Imperial Units Of Measurement

Episode notes

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writer/podcaster Katie Goldin (‘Creature Feature’ podcast, @ProBirdRights) for a look at why Imperial units of measurement are secretly incredibly fascinating.

Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week’s bonus episode.

LINKS FOR THE GUESTS:

• Katie Goldin on Twitter
• @ProBirdRights
• ‘Creature Feature’ podcast (iHeartRadio)
• When Is a Bird a ‘Birb’? An Extremely Important Guide (Audubon)

RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

• native-land.ca
• U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
• The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland (Smithsonian)
• Mapping Manahatta: 10 Lenape sites in New York City (6sqft)

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• full text of the U.K. Weights And Measures Act of 1824
• Return of imperial system on cards for Brexit Britain – measurements have always been political (The Conversation)
• How France created the metric system (BBC Travel)
• Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts
• Merriam-Webster definitions and word origin for “fathom”
• What do the numbers mean on a nautical chart? (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
• Encyclopedia Britannica entry for hand (measurement)
• Why are horses measured in hands? H&H explains (Horse & Hound)
• From Kings To The Average Joe: Gout Makes A Comeback (NPR Shots)
• Not just April Fool’s, 1 April is the day measurements became simple for India (ThePrint.in)
• Thomas Jefferson’s Proposed System of Weights and Measures (The Library Of Congress)
• Measure for Measure: The Story of Imperial, Metric, and Other Units by Alex Hebra
• Imperial vs. American: how do they measure up? (The Globe And Mail)
• 36 Unusual Units of Measurement (Mental Floss)
• Alex took this unscientific Twitter poll to help inform his understanding of Canadian uses of measurement systems.
• Correction: the first version of this episode inaccurately said British and Canadian gasoline is pumped in gallons. Those countries use Imperial gallons, but not for gasoline amounts (they use liters). There are also British automotive standards that do use miles per gallon in some situations. Alex is pretty sure that’s where his mixup came from.
• When a metric mix-up led to the ‘Gimli Glider’ emergency (CBC Archives)
• Metric vs. Imperial: Three Measurement Mishaps (Wall Street Journal / YouTube)
• Metric mishap caused loss of NASA orbiter (CNN)
• The “Pulling Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps” Myth, Explained (Teen Vogue)
• Busting Myths about the Metric System (U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology)
• Is America Actually Metric? (YouTube channel “Veritasium”, visiting the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology in person, and interviewing Dr. Patrick Abbott)
• full text of U.K. Units of Measurement Regulations of 1995
• Why Americans still use Fahrenheit long after everyone else switched to Celsius (Vox) — this is something we touched on briefly. In case anyone wants more details on Fahrenheit/Celsius: both scales were developed in the first half of the 1700s. Polish-born German scientist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit developed his system in 1724, and he got inducted by the British Royal Society. Sourcing is murky as far as whether Fahrenheit was an *official* Imperial unit in the past, or just the most common temperature scale in the British Empire. Either way, the British Empire did not develop Fahrenheit and has never been in charge of codifying it. The modern set of Imperial units excludes Fahrenheit. And since 1961, Britain has done its weather forecasting in Celsius. Celsius is a  few years older than Fahrenheit, developed in 1742 and named for Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius. Celsius’s system got officially adopted into the metric system in the 1790s, after he came up with it.