Wikipedia:Measurements Debate

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

What's the preferred style for units? In your example for numbers etc. you use both m (metre) and kilograms (kg). I'd say the abbreviations for SI units are quite well established (well, outside of the US anyway) and are hardly seen written in full, but I'm not sure about the imperial units, one sees 10 yard, 10 y, 10 yd, 10 yards, etc. Any rules for this? Jeronimo

I think we should prefer metric / SI over Imperial / US. -- Tarquin

I know, but they will be used in many articles no doubt, if only as a secondary to the SI units. Jeronimo

Expressing inch-pound units: As in so many other cases, the metric is a clearer system -- m, cm, k, kg -- while there are many ways in the US system-- 1", 1 inch, 1 in -- and so forth. Since the main purpose here is consistency, how about in=inch, ft=foot, yd=yard, mi=mile, pd=pound, gal=gallon, pt=pint, qt=quart, etc--a regular set of two-letter abbreviations?

Such abbreviations of the US units are unlikely to be familiar to people from "the SI world". Can't these units just be written in full ? That's not much more characters to type. -- FvdP

Value of inch-pound units in Wikipedia:Despite the superiority, on paper, of the metric system, the world's largest economy, with the great majority of internet users, uses the metric system only in limited ways. I tried to lay out some reasonable rules:

• For common weights and measures, animal sizes and the like, give both, but don't bother with going to decimal places on most conversions, unless precision is an issue, such as the area of Paris, Texas.
• For things that are always metric, give metric
• For things that are always inch-pound, give inch-pound

I am familar with the metric system and its merits (except for temperature, where I think for measurements in everyday life Fahrenheit rules), but I have a hard time making the conversions in my head (except, ironically, for temperature). Obviously, in the Wikipedia, if a writer doesn't put in the "other" measurement, someone else will probably come along and do it, but it would be irresponsible and a disservice to readers to state in the style guide "metric is always preferred".

And, anyway, one measurement is better than none. There are still lots of articles with no measurements given at all, Hummingbirds for instance, are famous for being small, but we give no dimensions at all. Ortolan88

I read once that the EU is larger economically than the US, but that is by the by... Metrication is an ongoing process, which won't ever get any faster is projects like this don't nudge it along a little. This is an international project, and the SI system is the internationally recognized standard. I say we drag people kicking and screaming into the 20th century. -- Tarquin

So what? North America is larger than Europe economically and California is larger than France in this regard as well. So that alone is not a good argument here. I do agree that we should err toward SI and metric though (see below). --mav

The purpose of an encyclopedia is to inform, not to make Americans do what Europeans think they ought to do. The metric system is very simple and well worked out and easier to use, but for the US to adopt it requires us to change every board, piece of steel, bottle, can, screw, bolt, nut, and measuring device in a highly developed economy. The US armed services have converted for the most part, some parts of the auto industry and others, including the US Bureau of Standards, that defines all US measurements in metric terms, but the incentive to change has to match the effort to change, and in the meantime, it will help immensely, and hurt not at all, if our articles remind people that a pound is about half a kilo and a meter is just over a yard. And I still say your degrees are just too big for ordinary daily use. All the world should be required to switch to Fahrenheit immediately. Ortolan88

"The metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the 9mm bullet." -- Dave Barry

I see the failure of the U. S. to adopt the metric system is more an issue of congressional foot-dragging than anything else. A large part of industry would be very happy with such a change; it would be a very big saving for them not to have to maintain two separate sets of inventory for domestic and export use. The soft drink industry has been ahead of the pack on this one - putting Coke in a 2-litre bottle hasn't poisoned. There's also a trade protectionist aspect to the debate. Industry in other countries is often not at all keen on the idea of a separate inventory to please the U.S.; that can be more of a bother than foregoing exports to the United States. Thus in a protectionist minded government a failure to adopt metric saves American jobs.

