The old Mock Metric thread has 44 messages and has gotten hard to find things in. The original "no more confusion" thread where we started cooking up the system is even harder to sort through. So here is a concise update.

Bryan Semi-natural Units are an satirical system of units in which the main natural constants are powers of thousand.

In metric the main natural constants are tend to look like the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s by definition) so they are certainly not powers of thousand.

Bryan unit names were decided on in the bwma thread "no more confusion" by discussion among Leonard, Bryan Parry and Paul Birch. The names could be changed if we decide we like different ones better.

The length base unit is BONE, being 1.6 cm or the width of a little finger near the first joint.

The force unit is KIBBLE (in honor of Brian Kibble of NPL Teddington who developed the moving coil balance), being 121 N or about 27 pounds.

Therefore the energy unit has to be KIBBLEBONE, being about 1.96 joules--the work performed by exerting kibble force through bone distance.

[this is analogous to the metric joule which is a newtonmeter: performed by exerting newton force for meter distance]

The mass unit is the DOG, being about 22 kilograms or 48 pound mass. A man might typically be expected to have a mass of 4 dogs although in one of the problems Dr. Kissinger has a mass of 5 dogs.

The time base unit is the SNICKER being 1/18.55 second, so that there are nearly 20 snickers in a second

The value adopted for normal sealevel gravity is 1.76 bone per square snicker

The unit mass of one dog weighs 1.76 kibble in normal gravity.

A convenient fraction of a dog is a NONCE, which is nearly an ounce, and is a thousandth part of a dog. In metric terms a nonce is 21.76 g.

The unit of power, kibblebone per snicker, is some 36 watts.

An extremely important auxilliary length unit is the BRYAN which is 10 bone.

A CUBIC BRYAN is a GALLON (between US and UK gallons, 4.2 litre).

TEN THOUSAND BRYANS MAKE A CONVENTIONAL MILE (within half a percent of the official US and UK unit).

The power of direct sunlight on a square bryan at this distance from the sun is close to unit power namely one kibblebone per snicker

The speed unit bone per snicker is abbreviated bo/sn and may be pronounced bosun.

A common speed on the highway (67 mph) is 100 bosun
and the speed of light in vacuo is exactly a billion bosun by definition. For practical purposes a bosun can be considered 2/3 mph.

The unit of electrical charge is that of 10^18 (a billion billion, a quintillion) natural unit charges.
It's called a quint as a reminder that it's a quintillion times the elementary charge. There are several ways the unit charge could be defined and this is just one chosen to have something to work with. The choice may be revised.

The natural constants

c = E9 bosun (hopefully E9 is clear enough for "a billion" or 10^9)

G = E-6 kibble square bone per square dog (to the accuracy that G is currently measured)

h-cross (also called h-bar)= E-33 kibblebone snicker

e = E-18 quint

These are exact by definition unless otherwise noted.

G being a millionth in these units can be interpreted as meaning that two extremely compact unit masses (one dog each) if they could be placed one fingerwidth apart would attract each other with a millionth of a kibble force, and also as meaning that a planet-like body with million dog mass would have a gravity of one bone^3/snicker^2.
h-cross or h-bar tells among other things the quantum energy of light of any frequency. The energy it associates with unit angular frequency is 10^-33 kibblebone. The standard speed for light is precisely ten thousand miles per snicker.

I'm gathering stuff about Bryan units from several threads.
A recent new-comer Mr. Vana has forwarded to us a "Just a joke" story which is a great
vehicle for humorously comparing systems.
He says it came to him unrequested as "spam" so it must be afloat on the internet. I adapted it to Bryan units since these units are intended to be funny and they have the feature that the natural constants are powers of thousand (as contrasted with metric's difficult to remember numbers.)

> Oh great Oracle whose keyboard never has crumbs,
> Will metric ever get modernized?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today to determine Europe's measurement challenge once and for all.

In the blue corner we have our current European champion for many years, weighing in at 110 kilograms, our hero: Mr "Frenchy" Metric.

In the red corner we have, all the way from somewhere in Sussex, and currently storming the world wherever he goes, our challenger: the great Bryan, weighing in at 5 dogs.

It will be a great fight today and one that may change the course of history. Can Bryan defeat the Metric Defender and change life on the continent forever, or will Mr. Metric outwit the classy opponent and maintain his place in history.

We are about to find out.

Gentlemen, I want a clean fight. Shake hands and come out fighting on the bell.

Round 1: "DONG"

They both approach each other and meet in the middle of the ring. Bryan has trained well and opens with the first punch:

How many meters per second is standard speed for light?

Mr. Metric answers after a moment's hesitation with:

299,792,458

"Good exchange there Bob, hasn't worried either of them."

"No Bill, it's still neck and neck, although Mr. Metric took a fraction of a second to divert that question."

