And what is 4 ft, 8 and 3/4 inches in metric ? (And despite Dodo's protestations, I will persist in suggesting that it's the width of a roman cart). keep to the Fen Causeway
Tested over millennia of drunken revelry to be just right. keep to the Fen Causeway
And how is 568ml just right and 500ml too small? The difference is just over 10%.
As for the rail gauge, according to wikipedia it's 1/2 inch, not 3/4 inch. Then, 4' and 8 3/4" is not exactly exact as far as imperial units go. If you remember it to the nearest 1/2 inch, that's just like remembering it to the nearest centimetre so 144cm works as a "metric equivalent" and 144 is an easy to remember number (being a perfect square, and all)... En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
There is an urban legend that Julius Caesar specified a legal width for chariots at the width of standard gauge, causing road ruts at that width, so all later wagons had to have the same width or else risk having one set of wheels suddenly fall into one deep rut but not the other. In fact, the origins of the standard gauge considerably predate the Roman Empire, and may even predate the invention of the wheel. The width of prehistoric vehicles was determined by number of interacting factors which gave rise to a fairly standard vehicle width of a little under 2 metres (6.6 ft) These factors have changed little over the millenia, and are still reflected in today's motor vehicles. Road rutting was common in early roads, even with stone pavements. The initial impetus for the ruts probably came from the grooves made by sleds and slide cars dragged over the surfaces of ancient trackways. Since early carts had no steering and no brakes, negotiating hills and curves was dangerous, and cutting ruts into the stone helped them negotiate the hazardous parts of the roads. Neolithic wheeled carts found in Europe had gauges varying from 130 to 175 centimetres (4 ft 3 in to 5 ft 9 in). By the Bronze age, wheel gauges appeared to have stabilized between 140 to 145 centimetres (4 ft 7 in to 4 ft 9 in) which was attributed to a tradition in ancient technology which was perpetuated throughout European history. The ancient Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and Greeks constructed roads with artificial wheelruts cut in rock spaced the wheelspan of an ordinary carriage. Such ancient stone railways connected major cities with sacred sites, such as Athens to Eleusis, Sparta to Ayklia, or Elis to Olympia. The gauge of these stone grooves was 138 to 144 centimetres (4 ft 6 in to 4 ft 9 in). The largest number of preserved stone trackways, over 150, are found on Malta. Some of these ancient stone rutways were very ambitious. Around 600 BC the citizens of ancient Corinth constructed the Diolkos, which some consider the world's first railway, a granite road with grooved tracks along which large wooden flatbed cars carrying ships and their cargo were pulled by slaves or draft animals. The space between the grooved tracks in the granite was a consistent 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in). The Roman Empire actually made less use of stone trackways than the prior Greek civilization because the Roman roads were much better than those of previous civilizations. However, there is evidence that the Romans used a more or less consistent wheel gauge adopted from the Greeks throughout Europe, and brought it to England with the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43. After the Roman departure from Britain, this more-or-less standard gauge continued in use, so the wheel gauge of animal drawn vehicles in 19th century Britain was 1.4 to 1.5 metres (4 ft 7 in to 4 ft 10 in). In 1845 George Stephenson copied the gauge of British coal wagons in his area (about 1.42 metres (4 ft 8 in) for his new locomotive, and for technical reasons widened it slightly to achieve the modern railway standard gauge of 1.435 metres (4 ft 8.5 in).
In fact, the origins of the standard gauge considerably predate the Roman Empire, and may even predate the invention of the wheel. The width of prehistoric vehicles was determined by number of interacting factors which gave rise to a fairly standard vehicle width of a little under 2 metres (6.6 ft) These factors have changed little over the millenia, and are still reflected in today's motor vehicles. Road rutting was common in early roads, even with stone pavements. The initial impetus for the ruts probably came from the grooves made by sleds and slide cars dragged over the surfaces of ancient trackways. Since early carts had no steering and no brakes, negotiating hills and curves was dangerous, and cutting ruts into the stone helped them negotiate the hazardous parts of the roads.
Neolithic wheeled carts found in Europe had gauges varying from 130 to 175 centimetres (4 ft 3 in to 5 ft 9 in). By the Bronze age, wheel gauges appeared to have stabilized between 140 to 145 centimetres (4 ft 7 in to 4 ft 9 in) which was attributed to a tradition in ancient technology which was perpetuated throughout European history. The ancient Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and Greeks constructed roads with artificial wheelruts cut in rock spaced the wheelspan of an ordinary carriage. Such ancient stone railways connected major cities with sacred sites, such as Athens to Eleusis, Sparta to Ayklia, or Elis to Olympia. The gauge of these stone grooves was 138 to 144 centimetres (4 ft 6 in to 4 ft 9 in). The largest number of preserved stone trackways, over 150, are found on Malta.