Even if Congress were to take the necessary measures today, it would still take at least two full generations for metric to be fully operational. Eclecticology 11:48 Aug 29, 2002 (PDT)

Out of interest - when did Britain start going metric? I was at school from 1987-2000 and I sure think in metric. Haven't got a clue what a pound weighs, gimme kilograms, and what are these "inch" things? =) AW

The UK decimalized its currency in the early 1970s, and switching to metric was a condition of entry to the EU around the same time. It's been a slow process. I remember when TV weather forecasts were in F and C, but they're now entirely in Celsius. Weights and measures on pre-packaged goods (eg packets, tins of food) went metric early on, but food measured at point of sale (markets, supermarket deli counters) have been dual for a long time -- they switched to metric only around 2000 (2001?), it's now indeed illegal to sell in pounds and ounces. Some imbecillic traders are taking the issue to the European court of Human Rights, but they're not the only chumps to make a mockery of the recent Human Rights legislation in the UK for their own ends and publicity. ... where was I? metrication has more info: "UK policy is to eliminate almost all nonmetric units by 2009, except for road signs." -- Tarquin

I simply use SI or metric and link to the appropriate unit article -- many of which already have conversion factors and links to a great online converter. See square kilometre. This is one of the way we were able to reduce the hideously wide countries tables to their current much leaner state. If and only if there is room, it seems appropriate in context and if it doesn't confuse things, should we use the American system (So long as links to the right unit article are included of course). See the boiling/melting point part of the barium table for an example of this. --mav

(cough) point of information :-) Canada is metric, and California state highways use km, at least that's what metrication says -- Tarquin

Double cough -- the km/mile experiment failed badly and new CA highway signs only use miles and the above was just to point out that comparing an entire continent to one country is not a valid comparison. Canada and the US do work together in a way very similar to the EU when it comes to economics. The Euro may strengthen economics ties between European nations to similar levels seen between US States in the future though. Also economics isn't a reason for this at all -- there are 280 million native English speakers in the US. How many native English speakers are there in Europe? --mav

The California km experiment probably had more to do with Mexico being metric than Canada. I suspect that there are still signs in kilometres in the southern part of the state, especially on the northbound side of the highways. (Bigger signs give better cover for hidden INS agents. :-)) The number of English speakers in Europe is not a significant fact because metrication is not a language issue. The history of this subject in the US is bizarre. For a chronology see http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/dates.htm Eclecticology

The number of English speakers that use one system vs another is at the heart of the issue. But now you are having me argue against a position I hold: that, here at least, we should use SI and metric most of the time and have units linked to articles that have conversion factors and external links to online converters. --mav

BTW, there are non-native english speakers, like me, on the English wikipedia. I think in SI units. --FvdP

I'm with mav on this one. The SI unit pages like metre give conversion into feet, yards, chains, furlongs, miles, etc -- Tarquin

Linking units is a good idea, but I am against preferring SI over imperial (even though I'm a European). It is like preferring UK spelling over US spelling or v.v.: we don't do that here either. The rules for the spelling are: use it consistently within one article and use it where appropriate. In scientific articles, it will be appropriate to use the SI units. However, if the subject is typically US or even UK (which if formally also a SI country, but in pratice far from it) imperial units may be more appropriate. If another reader feels it needs clarification with SI units, I don't care about how he does it. I DO want to have a "preferred style" for displaying imperial units. What is the most common convention for that? Jeronimo

We can all understand the words "color" and "colour". Having two types of units, however, can be a source of confusion. (NASA, anyone?) -- Tarquin

Using a form of measurement that I never use and despite intellectual admiration probably won't ever use is more confusing that courteously filling me (and my metric counterpart) in on what exactly is the measurement being presented.

