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UK back to "imperial" measurements ?

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PlainName:

--- Quote from: branadic on May 30, 2022, 08:00:33 pm ---So will there be a similar video soon for UK?
-branadic-

--- End quote ---

Much better than a video - the NPL has an open day every year and you can walk around most of the labs where they mess around with this stuff. Well, look real close and have some sciencey bloke (sometimes a blokess) explain it all to you. Fascinating day out if you like that kind of thing (and most of us here would do). From what I recall, it's free too!

Benta:

--- Quote from: TimFox on May 30, 2022, 08:18:17 pm ---Mr Ford was a stickler for precision measurements, and popularized "Jo Blocks" in the US, but the legal definition of the inch is a Federal regulation.

--- End quote ---
First, apologies: I added to my post before your reply, but without changing the sense of it.

Calling Henry Ford "a stickler for precision" is a bit far-fetched. Rather, he was a pioneer in mass-production, and realized that all parts delivered to a production line need to be pretty much 100% identical for maximum assembly efficiency.
Now, Dearborn wasn't one big plant, but several spread out over the area, each producing different parts for the car. THAT was his his rationale for buying C.E.J. All plants needed the same basic inch for their production. Pistons that wouldn't fit the engine block would be a disaster (we're talking a few 1/100 mm here).
At the same time, other companies would deliver parts to the assembly line. They were forced to use the 25.4 mm inch as well, otherwise it wouldn't work
And so on.
The war effort 1941...45 would have been impossible without a common inch.
That it was ratified as late as 1959 is pretty unimportant IMO.

PS: the UK/US inch definitions from 1910 are based on the meter (rether, mm).


eugene:

--- Quote from: TimFox on May 30, 2022, 06:56:24 pm ---
--- Quote from: eugene on May 30, 2022, 06:18:25 pm ---Which is what has me a little confused (but not enough to actually study the matter; I have more important things to think about.)

What does the government have to do with any of it? Unless there are strict regulations, the people are going to use whatever units they want, or whatever units their customers want, or whatever is convenient given the situation. The government of the UK, like the government of the US, is kidding themselves (and wasting their time) if they think they have anything significant to say about it.

--- End quote ---

Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution states that Congress has the power to "fix the Standard of Weights and Measures".
In current US practice, the merchant and purchaser can measure substances in either conventional or metric units, but the statutes govern the definition of the kg and lb av to be used.
Prior to the Revolution, individual States had their own units and currencies.
More than you want to know:  https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-C13-691a9b38e29a85d0925f4db586b60735/pdf/GOVPUB-C13-691a9b38e29a85d0925f4db586b60735.pdf

--- End quote ---


I interpret that to be just a standardization of some units. In other words, if I sell a box of something that says "net weight 1 lb" on it, then it needs to agree with what they call a pound. It doesn't require that I use pounds or kilograms or any other particular unit of measure.

They might actually believe that they can dictate which units I use and which I don't, but the truth on the street is that it doesn't work that way.

TimFox:
Here is an interesting typescript (now in the John Crerar Library at the University of Chicago) with Ford's history of measurements up to 1934 ("Century of Progress" world's fair in Chicago), including the Johansson acquisition.
It brags about measurement precision down to low millionths of an inch.
It mentions that copies of the British Imperial Yard were sent to the US in 1856;  later, Congress went metric in 1866.  Interestingly, it doesn't mention the calibration factor between inches and meters.
https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/ead/pdf/century0840.pdf

TimFox:

--- Quote from: eugene on May 30, 2022, 08:52:07 pm ---
--- Quote from: TimFox on May 30, 2022, 06:56:24 pm ---
--- Quote from: eugene on May 30, 2022, 06:18:25 pm ---Which is what has me a little confused (but not enough to actually study the matter; I have more important things to think about.)

What does the government have to do with any of it? Unless there are strict regulations, the people are going to use whatever units they want, or whatever units their customers want, or whatever is convenient given the situation. The government of the UK, like the government of the US, is kidding themselves (and wasting their time) if they think they have anything significant to say about it.

--- End quote ---

Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution states that Congress has the power to "fix the Standard of Weights and Measures".
In current US practice, the merchant and purchaser can measure substances in either conventional or metric units, but the statutes govern the definition of the kg and lb av to be used.
Prior to the Revolution, individual States had their own units and currencies.
More than you want to know:  https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-C13-691a9b38e29a85d0925f4db586b60735/pdf/GOVPUB-C13-691a9b38e29a85d0925f4db586b60735.pdf

--- End quote ---


I interpret that to be just a standardization of some units. In other words, if I sell a box of something that says "net weight 1 lb" on it, then it needs to agree with what they call a pound. It doesn't require that I use pounds or kilograms or any other particular unit of measure.

They might actually believe that they can dictate which units I use and which I don't, but the truth on the street is that it doesn't work that way.

--- End quote ---

The US laws are explicit:  see page 3 of this NIST summary  https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1020.pdf
The full regulations can be found in
Uniform Packaging and Labeling Regulation (UPLR) in National Institute of Standards
and Technology Handbook 130, “Uniform Laws and Regulation in the Areas of Legal Metrology and Fuel Quality.”

"Units of the International System of Units (SI) (metric system) and U.S. Customary Units are acceptable for use
in the quantity declaration. The declaration of quantity on most packages are subject to FTC and FDA regulations
and shall include both SI and U.S. customary units. Packaged goods subject only to State regulation under the
UPLR may be labeled with only SI units (metric) in the quantity declaration. When both SI and U.S. customary
units appear on a package either unit of measurement may appear first (see Exemption 11.33 “U.S. Customary
Units Consumer Commodities” in the UPLR)."

This applies to labels on packages.  There are also regulations on type faces, etc. in the complete document.

Correction to my posts above:  the legal term is "customary units", not "conventional units".  Sorry.

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