Some of these ancient stone rutways were very ambitious. Around 600 BC the citizens of ancient Corinth constructed the Diolkos, which some consider the world's first railway, a granite road with grooved tracks along which large wooden flatbed cars carrying ships and their cargo were pulled by slaves or draft animals. The space between the grooved tracks in the granite was a consistent 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in).
The Roman Empire actually made less use of stone trackways than the prior Greek civilization because the Roman roads were much better than those of previous civilizations. However, there is evidence that the Romans used a more or less consistent wheel gauge adopted from the Greeks throughout Europe, and brought it to England with the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43. After the Roman departure from Britain, this more-or-less standard gauge continued in use, so the wheel gauge of animal drawn vehicles in 19th century Britain was 1.4 to 1.5 metres (4 ft 7 in to 4 ft 10 in). In 1845 George Stephenson copied the gauge of British coal wagons in his area (about 1.42 metres (4 ft 8 in) for his new locomotive, and for technical reasons widened it slightly to achieve the modern railway standard gauge of 1.435 metres (4 ft 8.5 in).
The largest number of preserved stone trackways, over 150, are found on Malta.
So now we know...
I think the difficulty is psychological in how many people (in UK I grant you- but I've heard similar complaints from germans) approach drinking. Generally when you get a beer, you have a good drink of it to start and then slowly drink off the rest of it and then when it's nearly finished you polish off the final 2 cm in one go.
The loss of that 10% interferes with the middle "grazing" period of drinking. You have the first glug, then a couple of sips later, you finish it off. Gone in seemingly no time. keep to the Fen Causeway
That's ridiculous. Inches are divided in powers of 2, but with the metric system you just add one more decimal place. So, any multiple of 100ml is an acceptable option at that level of tolerance. If you need a tighter fit, multiples of 10ml...
I don't think I have a single half-litre or full-litre glass at home and I live in metric-land. Plus, in Spain a customary measure for beer is a third of a litre (tercio, probably something like 330ml), which is also the standard measure of aluminum cans and small bottles. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
The rest is just a matter of what you're used to.
Can't think of one in Amsterdam it'd apply to but I'm sure that's the reason keep to the Fen Causeway
The basis for the meter was intended to be a sub-division of the circumference of the Earth, but turned out to be off significantly. But the whole criterion for unit selection was inappropriate, imo. I think the concern should have been to best adapt the unit to human needs. But perhaps this should have been the subject for a Christmas Diary on Feet and Mouths. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Well, the metre and the yard are within 10% of each other. Why is is the foot better adapted to human measurements than the yard? Why should people be 6 feet tall rather than two yards tall?
Then, you're picking the centimetre and the metre which are a factor of 100 apart, compared to the inch and the foot which are a factor of 12 apart. You forget the decimetre (10cm) which is about halfway between the inch and the foot (one decimetre = 4 inches, one foot = 3 decimetres) just like the foot is halfway between the decimetre and the metre (almost exactly halfway between the decimetre and the yard).
The centimetre is like the half-inch. I don't see why one unit should be better than the other in an absolute sense. This is all a bunch of rationalisations for preferences based on familiarity.
The basis for the meter was intended to be a sub-division of the circumference of the Earth, but turned out to be off significantly.
Huh? The metre is not significantly off the 10-millionth part of the distance from pole to equator (it's off only by about 0.02% !!) and the order of magnitude has been known since Eratosthenes in the 2rd century BC to within a few percent. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
ARGeezer:
I think having a decimal system with the foot as the standard unit of length, the inch as a tenth of a foot, a ten-foot, hundred-foot, thousand-foot and ten-thousand foot measure would be handier.
So you're arguing that imperial measures are less suited to human use (other than the foot)? Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
My preferences don't matter in the scheme of things and I, of course, have no idea what my preferences would be had I grown up using the metric system. But the USA is still largely on traditional measures, for better or worse. I carry some conversions in my head. 1m = 39.37". 1" = 2.54 cm. 10cm ~ 4". 1km = .62 miles. But I have never had the opportunity to obtain customary familiarity with "native" use of metric measures of length. Yet for small volumes ccs are more intuitive to me than teaspoons or tablespoons, etc.
The metrics I live with are truly bastardized. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