Also, neither "SI" nor "Imperial" are familiar terms to me, and I'm better informed than the average dude. Ortolan88

Imperial / US units / whatever -- that only goes to show that they are non-standard. The rest of the world and the scientific community worldwide uses the SI system. Why not use the standard? -- Tarquin

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Much of the above discussion seems to imply that Imperial and American Customary units are the same, which they are not. If you say a litre, everyone agrees how large that is, whereas a pint is different in Britain and America, and in America there are different volumes for wet and dry measures. Similarly an ounce could refer to a fluid ounce, a troy ounce or an avoirdupois ounce. Even the mile has statute and nautical variants. The advantage of the metric system is that it is unambiguous. Chris Q 10:13 Sep 16, 2002 (UTC)

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Discussion copied from Talk:SI for wider circulation here, giving once again reasons for using the common US system and showing confusion between SI and metric:
<begin>
I have a friend who was raised in France, speaks French and is a college-educated automobile mechanic who in 25 years went through the transition from Imperial to metric system with several lines of cars, including teaching it to other mechanics, and he has never heard the expression SI. Hence, I added the word "metric" to this article. Ortolan88

Wait a minute here. I thought that the cgs system is what is commonly called the metric system and SI is simply the International Standard used by scientists (based on m, kg, s)? I also thought that most nations use a hybrid system made up of SI and cgs units. If the opening paragraph is correct then temperatures in Europe are measured and displayed in Kelvin and not degrees Celsius. --mav

cgs and mks are both metric. — Toby 18:35 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)

I was going by the metric article and the metric-fan additions to Wikipedia:Manual of Style. It seems both these articles are wrong, from what you say. Every time I try to speak up for the 260 million non-metric Americans, I am treated to a condescending lecture on how superior the metric system is. I have never said it isn't superior (except for temperature), but that isn't the issue. The issue is ease of use of the wikipedia by the world's largest internet nation. It is too damn bad the US has been so slow and reluctant and whatever to adopt the metric system, and it is slowly coming in now, but we still don't use it in everyday life, so if we want to know how tall a hippopotamus is, someone is going to have to help us out. It is with some schadenfreude (delight at the discomfort of those you disagree with) at this indication that even metric enthusiasts are not sure what the difference between metric and SI is. Ortolan88
<end>

No, that isn't the issue. The issue is an international encyclopedia, usable by people around the world. Like it or not, English is the lingua franca, and the SI system is the lingua franca of measurement. The reason that the average Frenchman doesn't know the name "SI" is that there is little reason to know the name of the system used in France, since it is the only system is use.

Hippopotamus: that's what all the orders of magnitude pages are there for. I have endeavoured to put links to those pages wherever there is a measurement.

As for the "metric", "cgs", "SI" thing: AFAIK, "metric" is the generic term for the system as a whole, though to some extent the term "SI" is used as it's less ambiguous. "cgs" specified certain multiples as the base units ( the centimeter, gram and second) -- the idea being that in scientific work, one works with a base unit and exponential notation instead of using prefixes. (eg 4 x 10^4 g instead of 40 kg). "SI" is partly a change in base units (metre and kilogram), but also a redefining of the entire system, (with the wavelength of light being used instead of the Earth's circumference for the metre, for example), a setting out of 7 base units. -- Tarquin 09:30 Sep 16, 2002 (UTC)

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I regularly come across pages that have only Imperial units. Can I be so bold as to change these to metric and put the Imperial measurements in paranthesis or should it be vice-versa? Scipius 20:01 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)

I'd say change to "metric (imperial)". (The tarquin of the Dark Side says replace with metric & kiss the imperial goodbye, but it's sunday night, and although the glass in front of me is empty there's a bottle of Bunnahabhain[?] downstairs, so dark side is overruled...) Link the metric term to an orders of magnitude page to help compare values & convert to other types of unit (Klingon, etc). Actually, on second thoughts, I would say remove ambiguous units such as miles -- Tarquin 22:06 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)

I support links like 2.3 km (1.4 mi). Only articles about units of measurement (or sentences about units of measurement in articles about something else) need to link directly to Kilometre or Mile. — Toby 02:23 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

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Why legislate this?

Sometimes the context determines which units are reasonable (Principle of least astonishment). For example, an article on London should give a travel distance in miles, not kilometers.

Otherwise, dictating that units should be converted to a standard appears to be inconsistent with the firm Wikipedia policy that Wikipedia is freely editable. If an author uses units that are clearly awkward, such as "1.60934 km", another author might change this to "1 mi.". If an author is not a resident of countries that use Imperial units, they might prefer to use "km." instead of "mi.".