Mr. Metric decides to attack with a similar strategy:

What's the speed in Bryan units: miles per snicker?

Instantly, Bryan flashes back with:

10 thousand

"Wasn't that a great counter by Bryan eh Bob - so quick. He's looking good tonight"

"Sure is Bill"

Mr. Metric goes on the attack again with a curly one:

What quantum energy goes with unit angular frequency?

Bryan comes back instantly with:

10**-33 kibblebone

"Great offense from Metric there Bob. Combining both measurement of energy and frequency - well thought out."

"Sure thing Bill, but I think he may have left himself a bit vulnerable here. If I can guess, Bryan should follow up with..."

What energy goes with metric unit angular frequency?

Mr. Metric reels back with such a tough one. He hesitates.

"Thought he'd do that Bill, he's looking shaky. I wonder how he's trained for this?"

Suddenly, Metric's eyes light up and he comes back with:

1.0545716 x 10**-34 joules.

"Well Bob, our champ got out of that one but it was a bit messy eh?"

"It was Bill. I think he was lucky there. Bryan should come back with a tough one here if he's got it in him."

As Bryan prepares for an offense, the champ Mr. Metric slips in a sneaky one:

How many electrons does it take to make up Bryan unit charge?

"What a shot Bob! That'll hurt him."

Bryan defends without a flinch:

10**18, a quintillion

"No Bill, Bryan has trained too well and has got too much ability. That reply was instananeous. You know, I think he should follow the same strategy as before and follow up with..."

How many electrons are in the metric unit of charge?

"Metric is down!"

1 2 3 4 5 6 7...

6.24151...x10**18

"What an answer! Our boy's still got guts!"

"DONG"

End of Round 1.

"Bill, that bell came just at the right time. This fight shouldn't last the next round."

"You're right Bob, but that guy from Sussex is just too good.

Round 2: "DONG"

Mr. Metric comes out and slips in a gentle offense:

How many units of mass make one unit of gravity?

Bryan defends:

One million

"Playground stuff there Bob."

"Yeah Bill"

Bryan goes for the kill:

How many in metric terms?

"Uh oh. I think this is it Bob."

Mr. Metric stutters:

uuuhhhhmmmmmmm. What's one divided by 6.673 x 10**-11?

"Oh Bill, he's answered with a question. That's not following the spirit of the game!"

Bryan replies:

Here. Want to borrow my calculator?

"Curtains Bill. I'm sure."

Mr. Metric responds, madly calculating:
Let's see, one over 6.673 is 0.1499 and
one over 10**-11 is 10**11, so it must
be 1.499x10**10 kilograms. It's 15 billion kilograms
and one metric unit of gravity is a cubic meter per
square second!

DONG

Mr. Metric collapses on the floor in a cold sweat.


"Saved by the bell Bob!"

"Yeah Bill. I guess we have to get used to the idea of a new system here in the Union. This Bryan guy is a mean lean measuring machine."


Round 3: "DONG"

"Metric is up Bob, he's staggering into center ring and putting his big question to Bryan"

What's the energy equivalent of Bryan unit mass?

Bryan instantly comes back, "10**18, a quintillion kibblebones, and what about the joule equivalent of a kilogram?"

"Metric is down Bill! He's groaning and trying to multiply 299,792,458 by 299,792,458! He's hitting his head on the floor."

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

"Metric is out Bob, and this match is over!"

"Just let me interrupt you Bill, our man Leroy is down in the ring talking with the new champ."

"Bryan that was an incredible last blow there. Tell me did you have a punch in reserve in case that didn't take him out"

Tell you the truth, Leroy, Metric's an outdated turkey.
Any basic conversion you try on him will show him up. I just asked the first things that came to mind.

"Interesting response there from Bryan, Back to you Bill"

A motorcyclist in a silver-studded black leather
jacket and hand-tooled cowboy boots is suddenly
seized by beings from another planet and totally
converted into energy.

The mass of the motorcyclist is four dogs (87 kg),
into how many kibblebones of energy is he converted?

Ans: 4 x 10^18 (four billion billion) kibblebones, because billion billion is what you get when you square the speed of light

Robin Hood, played by Errol Flynn, leaps out of a tree
and lands on the Sheriff of Nottingham.
How many kibblebones of energy are delivered to
the Sheriff upon impact?

The famed outlaw's mass is four dogs and the branch from which he leaps is twenty bryans above the sheriff.

Ans. 4 x 1.76 x 200 = 1408 kibblebones, which it
may please the reader to round to 1400.

A feudal lord is subjecting his farmers to the rack to encourage them to adopt the metric system. The tension at which farmers snap is 100 kibble. On the other hand the elasticity of a farmer is 0.2 bone per kibble, which is to say applying a kibble of tension to a farmer makes him stretch a distance of 0.2 bone. How far does each farmer stretch before snapping?

