I recently had an exchange of correspondence with an acquaintance (a former RAF pilot) who tried to explain to me why most of the world of aviation still uses nautical miles and knots rather than kilometres and km/h. The explanation went like this.
Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Why do nautical miles linger on?
Friday, January 1st, 2010Big Bang vs “voluntary gradualism”
Friday, December 11th, 2009A correspondent asks whether countries that carried out their metrication programme quickly fared better or worse than countries that have tried to do the job gradually and voluntarily.
An anniversary overlooked
Saturday, September 26th, 2009This year marks 125 years since the United Kingdom signed the Metre Convention. (more…)
Marathon facts
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009As an alternative to Budget gloom, one of our regular contributors, Martin Vlietstra, provides some topical information about the marathon.
‘User-Friendly’ metric
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009One 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. If you are a Metric ‘Purist’, turn away now…
Our Christmas Cracker
Friday, December 19th, 2008The 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 some knockabout fun.
Is this the UK’s oldest kilometre sign?
Monday, July 28th, 2008A sign showing kilometres on the route of the first ’London’ marathon had its anniversary this week. For a century, it has pointed the way for anyone trying to retrace the steps of the original runners towards the finishing line at White City in London, where the 1908 Olympic Games were held.
Metric, a truly natural system
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008At 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.
First Emperor showed the way – 2000 years ago
Saturday, April 12th, 2008I recently had the pleasure of visiting the splendid (Chinese) First Emperor exhibition at the British Museum. Apart from the terracotta warriors, what impressed me the most was the way that Qin Shihuangdi imposed standardisation on his vast empire – including, of course, weights and measures.
Visionary sci-fi writer uses metric
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008The late Arthur C Clarke who died this month (March 2008) wrote what may be regarded as his most memorable non-fiction article in 1945. He was the first person to propose the use of satellites in geostationary orbit to form part of a global communications network.
http://lakdiva.org/clarke/1945ww/1945ww_oct_305-308.html
It was quite fitting that his orbital calculations and other details were entirely in metric in recognition of the future as seen from early post-war England.