English measures

The team must compare the English measure for the height of the cliff and the SI measure for the length of their rope. Is 65 m more or less than 155 feet The equivalence between feet and meters can be found on the inside back cover of the book 1ft = 0.3048 m. 

In this chapter, I offer suggestions on how to choose the unit or units and then how to work with the unit or units you ve chosen. This chapter also covers the tricky conversions of square feet to square inches or cubic yards to cubic feet. And, of course, no discussion of units is complete without introducing meters and kilograms, so you get conversions involving metric and English measures. 

As disjointed as the English measurement system seems to be, it has a long tradition and some interesting and charming equivalences. Here are some more uncommon but historic measures, plus, to finish it off, a rate. 

Most of the problems in this book use the English measures of length, volume, and weight. But metric measures are very important to know, because of the great incidence of foreign travel and trade with other countries that use metrics. 

Medium and heavy wall tubing were originally measured in English measurements and now use the metric equivalent. Standard wall tubing has always been measured in metric measurements. Because there is no one-half-inch standard wall tubing, 12-mm tubing was used for this example. 

In the laboratory, the ruler is the meter stick. The meter stick may have inch measurements on one side (1 meter = 39 3/8 inches), but a yardstick, or any ruler of 6, 12, or 18 inches has limited value in the laboratory unless it also has metric measurements in addition to English measurements. 

A dial caliper (see Fig. 2.9) is easier to read than a vernier caliper, but this ease comes at a price. An acceptable vernier caliper can be purchased for 30 - 50, and it can be found with metric and English measurements on the same tool. A good-quality dial caliper may cost between 75 and 150, and it shows only metric or English measurements. On the dial caliper, the 10th place is read on the numbers of the dial itself, and the 100th place is read on the lines between the numbers. 

Another common tool for length measurement is the micrometer. Like the vernier caliper, in the United States, it is typically made with English measurements. Whereas the caliper can provide precision measurement (to 0.002 in.), you need a micrometer for greater precision ( 0.0001 in.). 

The Measurements. Measurements should preferably be given in centimeters (or millimeters). English measurements are not recommended, and tenths of English measurements are not acceptable. 

The measurements have, as far as practicable, been given in the metric system, which all students of chemistry should be familiar with. Where it was necessary to state the ultimate results in English measurements, we have purposely made the preliminary calculations in the metric system, and converted the final results into English measurements. 

Metric system, conversion into English measurements, 98. 

The Eng lish Last is an English measure of various articles. A last of soap, ashes, herrings, and some other articles, is 2 baiTcls. A last of com is 10 quarters. A last of gun-powder, 24 bairels. A last of flax or feathers, 1,700 pounds. A last of wool, 12... 

The rood as an old English measure of length derives from the Dutch rood and German Rute, about 5 m, it is also related to the common surveyor s measure, the rod of 16.5 feet. 

On December 11, 1998, NASA launched the 125-million-dollar Mars Climate Orbiter, which was intended to be the Red Planet s first weather satellite. After a 416-miIIion-mile (mi) journey, the spacecraft was supposed to go into Mars s orbit on September 23, 1999. Instead, it entered Mars s atmosphere about 100 km (62 mi) lower than plaimed and was destroyed by heat. Mission controllers later determined that the spacecraft was lost because English measurement units were not converted to metric units in the navigation software. 

I.e., forty-two pounds. A stone (English measure of weight) equals fourteen pounds. 

As explained in Chapter 1 the engineering information provided in this book generally uses the SI (Le Systeme international d unites) metric units. However, much of the information to do with regulations and standards, particularly in the United States, is based on the English or customary units such as feet (ft.) and pounds (lb.). In most cases these English measurements have been converted to metric. 

The values stated in acceptable metric units are to be regarded as the standard except in some cases where drawings may show English measurements which are customary for that equipment. 

I write approximate scale, and this applies to all maps prepared on standard paper using English measurements. I hope that, due to the necessary internationalization of Earth Resources satellites, widespread use of the metric system will permit, among other things, computer production of cartograms on a more precise scale. Finally, let us remember that the largest scales are about 1 1000000 for Nimbus 1 to 4, about 1 100000, for Nimbus 5 (1972, SMCR), about 1 25000 for ERTS channel 4, and about 1 50000 for ERTS channel 5. 

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