Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Working in New Money

I am one of those people who is in a very British muddle about weights and measures. I know the metric system, and I use it for some things, particularly smaller measurements I do in centimetres and grams and such (I've just bought some metric weights for my cooking scales, Nigel will be proud). But I still do height and weight for humans in feet and inches and stones and pounds. The metric figures don't mean anything to me, I have no idea what 100 kg is, and whether it's good or bad? However, in furtherance of my scientific education, I am trying to drag myself into the Century of the Fruitbat and start using these new fangled foreign SI Units. Actually I love that there is a Convention of the Meter and that there is, in a vault in France, the Kilogram. I wonder if there is a job of official Keeper of the Kilogram?

Anyways, I still measure myself in old money but now I'm (or rather google is) converting my stats into kilograms. Tho I doubt I will ever become reconciled with the joule (even if James Joule himself did come from Salford) - they'll always be calories to me.



4 comments:

Shauna said...

james joule? is that really his name? sounds like an outlaw. that is so cool.

good luck with your maths there. it's hard to get your head around a new system. i've had to learn about the stones and pounds. they're kinda cool coz it sounds better for your self esteem to say you lost 2 pounds rather than 0.8kg (or whatever)... hehe

Stephen said...

We made the kilogramme prototype, you know... (buffs fingernails). We've still got a spare bit leftover - it's not easy to unalloy Platinum/Iridium mixtures economically (and I've actually held it).

clarrie said...

ooh cor I'm deeply and irrationally impressed that you've held The kilogram. woo.

Jude said...

I don't even understand Mr Stephens comment there :dur: