheels of Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they all had the same wheel spacing.
So, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot, and railways today are still built around the width of two horses' backsides.
But it goes on...
When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit wider, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.
The railroad from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track, as we know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So a major design feature of the world's most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the twice the width of a horse's rear end.
Oh, and by the way, what day is it? 10/07/05 or 07/10/05? 
(And don't you silly east-coasters start with the 10/08/05 - 08/10/05 shenaningans.)
Us poor denizens of the US get pulled in so many ways on these issues...I wonder if a presidential candidate will ever run with "metric" as part of his / her platform. I know folks are getting antsy in the UK on such issues and that it might just take a party movement to get it done.
I have to dive Imperial or I'd get myself killed, because that's just how my brain works now; I'd be diving at 130 meters with 24 KGs of weight if you gave me the wrong gear.
I'd like to start a revolution and change to the Metric system, but I'll sit around on my butt until someone else does (typical American). So, who's gonna print the banners and get the whole thing off the ground?
Sorry...just my random, sleep-deprived 2 cents on the subject.
Woland
(And don't you silly east-coasters start with the 10/08/05 - 08/10/05 shenaningans.)Us poor denizens of the US get pulled in so many ways on these issues...I wonder if a presidential candidate will ever run with "metric" as part of his / her platform. I know folks are getting antsy in the UK on such issues and that it might just take a party movement to get it done.
I have to dive Imperial or I'd get myself killed, because that's just how my brain works now; I'd be diving at 130 meters with 24 KGs of weight if you gave me the wrong gear.
I'd like to start a revolution and change to the Metric system, but I'll sit around on my butt until someone else does (typical American). So, who's gonna print the banners and get the whole thing off the ground?
Sorry...just my random, sleep-deprived 2 cents on the subject.
Woland
Don Burke
Contributor
Don Burke
Contributor
When read in context, this statement actually means something far different than most people believe.discrepancy:
discrepancy
Contributor
Yeah, but it's a good line anyway.Don Burke:
discrepancy
Contributor
Right again Don. Standard gauge is 4' 8 1/2". But wide railway gauge (used in the state of Victoria) is 5' 3", and Queensland uses narrow gauge at 3' 6".Don Burke:
Does that mean these historical systems derived from different sized horses? Of course not. All it means is we have the devil's job trying to get an express train from Melbourne to Brisbane.
But, again, why let the truth get in the way of a good story?
Don Burke
Contributor
Agreed. I have been known to bend it to my own purposes as well.discrepancy:
Personally, I think the reason that the US will NOT convert to metric, is due to the people (retailers, gas stations, delis) who use certified measuring equipment. ANYONE who sells items by weight or volume, must have a certified scale or meter. Not only does the cost of having a "legal for trade" scale cost more, but you must have it certified annually (at least in Colorado, where we have 2 certified scales) So if the US were to convert to metric, everyone who has one of these devices would have to switch their measuing devices to metric as well... Products would have to change their packaging from Imperial to Metric, it would cost billions of dollars just to switch to metric. I don't think that the issue for the US is whether Metric is BETTER or not... It would just cost a fortune to pull it off... aside from the fact, that people don't know the difference between a liter and a pint as it is.
Don Burke
Contributor
I would have believed this forty years ago. I do not today.howarde:
A migration toward dual reading devices over thirty years or so would be nearly free since the majority of the equipment would have been replaced or overhauled during that time anyway. For electronic devices, this would be pretty simple. For mechanical devices, only slightly less simple. Much of this has already been figured out. I would expect if you asked the right people, you would find most existing devices can be converted.
The product packaging seems to be slowly migrating. I have been buying soda in two liter bottles for some time now.
One concern would be for very durable products like heavy machinery. Since many (maybe most) mechanics have to have dual tool sets anyway, maybe losing the inches would not be all that painful or expensive.
Manufacturers would find themselves scrapping dies, taps, and things of that nature. The vehicles I have been working on lately tell me that this process is proceeding.
Some things may never change. I would expect items like 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2 inch socket drives to stay the same size and get another name. I do not consider this to be a failure of the metric system.
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