There is a larger issue: if there is to be one English Wikipedia that is to be used internationally, what would be appropriate style rules for locale? (Locale includes collating order, date and time formats, thousands separator character in numbers, British/USAian spelling, units of measurement, etc. I could not find a specific discussion of this issue in either Wikipedia or Meta Wikipedia. David 20:18 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

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Another thing to bear in mind -- gallons and pints are ambiguous. technically, so are miles. (nautical, survey, but it's safe to assume hwich one just "mile" means). Furthermore, in the UK, it is highly unusual to give a figure in pounds over 14. 14 pounds make a stone in the Imperial system (or mayb 16. or 18. heck, I don't know.) -- Tarquin 22:49 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)

14

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Just to toss another monkey into the wrenchworks here. The English and American units are much more natural and human scale. An inch is a knuckle, a foot is the length of a foot, a yard is as long as an arm, a mile is a good walk, a pound is a handful, 0 fahrenheit is real cold, 100 fahrenheit is body temperature and also real hot, 200 fahrenheit will burn you, that mischievous guy, Ortolan88

Just like the metric system. After all a centimetre is a fingernail, a decimetre is the length of a hand, a metre is as long as an arm, a kilometre is a gentle stroll, a kilogram is two handfuls, 0 Celsius is an ice-cold cola, 10 Celsius is a breezy spring day, 100 Celsius is just hot enough to make tea properly. -- Derek Ross 02:38 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC) (who is happy with either system as long as he knows which one is being used.)

Just looked the page for the first time. I don't have any solutions, just some observations -

Europe has officially set the target for going completely metric by 2009, yet vast numbers of people still think only in imperial units. Just because a bureaucrat in Brussels says 'Europe is metric' doesn't make it so. (Usually going by the EU, the safe option is to believe the exact opposite of what Brussels bureaucratic thinks!) I know my class all studied through metric, yet we still use both systems. Our road signs say miles, our cars tell speeds in kilometres. We buy litres of soft drink, but drink 'pints' of alcohol. I bake a christmas cake using imperial measurements yet fahrenheit is no longer used or even recognised. (Watching CBS News the other night, they told how cold it was in the US by giving a number in fahrenheit. Neither my flatmate (23 years old) nor I (mid 30s) had a clue what Dan Rather meant.) I suppose what all that means is that Wikipedia shouldn't use one system or the other - just because someone uses kilograms doesn't mean they don't think in miles, or use miles doesn't mean they don't use celsius. I know that is made all the worse by different imperial unit meanings in the US and elsewhere. (Not to mention spelling. We may not think in kilometres, but we still prefer seeing them spelt kilometres not kilometers!) The bottom line is, there is no simple solution. I'm all for standardising things that can be standardised on Wiki, but this is one issue where if you try to limit use to one, vast numbers of Wiki users from somewhere will not have a clue about the meaning. JTD 02:59 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

Leaving aside the atheistic, French revolutionary roots of the metric system, and the vile scourge of creeping decimalism[?], the chief advantage of the traditional or Imperial system is that it allows other divisors, and does not participate in the monomaniacal insistence on powers of 10. This makes it far more useful in the kitchen, where you may well be called upon to multiply a recipe by three, or take a recipe that feeds four and convert it to feed two, or one, but it's much less likely that you will be called upon to multiply or divide your recipe by 10. The metric system probably has value in science, engineering, or other fields where higher math will be applied; it is useless around the house. The Celsius temperatures are much too loose and sloppy to apply to anything like the weather; but Fahrenheit just marked 0 the coldest temperature he recorded in a year, and 100 the hottest [see below - David], so it works well for weather in the temperate zone. I say that if a rule is required use whichever measures do the best job for what you're talking about: metric for science and physics, imperial for anything you will actually encounter in real life. -- IHCOYC 03:37 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

