On 2010/06/06, at 17:12 , Martin Vlietstra wrote:
For many years the Daily Telegraph quoted the height of high tide at
Dover in feet without the benefit of a metric conversion, even
though the height indicator at the Dover docks was only in metres,
the admiralty charts were in metres and the published tide tables
were in metres.
Dear Martin,
One of the (several) reasons that the French metric committee chose to
use the Earth as a standard for the length of the metre was that they
lived in an age when shipping and world exploration were extremely
important issues. They intended that the measuring of angles in grades
and the measuring of distances in metres and kilometres would
drastically reduce the complexity of nautical calculations.
Consider a quadrant of the Earth divided decimally.
1 quadrant = 100 grade = 10 000 kilometres
0.1 quadrant = 10 grade = 1000 kilometres
0.01 quadrant = 1 grade = 100 kilometres
0.001 quadrant = 0.1 grade = 10 kilometres
0.000 1 quadrant = 0.01 grade = 1 kilometres
etc.
Unfortunately sailors decided not to go with the simplicity of the
decimal metric system so the transition to the metric system didn't
work so far (from 1770 till 2010).
People 'who go to the sea in ships' still cling to the pre-1770
measuring words. They continue to use:
nautical miles for distance
knots for for wind speed
knots for vessel speed
feet for vessel length
inches for rope diameter
etc.
Perhaps your example is simply another example of irrational
conservatism.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain
from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com
for more metrication information, contact Pat at [email protected]
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