Talk:Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States/Archive 1
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| Archive 1 |
| This article was originally entitled Metrified Imperial system and dealt with alledged proposals to redefine traditional English units in simple ratios to metric units. In particular it dealt with a so-called "Royal System" which was claimed to have been attributed to William Huskisson. The article was then extended by the addition of Jefferson's Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States and a number of rough metric approximations to Imperial & U.S. customary units. The original section regarding the proposals was found to be original research and was removed. The section dealing with rough metric approximations was merged to Approximate conversion of units. The page was then moved to Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States. This archive deals with the article up to this point. |
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(Explanation)
Name change
Shouldn't this page be renamed Metrified English unit (rather than Metrified Imperial system)? The system(s) described here are quite different from the Imperial system. The difference is more marked than that between the Imperial system and the American system, yet these have two distinct names (you don't talk of any Americanised Imperial system). Adopting such a system would be to replace the two. Jimp 15Jul05
There being no argument this is what I'm doing. Jimp 9Jul05
-- "Mass, weight"? Should we go for newtons first since we're coming from pounds? Maybe, but when pounds were first defined, was there a difference between weight and mass?
I don't understand why the congruency sign is used instead of the equals sign in many places. I hesitate globally to change them because there may be a mathematical reason for one being more correct. Does someone know? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Beetlenaut (talk • contribs) .
- It’s usually used with the defining term, although that might not always be a clear choice. Christoph Päper 13:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Totally wrong title and total lack of sources and references
Someone has had a lot of fun creating this article, but anyone reading it will be very confused, as the lead states:
"A metrified Imperial system is a proposal for a metrication and unification of the English systems of measures. Usually the inch is set to 25 mm, the pint to 500 ml and the pound to 500 g and the rest accordingly. Nowadays all Imperial units are defined in terms of their metric/SI equivalents, but mostly with quite odd factors. This choice was made to ensure largest possible continuity, but over time there have been several proposals to round off the values, which is thought to ease transition towards the metric system."
After that intriguing lead, leading one to expect information about some ongoing attempt by some British luddites to avoid the introduction of the foreign metric system, the story turns into a history lesson about attempts in the past to simplify, change or decimal the many different English measuring units, accompanied by long conversion tables of dead measuring units. It talks about something called the "Royal System", supposedly suggested by William Huskisson in the 1820's, and it mentions Thomas Jefferson's proposals for new units in the USA after the Independence, but nowhere can one read about the proposal mentioned in the lead: who the people behind it are, what the proposal consists of; when it was proposed; and where it stands today.
Also, when googling "Royal System" with "William Huskisson" you get nothing but copies of this article on various Wikipedia spin-offs, and there is no mentioning of it in the William Huskisson article.
This article possibly talks about attempts to maintain some Imperial units in a metric world, by changing their values to the nearest acceptable metric value, so people can call half a kilo a pound. This, however, should not be referred to as metrication, as metrication means the adoption of the SI system and nothing else.
The main problem is that most of the text is about about other things and, most of all, that there are no references anywhere. The long conversion lists may be of some interest, but only if they are properly explained. Thomas Blomberg 05:06, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
- Congratulations! Finally someone checked that Huskisson information, which is indeed completely made up. This article should now be split up into one for the Jeffersonian system and the rest may be deleted or merged with approximate conversion between English and metric units. Except for this article there never, to my knowledge, has been a consistent formal proposal for a metrified English system of measurement comparable to mesures usuelles. -- Anonymous
- I've failed to find anything to cite. I've tagged the article. I'll ask around to see whether anyone else has anything to back the claims of the article up. If there's nothing to support the article, I guess it'll have to be tossed ... well split/deleted/merged as above. Jimp 09:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC) I suppose that whatever happens to the Royal System section, the Isolated section should be merged with Approximate conversion between English and metric units. Jimp 09:17, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
- That's basically all this ever was, original research, opinion, and speculation. You probably could find a number of mentions in print of the existence of suggestions along these lines over time, but most were pretty sketchy and none fleshed out the way the original researchers who combined to make this article have done it in creating their own, new proposal. And there don't seem to be any that have ever gotten anywhere as far as any significant, notable, organized backing, even if limited to some small locality. The only reference to anything specific that could be verified is the intimation that somebody, somewhere, said that somebody named Huskisson made some vague kind of a suggestion something along these lines nearly two centuries ago in the course of the British reforms, in the course of which the best the British could actually come up with for a decimal system was to replace something that had usually been a varying amount of volume equal to eight pounds of whatever was being measured (wine, ale, milk, corn—not maize, of course, but in this case usually wheat) and replace it with the volume of ten pounds of water (yet, at the same time, when it came to the mass measuremets the Weights and Measures Act of 1824 insisted on the notion that "hundred" is written in digits as "112", IIRC, or maybe that came alone a few years later).
