[time-nuts] gravity controlled pendulumn clock?

[Tony Finch]

Dave Martindale <dave.martindale at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But where the metric system has an advantage is that the units with
> the same name are the same size everywhere; that's not true of
> "English" units.  I can remember mixing Kodak photographic chemicals
> for darkroom use, where the mixing instructions are in terms of ounces
> and gallons.  But I was in Canada, where the Imperial (British) ounce
> and gallon are both different volumes than the American (and thus
> Kodak) units of the same name.
>
> Fortunately, the inch seems to be the same size everywhere, so I don't
> have to figure out whether someone is talking about British inches or
> American inches.

It's possibly worth noting that it is only the units of volume that differ
between the American customary and British Imperial systems of units. The
systems diverged because in the 18th century there were multiple volume
measures in use (the ale gallon, the wine gallon, the Winchester bushel).
The US simplified by using the wine gallon for all liquid volumes and kept
the Winchester bushel for grain volume. Britain was more influenced by
French metrication, which led to a new unified system based on the
Imperial gallon, defined as the volume of 10 lb water.

Tony.
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