Metric Views

It is often claimed that imperial is based on 12s (duodecimal) and that this has advantages over decimal. But is this truth or myth? (more…)

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the splendid (Chinese) First Emperor exhibition at the British Museum. Apart from the terracotta warriors, what impressed me the most was the way that Qin Shihuangdi imposed standardisation on his vast empire - including, of course, weights and measures.

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One objection to metrication that I often hear is that the imperial system is embedded in the English language. If we were to lose the old measurement system, we would lose a lot of our language with it, they say. Just how true is that? (Article contributed by David Brown)

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With the slow transition to metric in the UK, a lot of myths have emerged regarding metric and imperial. With a New Year it is an appropriate time to examine some of these myths starting with the claim that imperial feet are ‘natural’ units. (more…)

One of the claims sometimes made by defenders of imperial weights and measures is that they are “natural”. The metric system (they may say) is all very well for science and technical matters, but for everyday life imperial units like the foot conform to the human scale and are more natural – unlike the arbitrary metric unit, the metre. We examine this argument.

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