- I'd support a request for deletion, flat-out. Not worrying about merging. Not even bother keeping anybody from creating a new article with this bad name, as long as they start from scratch.
- The House of Representative's request of the report from the Secretary of State, and his 1790 response to it and the two alternatives he offered are accurate and verifiable, even though the link Crissov provided when he added it doesn't work now. I don't know if they warrant an article or would fit somewhere in an existing article, or if something already has it (I seem to remember something along these lines and may have added something like it myself somewhere, but it may have been stuck onto one of the deleted banned user Rk3tect (or however he spelled his username) articles). Gene Nygaard 11:50, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Note that I have long had a transcription of Jefferson's 1790 report to the U.S. House of Representatives on my own web pages, Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States, which I transcribed and converted into html from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Monticello Edition, Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904, Vol. 3 pp. 26-59. It's been there for ten years, since long before Wikipedia existed.
Later, independent transcriptions of the same report on the Internet include the Avalon Project of the Yale Law School, Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States. Gene Nygaard 12:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
- In the light of this here's what I've done.
- 1) I've merged the old Isolated section into Approximate conversion between English and metric units.
- 2) I've removed the introduction and the Royal System section.
- 3) I've moved what was left to Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States (a rather long title but at least it's a correct one).
- Jimp 02:29, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
- I think that's the appropriate solution, too, but I'm unsure whether this article should be deleted altogehter or made a redirect to that Approximate ... one. Christoph Päper 11:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
- I guess I could sort of kind of see some sense in having Metrified English unit and/or even Metrified Imperial system being a redirect to Approx ... but it seems to me that the arguements simply to delete them both are stronger. Note Metrified English unit has already been deleted and Metrified Imperial system has been nominated for deletion. Jimp 00:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Deletion
I have listed the redirects Metrified English unit and Metrified Imperial system. Jimp 07:59, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Removed
The following has been removed from the article as per the discussion above. It has no references and would appear to be original research. Jimp 00:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
A metrified English system is a proposal for a metrication and unification of the English systems of measures. Usually the inch is set to 25 mm, the pint to 500 ml and the pound to 500 g and the rest accordingly.
Nowadays all imperial and U.S. customary units are defined in terms of their metric/SI equivalents, but mostly with quite odd factors. This choice was made to ensure largest possible continuity, but over time there have been several proposals to round off the values, which is thought to ease transition towards the metric system.
Royal System
One of the earliest still known and most extensive proposals of a metrified English system is from the early 1820s and is attributed to William Huskisson, but it wasn't embodied into the 1824 reformation of the Imperial system at all.
Length
| caliber | ≡ 1/100 inch | = 250 µm = ¼ mm | |
|---|---|---|---|
| point | ≡ 1/6 line | = 1/75 inch | = 333 1/3 µm = 1/3 mm |
| line | ≡ 10/125 inch | ≈ 1/12 inch | = 2 mm |
| barleycorn | ≡ 1/3 inch | = 8 1/3 mm | |
| digit | ≡ 1/16 foot | = ¾ inch | = 18¾ mm = 1.875 cm |
| finger | ≡ 7/8 inch | = 21.875 mm = 2.1875 cm | |
| inch | ≡ 25 mm = 2½ cm | ||
| stick | ≡ 2 inch | = 50 mm = 5 cm | |
| nail | = 3 digit ≡ ¼ span | = 2¼ inch | = 56¼ mm = 5.625 cm |
| palm | ≡ 4 digit | = 3 inch | = 75 mm = 7.5 cm |
| hand | ≡ 1 palm + 1 inch | = 4 inch | = 100 mm = 1 dm |
| shaftment | ≡ 2 palm | = 6 inch | = 150 mm = 1.5 dm |
| link | ≡ 8 inch | = 200 mm = 2 dm | |
| span | ≡ 3 palm | = 9 inch | = 225 mm = 2.25 dm |
| foot | = 4 palm | ≡ 12 inch | = 300 mm = 3 dm |
| cubit | ≡ 1½ foot | = 18 inch | = 450 mm = 4.5 dm |
| pace | ≡ 32 inch | = 800 mm = 8 dm | |
| yard | ≡ 3 foot | = 36 inch | = 900 mm = 9 dm |
| ell | ≡ 20 nail | = 45 inch | = 1.125 m |
| grade | ≡ 2 pace | = 64 inch | = 1.6 m |
| fathom | ≡ 6 foot | = 72 inch | = 1.8 m |
| rod (pole, perch) | ≡ 25 link | = 200 inch | = 5 m |
| rope | ≡ 20 foot | = 240 inch | = 6 m |
| chain | ≡ 4 rod | = 800 inch | = 20 m = 2 dam |
| cable length | ≡ 100 fathom | = 7 200 inch | = 180 m = 1.8 hm |
| furlong | ≡ 10 chain | = 8 000 inch | = 200 m = 2 hm |
| mile | ≡ 8 furlong = 2 000 pace | = 64 000 inch | = 1.6 km |
| nautical mile | ≡ 10 cable = 2 000 yard | = 72 000 inch | = 1.8 km |
| league | ≡ 3 mile | = 192 000 inch | = 4.8 km |
| sea league | ≡ 3 nautical mile | = 216 000 inch | = 5.4 km |
There is also a version with a nautical mile of 1.85 km, which is much closer to 1' of the circumference of Earth and its current value of 1.852 km. The mile is about ¼ mrad Earth, while a kilometre was at that time believed to be 0.01 grad Earth. The pace was originally 2½ foot, i.e. 30 inches or 7.5 dm, but with 32 inches or 8 dm a mile retains both its definitions: the old Roman one of being 1000 gradus and the English one of 8 furrows long. Also note, that a 1.8-km seamile is 2 000 yards or nine furlongs.