This whole cooking argument is a myth. If you have volume measures, you can scale up your recipe by two. Great! But if you have three times as many guests, you're stuck. You'd have to convert to avoirdupois measures, where 12 is *sometimes* a factor. (but 16 ounces in a pound, no? Oh wait, that's only the english pound I think -- but I don't know because I have not burdened my memory with all the diferent hanges of base in the system) I agree that 10 is not the best base, but it happens to be the base of our number system. I'd be all for a measurement system in base 12 if we counted in base 12 as well. And the Imperial is not in base 12, there is a different base at nearly every change of units. Quick! How many fuid ounces in an acre-foot? -- Tarquin 08:39 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

PS -- besides, the truly brain-free way to scale up recipes is thus: suppose your recipe is for 2 and you are cooking for 4. Measure out the amount required, and tip it into your mixing bowl. Repeat. You've just doubled the quantity, no maths required ;-)

The guideline should be simple enough:

1. recommed metric in general
2. encourage conversions where appropriate (as judged by the writer at the time)
3. don't be too hard and fast about things, especially in specialist areas where you are a non-expert - for example, aeronautics generally uses the nautical mile.
4. remember that, while metric is preffered (because the entire world uses it, bar a few non-scientific people in America) in some contexts, especially historical ones, metric makes no sense at all.
5. don't ever, ever use statute mph for marine or aeronautical measurements - always knots (best) or kmh, because otherwise Tannin gets very grumpy and throws his toys around.

Tannin 09:02 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

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Concerning the Fahrenheit temperature scale, a statement made above, and Web site [1] (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a891215) attempt to explain its orgin. However, they are incorrect. The Web site claims that the true origins are unknown, which is also incorrect. Some sites, such as [2] (http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/thermometer.asp), like many others, simply invent the origins (for example, that the freezing point of water was arbitrarily set as 32°). Sites such as [3] (http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae64.cfm) have almost the correct information. [4] (http://www.windows.ucar.edu/earth/Atmosphere/temperature/fahrenheit) correctly explains that the freezing point was determined by measuring the lowest temperature achievable in a laboratory, which of course resulted by mixing water, ice, and salt in the right proportions (not equally) and letting it sit until the temperature is stable. (He did not want negative temperatures). Laughable today, perhaps, but it made sense in 1714 when he did his experiments. [5] (http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52561) explains that the upper bound came from measuring the internal temperature of a healthy person and calling it 96 degrees (that site explains why).

Other scales include the Réaumur (1730), Rømer (1730+), Kelvin (1862), and Rankine (ca. 1860). See, e.g., [6] (http://www.csgnetwork.com/tempconv).

David 19:49 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

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A suggested solution:

Maybe one already exists, but in case it doesn't,

1. Create a page that consists of (i) the definition of what each unit is (ii) the creation of a table of units converting every form to its equivalent parallel, eg - Imperial to Metric, Metric to Imperial, US to UK, UK to US.
2. All pages mentions units link to this page, with each page then written using whatever units the individual author chooses to use (often the one unit they understand). All readers, if they don't know what 'x' inches or 'y' kilometres is in their preferred measurement can simply follow the link to the tables page.
3. Leave whatever unit an author uses as the primary unit on that page. If and when someone wants to add in the other system on the page (using the 'tables' page) whichever the original author placed would be given priority, with the alternative is put in brackets. I think this would be more respectful of each person's contribution than to try to enforce a standard that not everyone uses. It is the same rule we follow with US v GB spelling. Where there is a dispute in terms of miles

For example, Dublin is 30 [table page|mile]s (48 km) from Navan or Dublin is 48 [table page|km] (30 miles) from Navan.

