4 ms·
English Units of Measure
Really awesome primer on the English system of measurement and its history.
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y agoIt's missing so much, like the know used to be defined at 42 fathoms per 30 seconds, giving 5040 ft per hour, which was close to the original definition of the mile. Then when the nautical mile was more useful it became 47'3" in 28 seconds, which equates to 6075 ft/hr, which is pretty close to the idea of 1 NM/hr. There's more, but it's pretty good. A fun read. Challenge question, a snail's pace is a furlong/fortnight. How fast is that in SI units?
- electromagnetic 17y agoIIRC a snail's pace is roughly 0.00015 m/s
- spatulon 17y agohttp://www.google.co.uk/search?q=1+furlong+per+fortnight+in+m/s http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=1+furlong+per+fortnight+in+...
- robin_reala 17y agoOf course, the title should be 'Old english units of measure'. England started officially becoming metric in 1965 (with a few exceptions like road signs and pints of beer).
- halo 17y agoConfusingly, the US system commonly referred as "English units" differs from the traditional English Imperial unit used before metrication in several key ways - the most notable difference being the US units of liquid volume being notably smaller than their Imperial counterparts.
- robin_reala 17y agoOh, the US refers to it as English Units does it? That explains a lot. In the UK one talks about the two systems as being Metric and Imperial.
- sp332 17y agoIn America, at least when I was in school not long ago, they're still referred to as English units.
- pavel_lishin 17y agoMy car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it.
- gecko 17y agoThat works out to 0.00198412698 miles per gallon. I hope Homer left out a couple of zeros--but then again, given the car he built, my hope is likely misplaced.