Area
For area measurement of course all length units can simply be squared, e.g. 1 foot² = 9 dm². Those are not explicitly listed here.
| board | ≡ 1 inch × 1 foot | = 12 inch² | = 7 500 mm² = 75 cm² |
|---|---|---|---|
| rood | ≡ 1 furlong × 1 rod = 40 rod² | = 1 600 000 inch² | = 1 000 m² = 10 a |
| acre | ≡ 1 furlong × 1 chain = 160 rod² | = 6 400 000 inch² | = 4 000 m² = 40 a |
| yardland, virgate | ≡ ¼ hide = 25 acre | = 160 000 000 inch² | = 125 000 m² = 12.5 ha |
| hide | ≡ 100 acre | = 640 000 000 inch² | = 400 000 m² = 40 ha |
| barony | ≡ 40 hide | = 25 600 000 000 inch² | = 16 km² |
Volume, capacity
For volume measures of course all length units can simply be cubed, e.g. 1 foot³ = 27 dm³ = 27 l. Those are not explicitly listed here.
| perch | ≡ 1 perch × 1½ foot × 1 foot | = 42 768 inch³ | = 675 l = 6.75 hl |
|---|---|---|---|
| freight ton | ≈ 40 foot³ | = 64 000 inch³ | ≡ 1 m³ = 1 kl |
| load | ≡ 50 foot³ | = 86 400 inch³ | = 1.35 m³ |
| register ton | ≡ 100 foot³ | = 172 800 inch³ | = 2.7 m³ |
| acre-foot | ≡ 1 acre × 1 foot | = 19 200 000 inch³ | = 12 000 m³ = 12 dam³ |
There are at least two gallon-based variants, one with a 4-litre gallon, the other with a 5-litre one. With 5 litre a gallon of water still weighs 10 pounds; note the correspondence between the volume and mass units which share a name.
| minim | ≡ 1/20 scruple | = 1/240 inch³ | = 65.104 1¯6 µl |
|---|---|---|---|
| scruple | ≡ 1/3 drachm | = 1/12 inch³ | = 1.302 08¯3 ml |
| dra(ch)m | ≡ 1/8 ounce | = ¼ inch³ | = 3.906 250 ml |
| teaspoon | ≡ 1/3 tablespoon | = 1/3 inch³ | = 5.208¯3 ml |
| tablespoon | ≡ 1/16 cup | = 1 inch³ | = 15.625 ml = 1.562 500 cl |
| ounce | ≡ ¼ gill | = 2 inch³ | = 31¼ ml = 3.125 cl |
| gill | ≡ ¼ pint | = 8 inch³ | = 125 ml = 1¼ dl |
| cup | ≡ ½ pint = 8 ounce | = 16 inch³ | = 250 ml = 2½ dl |
| pint | ≡ ½ quart | = 32 inch³ | = 500 ml = 5 dl |
| ≡ 4/5 quart | |||
| quart | ≡ ¼ gallon | = 64 inch³ | = 1 l |
| = 80 inch³ | = 1.25 l | ||
| gallon | = 256 inch³ | ≡ 4 l | |
| = 320 inch³ | ≡ 5 l | ||
| peck | ≡ 2 gallon | = 512 inch³ | = 8 l |
| = 640 inch³ | = 10 l | ||
| kenning | ≡ 2 peck | = 1 024 inch³ | = 16 l = 1.6 dal |
| = 1 280 inch³ | = 20 l = 2 dal | ||
| bushel | ≡ 2 kenning | = 2 048 inch³ | = 32 l = 3.2 dal |
| = 2 560 inch³ | = 40 l = 4 dal | ||
| firkin | ≡ ½ kilderkin | = 2 560 inch³ | = 40 l = 4 dal |
| = 3 200 inch³ | = 50 l = 4 dal | ||
| rundlet | ≡ 1/7 pipe | = 4 389 3/7 inch³ | ≈ 68.57 l = 6.857 dal |
| = ½ tierce | = 4 800 inch³ | ≡ 75 l = 7½ dal | |
| kilderkin | ≡ ½ tierce | = 5 120 inch³ | = 80 l = 8 dal |
| = 6 400 inch³ | = 100 l = 1 hl | ||
