Imperial measurements - how were they devised?

[Rena]

It's 60 years ago that I was taught that measurements were standardised by a king (whose name escapes me), hence the "imperial" part of the name.   

A "yard" is from the middle of his chest to his finger tips and this unit was used by the king's tailor.
A 'foot' is the length of his foot
An "inch" is the measurement from the tip of the thumb to the first joint.

Rena

[Hackstaple]

However they were devised, they are outmoded and should be done away with. The metric system is logical and is taught in our schools.

Any engineer who says that fractions of an inch are more accurate than millimetre descriptions is slightly old-fashioned. I think they may be OK for working on bicycles but not on nuclear power stations. Calculations these  days are normally done on computers, not one slide rules. Try getting your computer to calculate 17 and two-thirds times One Mile, 3 furlongs, 187 yards, 2 feet, 4 and a half inches.

In the same way the Fahrenheit themometer is also now antique. Celsius is pretty simple - Zero is the freezing point of water and 100 the boiling point. 10 degrees is a coldish day, 20 is warm and 30 is hot. [I am aware that the freezing and boiling points are at sea level]. 

[Rena]

Even if the government had not phased out Imperial
measurements, market forces would have eventually dictated that the UK manufacture in metric sizes.

There's a drawback in not being able to purchase timber in the old imperial measurements.  I've had the dickens of a job planing lengths of metric timber to replace a couple of 200 year old imperial width floorboards. 


Interesting that the engineering trade has been mentioned.  I've still got my father's feeler gauges from the 1930's, the thinnest being "one thou" - lol, now that IS a fraction 

Cheers,
Rena

[behindthefrogs]

Try getting your computer to calculate 17 and two-thirds times One Mile, 3 furlongs, 187 yards, 2 feet, 4 and a half inches.

Interestingly the first computer with which I worked in the early 1960s, a LEOIII, was designed to handle such calculations.  It was designed as a commercial computer which would calculate old pound shillings and pence and the imperial measures.  There is one in the Science Museum if you need it.

David

[trish251]

I also started working with commercial computers in 1967 (not the little PC types - the basement of a building type) - we didn't go metric in Australia (other than money) until mid 1970s. I have vague memories of working with computerising the workings within surveyor's notebooks which probably used some of Hack's mentioned distance measures

Trish

PS Why were computer folks always confined to the basement - Do they work better without seeing the light of day?

[Rena]

The mechanical engineering firm I worked for also had a couple of computers which were ordered late 1950's and were up and running early 1960's.  One was a computerised precision machine, the first in England and the other took up a whole office.  Neither was used for accounting which was still done by comptometer operators.

Rena

[mike175]

Fascinating topic!

I believe the Imperial system refers to the Roman Empire . . . though I'm sure someone will know better 

According to Wikipedia (so it must be right!  ), "1 metre was originally defined as 1/40,000,000th of the polar circumference of the Earth . .  . and now is defined as the distance travelled by light in an absolute vacuum during 1/299,792,458 of a second"
 . . . seems pretty logical to me . . .

Speaking of logic, surely it would be far more logical if we all converted to the binary system . . . since that's what most computers are based on? 

Let's face it, if you're working on your own it matters little what system you use. If you're working on a part for a space station in association with other people, it's probably better if you all use the same system . . . 

Mike.

[jksdelver]

May be wrong here but was some of the measurements devices by using the sections of your four fingers 3 X 4 + 12?  That made it easier to count

Go on then I know right now your all checking it !!

[behindthefrogs]

Fascinating topic!

Speaking of logic, surely it would be far more logical if we all converted to the binary system . . . since that's what most computers are based on? 

Mike.

Then you would be able to count up to 1023 using your fingers