Mike Rometer wrote:Den I sympathise, here we are allowed Imperial still, but a lot of stuff got forced to Metric over the last 20 years or so. Torque wrenches are one particular thing I cannot reconcile. We used to have Lbs/feet (or foot/lbs) or Kg/mtrs to measure them, now we have Newtons/mtrs. I have never yet managed to get some one to demonstrate me a Newton/mtr. Yet I can demonstrate lbs/feet instantly with a rule and a weight, and even replicate it if I haven't got a torque wrench handy. It is a totally unnecessary complication IMHO.
In the interests of listening to the words of wisdom from those wiser than us (or at least wiser than me), I give these words from Professor W. J. Macquorn Rankine (you know, the "Rankine Cycle").
The Three-Foot Rule
by William John Macquorn Rankine
"When I was a bound apprentice, and learned to use my hands,
Folk never talked of measures that came from foreign lands:
Now I'm a British workman, too old to go to school;
So whether the chisel or file I hold, I'll stick to my three-foot rule.
"Some talk of millimetres, and some of kilogrammes,
And some of decilitres, to measure beer and drams;
But I'm a British workman, too old to go to school;
So by pounds I'll eat, and by quarts I'll drink, and I'll work by my
three-foot rule.
"A party of astronomers went measuring the earth,
and forty million metres they took to be its girth;
Five hundred million inches, though, go through from pole to pole;
So let's stick to inches, feet, and yards, and the good old three-foot
rule.
"The great Egyptian pyramid's a thousand yards about;
And when the masons finished it, they raised a joyful shout;
The chap that planned that building, I'm bound he was no fool;
And now 'tis proved beyond a doubt, he used a three-foot rule.
"Here's a health to every learned man that goes by common sense,
And would not plague the workman on any vain pretence;
But as for those philantropists, who'd send us back to school,
Oh,
bless their eyes, if they ever tries to put down the three-foot rule."
