Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Britain from Above

Friday, August 15th, 2008

A fascinating new series from the BBC comes up to expectations. (Article contributed by Derek Pollard). (more…)

Metric, a truly natural system

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

At the time of writing NASA scientists are eagerly awaiting the results of soil sampling from their latest Martian probe Phoenix. Crucial to that experiment is confirmation of the presence of water. That precious substance essential to all life both here on Earth and maybe elsewhere. It also plays a big part in shaping the world geologically and meteorologically both here and possibly on Mars. What more natural a substance to choose for defining a unit of mass as was the case originally with the metric system.

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No Olympic games without measurement

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

Accurate and consistent measurement is fundamental to modern life, and in few branches of human activity is it more important than in sport – including, of course, the Olympic Games. This is the message given by Andrew Wallard, the President of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) to mark World Metrology Day (article suggested by Martin Vlietstra).

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Language and measurement – an enduring relationship

Friday, February 1st, 2008

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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Guyana shows the way

Friday, December 21st, 2007

MetricViews has come across an interesting letter in a newspaper published in Georgetown, Guyana.
Extracts are reprinted below (acknowledgements to Stabroek News http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article_letters?id=56535420). The UK authorities could learn from the determined approach to metric conversion adopted by this former British colony.

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Which Council in the UK is most metric?

Monday, November 19th, 2007

Philip Bladon of Redditch puts this question. He also asks which local authority is most supportive of metrication. The editors of Metric Views, however, have doubts about whether this would be a useful line of enquiry, and invite comment from readers.

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A critic writes – and a response

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

UKMA’s Chairman received the following critical letter from a thoughtful correspondent (a student or teacher of physics). As it is better argued than most efforts from defenders of imperial measures, it was thought that it was worth publishing (slightly edited to conceal his identity) – together with Robin’s reply.

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Are imperial units natural? (and some useful rules of thumb)

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

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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What’s wrong with two systems?

Monday, October 15th, 2007

Defenders of imperial units sometimes claim that using units from different systems simply contributes to the richness of our language and culture. People use whichever units are appropriate to the context (they argue). Two examples of this viewpoint were published in the Independent recently. However, the Independent declined to publish a response sent by the Chairman of UKMA. We therefore reproduce the correspondence here  together with further comment.

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Pounds and ounces baffle top students

Tuesday, August 7th, 2007

In last night’s “University Challenge” (BBC2) between St Cross College, Oxford and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, the following question came up …

[Article by Martin Ward]

“Imperial measures. How many ounces in two and a half pounds?”

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