The metric system was first introduced in France in the late 18th century. French scientists agreed to define the metre as "one ten-millionth part of a quarter of the earth's circumference" and then set out to find out exactly how long that was. It took many years for them to measure it accurately, presumably because it was nigh impossible to measure such a huge distance when they'd not yet defined a unit of length. The scientists then went on to define one litre as the volume of one-tenth-of-a-metre cubed, and one kilogram as the weight of one litre of water. All very nicely linked and logical, which is more than can be said for the motley assortment of ancient measurements that the metric system has replaced all around the world. Everywhere except America, that is, where they still insist on using Ye Olde English units based on the ever-so-easy-to-calculate 8, 12, 14 and 1760 times tables. Still, better to be mathematically hamstrung than to capitulate to the French, obviously.
Maybe now is the time to replace the metric system with a new set of units of measurement more appropriate for the 21st century, and this time we really need to choose a system that the Americans might actually approve of. Here's a few suggestions:
Capacity - the latté Definition: the volume of coffee required to kickstart an American in the morning.
Prefixes: x1 tall; x2 grande, x3 venti
• average coffee consumption in the UK per day per head = 0.4 latté • average coffee consumption in Seattle per day per head = 6 ventilatté
• the capacity of one of those free samples of shampoo you sometimes find in magazines = 1 millilatté
• the amount of beer sold by one pub over a bank holiday weekend = 10 kilolatté
Length - the freedom Definition: the distance one tank can advance in one second
• the distance from Basra to Baghdad = 1 megafreedom
Mass - the donut Definition: one icing-topped ring of jam-packed dough (diameter 1 millifreedom)
• weight of one Hostess Twinkie = 0.75338 donut
• weight of one McDonald's gherkin = 1 centidonut
• weight of one donut addict = 5 kilodonut
Time - the hourglass Definition: the average time that Windows takes to respond to one mouse click.
• time taken to make one cup of coffee = 1 hrglass
• time taken to stare out of window and back at screen = 0.01 hrglass
• time taken for PC to crash losing all your work = 0.000001 hrglass
• total time wasted globally each day waiting for PCs to respond = 1 gigahrglass = 1 gates
For more on weights and measures, see my Miscellany page here
Update: There's been extensive discussion of this post and of the virtues (or otherwise) of the metric system over at Samizdata today. As a result I've been persuaded to change my definition of 'freedom' to be the distance a tank can advance in one second, not one minute. And now the maths works almost perfectly.
