Category Archives: Education

URS buys Scott Wilson. So what?

The UK’s twelfth largest consultancy by turnover, Scott Wilson, has been bought by the US design firm URS for £218 million. URS is second in the ‘Engineering News Record’ list of top 500 design firms. Metric Views speculates that Scott … Continue reading

Posted in Education, General, Technical, Views from abroad | Tagged | 2 Comments

‘Rebalancing of the UK economy’ postponed?

Metric Views has learned that the coalition government may drop the proposed amendments to road traffic sign regulations, which would have required dual signage of height and width restrictions within four years and which would have achieved savings and improvements in … Continue reading

Posted in Education, General, Road signs, Transport | Tagged , , , | 23 Comments

Measuring, trading and manufacturing

Two questions from a reader have prompted thoughts about the impact on UK trade of the continued use of pound/inch units in the US, and about the future prospects for manufacturing industry.

Posted in Education, General, Technical, Views from abroad | Tagged , , , | 19 Comments

Kids don’t count

Two recent Channel 4 Dispatches programmes entitled “Kids Don’t Count” sought to demonstrate just that. But if you saw the programmes and are a regular reader of Metric Views, you may have wondered if the programmes overlooked the real problem.

Posted in Education, General | Tagged , , , , , | 30 Comments

Spare a thought for any would-be Brysons out there

What units do you choose when you are writing travel books and other popular non-fiction for English speakers, wherever they might be found? (Article written by a reader of Bill Bryson’s books)

Posted in Education, General, Media, Technical | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

The English language – not to be taken for granted

Martin Vlietstra suggests a possible threat to our prosperity resulting from our resistance to change.

Posted in Consumer affairs, Education, General, Views from abroad | 5 Comments

Update on the fires in Australia

Our correspondent down-under brings us up-to-date on the recent catastrophic fires in the state of Victoria. Pat Naughtin wrote on 5 March:

Posted in Education, General | 1 Comment

‘User-Friendly’ metric

One of our readers, John Frewen-Lord, asks why popular resistance to the simplicity of metric measures is now limited to a few English-speaking countries. With change in the air, he makes a few suggestions to help the stalled metric changeovers. … Continue reading

Posted in Education, General, History, Views from abroad | 18 Comments

Our Christmas Cracker

The traditional Christmas cracker usually contains a joke, a paper hat and a toy, and goes off with a bang. Metric Views, in its cracker, has an anecdote about a Christmas Fair, links to two radio programmes, and a video with … Continue reading

Posted in Consumer affairs, Education, General, History, Media | 20 Comments

Will science training for MPs help?

A report in the Times that new MPs are to get some scientific training poses the question: will this help them to understand why we need to scrap non-scientific imperial units and embrace the modern metric system? (Article based on … Continue reading

Posted in Education, General, Technical | 8 Comments