Saw an odd little thing. I know that the US still uses their slightly odd mixture of Imperial and American measures (the fluid ounce is a different size from Imperial, different number to a pint etc, but most of it is feet and inches and so on).
Then this company in California will let you buy your Geiger counter using:
Options: European SI units (mSv/hr);
Umm, isn’t SI, umm, Standard International?
In
Système International.
Relax! The vendor is just making it clear to his customers that his product is also available calibrated in Euro-imperialist units of measure, for those unfortunates who are compelled to comply with statist fiats about systems of measure. There’s nothing wrong with the older, ‘common’ system of radiation measurement units – roentgens, rems and so forth – expect, of course, that they are guilty of the cardinal sin of being developed by users and not imposed from on high by bureaucrats. Roentgens and so forth are defined from base SI units.
llater,
llamas
Its been my understanding that most lab/engineering users calibrate their instruments in metric since most of their peers around the world do also, while the rest of us find the American measure perfectly suitable for everyday life – those of us who need to know metric learn it and those who don’t, don’t.
Its difficult to understand why a unified measuring system is considered so vital in England. The only reason I can come up with is that someones just using it to boost their control of society – but that’s so unlikely, since we know that the politicians only make laws for our benefit.
Tim adds: My father’s one of the (15 or so?) members of the UK Metric Association and this does, as you might imagine, cause the odd slightly strained conversation.
The question surely should be ‘Why would anyone wish to count metric or Imperial Geigers in the first place, unless the owner had a number of them, and one went missing!
SI is the only international system of units.
The correct unit symbols would have been
mSv/h and are always printed in upright letters.
3. Notes on British Units of Measurement
In Great Britain, the yard, the avoirdupois pound, the troy pound, and the apothecaries pound are identical with the units of the same names used in the United States. The tables of British linear measure, troy mass, and apothecaries mass are the same as the corresponding United States tables, except for the British spelling “drachm” in the table of apothecaries mass. The table of British avoirdupois mass is the same as the United States table up to 1 pound; above that point the table reads:
14 pounds = 1 stone
2 stones = 1 quarter = 28 pounds
4 quarters = 1 hundredweight = 112 pounds
20 hundredweight = 1 ton = 2240 pounds*
The present British gallon and bushel–known as the “Imperial gallon” and “Imperial bushel”–are, respectively, about 20% and 3% larger than the United States gallon and bushel. The Imperial gallon is defined as the volume of 10 avoirdupois pounds of water under specified conditions, and the Imperial bushel is defined as 8 Imperial gallons. Also, the subdivision of the Imperial gallon as presented in the table of British apothecaries fluid measure differs in two important respects from the corresponding United States subdivision, in that the Imperial gallon is divided into 160 fluid ounces (whereas the United States gallon is divided into 128 fluid ounces), and a “fluid scruple” is included.
2.3. British and United States Systems of Measurement.:
1 U.S. fluid ounce = 1.041 British fluid ounces
1 British fluid ounce = 0.961 U.S. fluid ounce**
1 U.S. gallon = 0.833 British Imperial gallon
1 British Imperial gallon = 1.201 U.S. gallons
*A U.S. (or Short) Ton is 2,000 lbs. A metric Ton of 1,000 Kg is 2205 lbs, which is 1.6% less than the British or Long Ton.
**The US gallon is divided in to 4 quarts of 32 oz each or 8 pints of 16 oz. each. There used to be a rhyme: “The pint is a pound, the world around.” The US pint is 473 ml., which if filled with water at stp should weigh about 4% more than a pound. By definition the British pint is 20 British oz. and a pint of water should weigh 1.25 lbs. 16 British oz. should weigh 1 lbs.
Tim Worstall wrote:
‘SI is the only international system of units.’
Patently, this is untrue, since there are many other systems of measure which are used internationally, some officially recognized, some not, and some which are the clear preference of the users even though some other system has been ‘officially’ recognized. And many places which ‘officially’ use the SI system have really done no more than convert units. Why is jam sold in 454-gram jars?
The worldwide convention for nautical and airspeed measurement, for example, is knots, a unit unknown to the SI system. And so forth.
A truer statement would be ‘Euro-imperialists would like for SI to be the only international system of units, except those silly people keep getting in the way. Obviously, more regulation is needed!’
llater,
llamas
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