Tag Archives: metric

DfT guilty of making unfounded claims

Yesterday, the National Audit Office (NAO) criticised the UK Department for Transport (DfT) for its unfounded claims about the benefits of the proposed high speed rail project HS2. In this article, Ronnie Cohen identifies another unfounded claim by the DfT … Continue reading

Posted in General, Myths, Road signs, Transport | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Familiar with imperial? Do you know that…?

Miles, yards, feet and inches, pints, pounds and stones. Yes, fifty years after the UK embarked on the metric transition, we still need to be familiar with some of those old units.  In this article, Ronnie Cohen looks at some … Continue reading

Posted in Consumer affairs, Education, General, History, Law, Science | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The 1895 Select Committee on weights and measures

This article looks back to the findings and recommendations of the 1895 Parliamentary Select Committee on weights and measures.

Posted in Education, General, History, Law, Transport | Tagged , , , , , , | 26 Comments

1862 report from the Select Committee on weights and measures

The question of adopting metric measures in the UK is not a new proposition; in 1862 Parliament’s Select Committee on Weights and Measures considered the matter and came down firmly in favour of metrication. A century and a half later, … Continue reading

Posted in Law, Science, Technical, Views from abroad | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Myths, misinformation and fallacies (1) – Are imperial units “natural”?

The claim is often made by last-ditch defenders of miles, feet, pints and acres that “Imperial units are natural whereas metric units are artificial”.   In the first of an occasional series of articles on “myths, misinformation and fallacies” used by … Continue reading

Posted in General, Myths, Technical | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

World trade – who are the top three?

On 11 February, Bloomberg reported that China had overtaken the US in global trade. One of our readers has now drawn our attention to additional information on this subject.

Posted in General, Views from abroad | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

A UK metric time line from 1980

In June last year, we published a time line up to 1980 showing progress towards the adoption of a single, simple, logical and coherent measurement system in the British Isles. We now bring this story up to date.

Posted in Consumer affairs, Education, General, Health, History, Law, Road signs, Science, Sport, Technical | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Thinking of buying a fridge?

A recent survey of their web sites leads us to speculate on where retailers see themselves: most plump for the present,  but a few appear to favour the last century.

Posted in Consumer affairs, General | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Metrication in Malaysia illustrated

It was not possible to provide illustrations for the article on metric progress in Malaysia that was published on MV in January 2010. We can now remedy this deficiency.

Posted in Road signs, Transport, Views from abroad | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments