Metric vs. other measurement systems - chart

[Unkle Fuzzy]

Ooops, My mistake, a roll of fencing is 20 Rods not 1.

Been a while since I read that label.

[jatt]

Yeah a lot of those old measurements make my head spin a bit.

Got my metric and as required - imperial.

Should'nt have bought a Seventies pommy tractor - prob Whitworth. So far, so good with my spanner and socket selection.

[IntheGroove]

My Norton 650 Atlas was Whitworth. Snap-On still sells Whitworth tools...

[Toolmaker51]

Despite the fact my schooling was done with the metric system, have had to become reasonably familiar with imperial -- dealing with "old people" (ducks a flying spanner). Then theres the fact that a fair bit of the caravan stuff I deal with is still in feet. So I ensure all the tape measures in the shop have both measurements on them.

Base 10 number system --- dunno how difficult that can be!!

Bought a block in town about 15 years ago -- damn thing was still measured in links (subset of chains apparently). Even my solicitor (well into his 60s back then) had to pull out the conversion tables for that one.

Aha; term "flying spanner" tells us which direction to aim..... JK of course.
I've been subject to practice of dual-dimensioning and conversion awhile. Like hemmjo states, there is room and application for either. I do little programming, conversational at that. In most instances, mm entries are [seem] less susceptible to keystroke errors.
I'd say being able to select via touch of a button is best of both worlds.

[basil3w]

As I recall, a lid was 3 fingers of a sandwich baggie...

[Nick79]

What ever happened to the "Rule of thumb"?

[Karl_H]

"Rule of Thumb" has falsely been tied to to notion it is OK to beat your wife if your sick is smaller than your thumb, thus most of us don't use the phrase any more.

[Jon]

Teaching children to avoid measurement systems.

[mklotz]

Don't laugh. There's probably a course in teacher's colleges where future teachers are taught how to convert feet to bicycles and pounds to hamburgers.

We're well into the third generation of the dumbing down of the population. Soon folks will have to go to a scribe to have something read to them or written for them. The elite scribes will be able to do simple sums (but no division) for their clients.

[Crusty]

And everyone will call it mathematics, when it's arithmetic, because that's what the hive mind believes.

• Arithmetic is operations with numbers.
• Mathematics is manipulation of symbols (such as X).

I still know how to find the square root of a number with pencil and paper.