The trouble with asking authors to 'convert' is that while some people are comfortable with doing mathematical conversions, others haven't a clue and no matter how simple the equation might feel uncomfortable doing so in case they made the proverbial balls of it. I know for example the height of Nelson's Pillar in feet, the distance between Cork and Dublin in miles, but would baulk at having to convert them to kilometres. (I suspect some people would simply leave out information rather than have to do convertions. )

Furthermore, saying the 'metric is easier because everyone bar the US uses it is simply not true. Even where metric is officially the standard (eg Ireland) a significant proportion of people use or think imperial. I can't think of a single Irish person who measures human height in metres; everyone says five feet eight inches, six foot one inch, etc. Everyone thinks human weight in stones and pounds, not kilograms (not do they use simply pounds). They measure distance in miles. Windspeed is given in the Beaufort scale or in miles per hour, never kilometres per hour. Yet officially Ireland is a metricated country. The same is true in the UK, where some use metric, some imperial, some think different measurements in different systems. JtdIrL 21:37 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

There is better than this already: Dublin is 48 km from Navan. -- Tarquin 22:08 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

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Although I can have sympathy for a people grown up with a tradition of untis with direct links to the Roman empire and beyond, for scientific purposes there certainly is no issue whatsoever. No, I will not mention the Mars probe, but instead simply ask anyone who are in doubt to compare a collection of physical formulae in Imperial to one in SI units. An image of a "disaster area" does really spring to my mind. -- Egil 11:11 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

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I'm curious about the persistent colonialism here. Why bully others? "Everyone except a few people in the US?" A few? Certainly more than the entire population of your country. And who cares if the EU has a big economy? "What's that got to do with ... rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?" And ain't we human? Let us be. Why this desire to dominate? We have units. You have units. All God's children got units. No one's asking to exclude whatever-the-hell those SI things are. Don't insist that we be excluded either. Behaviour, Behavior, Whatever. (Oh! And don't think that the issue is resolved. Where'd France's newfangled decimal hours and weeks go? Persistent and influential dissent is sometimes more powerful than bullies. And UTC is overridden every time it disagrees by one minute with the true GMT standard. SI is a little bogus. You know what I mean?) Arthur 02:42 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

Would that be metric, or Imperial colonialism ? -- Derek Ross

I quote: "We have units. You have units. All God's children got units. No one's asking to exclude whatever-the-hell those SI things are. Don't insist that we be excluded either."

I bet the Incas would have agreed! But the Europeans massacred them anyway. Arthur 03:42 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

oops! one more comment. Perhaps the European murderers merely wanted to "drag [the incas] kicking and screaming into the" 16th century (how patronizing of them). I prefer not to killed by poison blankets, if you please. Arthur 04:42 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

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Some of the authors on this page argued that one system was more intuitive than the other. I don't think this is true. It only depends on where (and with which system) you were raised. To take the Fahrenheit example: For me - being raised with Celsius - Fahrenheit is a complete mystery with (seemingly) no fixed points: The upper limit is slightly above body temperature, whereas the lower limit is at some place I really can't imagine why anyone could be interested in this particular temperature. On the other hand I know that 0° Celsius means that water becomes ice, and 100° means that water boils (well, if you're somewhere near sea-level). Perfectly intuitive for me.

But that's the point: It is only intuitive to me because I was raised with this system and never knew something else. If I were born in Northern America I would surely think differently. But I'm not, and so all those inches and miles and pints and gallons seem very strange to my metric, decimal brain. So we should keep in mind that whenever we use only one of the systems, we make it difficult for a lot of the people out there to understand about what we are talking.

Something about standardization: This is a good thing because it avoids ambiguity and in the long run it makes it easier to understand each other. There is nothing imperialistic or patronizing about trying to agree to international standards. And let me add that my Syrian baker around the corner surely has a different definition of imperialism than you, Arthur.

We now use the Euro more than a year here in Germany and sometimes I still find myself calculating the "real" DM prices. But when you visit other European countries, you see the benefits of standardization however hard the migration seemed. If you never intend to leave your country, you might see no benefit in this, and yes, you could be right that standardization makes things more difficult for you, personally.

But even though standardization is a good thing in theory, at the moment most people are used to only one system. So why not using the pragmatic approach that is already outlined in the Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and provide both units for convenience. That's the great thing about Wikipedia. If you stumble across a unit you don't understand, just look it up and update the page.

Just my 2 Cents (your decision if Euro or Dollar). Maksim 19:44 25 May 2003 (UTC)