| barrel | ≡ ½ hogshead | = 7 680 inch³ | = 120 l = 1.2 hl |
| = 8 000 inch³ | = 125 l = 1¼ hl | ||
| tierce | ≡ 1/3 pipe = ½ pon | = 10 240 inch³ | = 160 l = 1.6 hl |
| ≡ 3 firkin | = 9 600 inch³ | = 150 l = 1½ hl | |
| hogshead | ≡ ½ pipe | = 15 360 inch³ | = 240 l = 2.4 hl |
| = 16 000 inch³ | = 250 l = 2½ hl | ||
| quarter | ≡ 8 bushel | = 16 384 inch³ | = 256 l = 2.56 hl |
| = 20 480 inch³ | = 320 l = 3.2 hl | ||
| ≡ ¼ tun = 1 hogshead | = 16 000 inch³ | = 250 l = 2½ hl | |
| puncheon, tertian | ≡ 1/3 tun | = 20 480 inch³ | = 320 l = 3.2 hl |
| ≡ 3 kilderkin | = 19 200 inch³ | = 300 l = 3 hl | |
| pipe | ≡ ½ tun | = 30 720 inch³ | = 480 l = 4.8 hl |
| = 32 000 inch³ | = 500 l | ||
| tun | = 240 gallon | = 61 440 inch³ | ≡ 960 l = 9.6 hl |
| = 192 gallon | |||
| = 250 gallon | = 64 000 inch³ | ≡ 1000 l = 1 m³ | |
| = 200 gallon |
Mass, weight
The Troy pound gets replaced by the libra, the abbreviation for the real pound has to change accordingly.
| grain | ≡ 1/20 scruple | = 1/7 680 pound | = 65.104 1¯6 mg = 6.510 41¯6 cg |
|---|---|---|---|
| carat | = 1/2 500 pound | ≡ 200 mg = 2 dg | |
| scruple | ≡ 1/3 dram | = 1/384 pound | = 1.302 08¯3 g |
| pennyweight | ≡ 1/20 ounce = 1/240 libra | = 1/320 pound | = 1.562 500 g |
| dram | ≡ 1/8 ounce | = 1/128 pound | = 3.906 250 g |
| ounce | = 1/12 libra | ≡ 1/16 pound | = 31.25 g = 3.125 dag |
| libra | = 5760 grain | ≡ ¾ pound | = 375 g = 3¾ hg |
| pound | = 7680 grain | ≡ 500 g = 5 hg | |
| clove, nail | ≡ ½ stone | = 6¼ pound | = 3.125 kg |
| stone | ≡ ½ tod | = 12½ pound | = 6.25 kg |
| tod, quarter | ≡ ¼ hundredweight | = 25 pound | = 12.5 kg |
| hundredweight | ≡ 100 pound | = 50 kg | |
| wey | ≡ 1½ hundredweight | = 150 pound | = 75 kg |
| sack | ≡ 2 wey | = 300 pound | = 150 kg |
| ton, tonne | ≡ 20 hundredweight | = 2 000 pound | = 1 Mg = 1 t |
| last | ≡ 12 sack | = 3 600 pound | = 1.8 Mg = 1.8 t |
Derived units
The knot is acknowledged as 1 nautical mile per hour.
Weight and mass are often confused and it is not surprising, that in many proposals there is no explicit mention of (gravitational) force, but the pound-force is still 1 pound times Gee, see also kilopond. The poundal (1 lb.·ft./s²) equals 0.15 N with the above redefinitions of pound and foot.
Likewise you get the units of pressure, e.g. pound-force/inch² or inch mercury. For energy or heat, a British thermal unit is almost exactly 1 kJ already. The units of power are rather new, but it makes sense to round a horse power to 750 W.
Kitchen
There are other metrified values for cup (240 mL or 250 mL), tablespoon (15 mL or 20 mL) and teaspoon (5 mL) in use today, independently from all the other units.