Ans: 100 kibble times 0.2 bone per kibble is 20 bone which is a distace of two bryans

The well-known diplomat and national security advisor Dr. Kissinger had a mass of 5 dogs. While fleeing from reporters he once ascended a flight of stairs with a vertical speed of one bone per snicker (2/3 mph). What was the trusted advisor's power output (in kibblebone per snicker) on that occasion?

Ans: We must find the force of his weight, which is 5×1.76 or 8.8 kibble. Accordingly his power output is 8.8 kibblebone per snicker.

Note: the dog (mass unit in the Bryan system) is some 22 kilograms and the kibble (force unit) is about 27 pounds of force. Lifting a kibble weight by one bone (a fingerwidth, 1.6 cm) takes a kibblebone of energy.

Lawrence of Arabia is riding his camel rapidily across the desert. At the moment he is being pursued by Turks who are angry that Lawrence has placed a charge of dynamite in a culvert beneath the tracks and damaged their locomotive.

With nothing to do except evade the Turks, Lawrence recalls the beautiful sight of a wheel from the locomotive sailing 100 bryans straight up into the blue desert sky and idly wonders the speed with which it emerged from the explosion.

Ans: 60 bone per snicker or about 40 miles per hour. Squareroot of 1.76×2000.

The "Just a joke" story of the fight
was passed along to us by Sigga Vala
Gunnarsdaughter. Apologies for getting
her name wrong and calling her Mr Vana!
I still think the fight story is a great
way to dramatize differences between
systems of measurement. Thanks Sigga!

Two balls of fluff suspended in a bell-jar hung
nestled together plotting how they might cause
the units of the Romans (mile, pound, ounce, inch) to
be utterly abandoned. Suddenly a benevolent djinn
appeared and placed a millionth of a quint of charge on each fluff-ball so that they repelled each other
wildly.

What was the force between those repulsive fluff-balls?

Ans: 1/137 kibble.

that 1/137 kibble was the initial force when
their separation was only one bone, or little
fingerwidth. as they swung wildly apart the
force diminished with increasing square distance

Probably you have a car and the car has a 12V battery.
To each electron coming out of the (-) this battery gives a certain ability to do work, an energy.
when the electron has done whatever (helped turn a motor, helped spark a cylinder) it comes back to the (+) and goes back in the battery, now without that energy or potential to do work.

I just went to the second story window and looked out at my wife's garden and there were a lot of colors (what colors!!!) and each color has a distinctive energy which is in every bit of light of that color.

For red the energy is a SEVENTH of the car battery energy. For green it is a FIFTH and for blue a FOURTH.

Every blue photon out in the garden carries energy which is 1/4 of that amount the car battery gives each of its electrons.

In Bryan units the voltage of the car battery is one tao (just a one-syllable name for 12 volts) and the energy the battery gives to each outflowing electron is one "electrontao" (that is how much work one electron can do coming out of a 12V battery.)

And the angular frequency of the red photons of light (the ones with 1/7 electrontao energy) is 1/7 quadrillion per snicker.

NOTHING IN METRIC IS THAT SIMPLE

And more is true, the wavelength is 7 millionths bone.

And the frequency of green photons, the ones with 1/5 electrontao energy, is 1/5 quadrillion per snicker, and the wavelength is 5 millionths bone.

NOTHING IN METRIC IS ANYWHERE NEAR THAT SIMPLE!

a car drives by and I am looking out the window and I know for damn sure that each electron pumped out of that car's battery carries with it an electrontao of energy and that the BLUE of the ripening blueberries
this July the photons carrying the blue to me each brings to my retina an energy of 1/4 electrontao and has a frequency of 1/4 quadrillion and a wavelength of 4 millionths.

The simplicity of those color relations is numerically obscured by metric units and revealed by Bryan units because of three round-number conversion factors, c and h-bar and e. ALL THREE WERE USED HERE. No one who loves beauty will ever forgive metric for the ugliness of its c and h-bar and e once they realize how ugly the metric numbers are, in my modest hopinion. Selah.

The natural particle the electron carries such a small charge that it is 10**-18 or a billionbillionth of the Bryan unit of charge (which is about a sixth of the metric charge unit.)

An electrontao, the small bit of energy discussed
in connection with car batteries and colors, is a quintillionth of a kibblebone.

Kibblebone of course is the regular energy measure in Bryan units.

So I'm saying one electrontao is 10**-18 of the regular energy unit.

Admittedly the preceding post was a ramble--the heated outburst of one deficient in self-criticism. But was or was it not appropriate?

a bit over-excited there about light.

now let's put some nice numbers into the BSU (Bryan's
Semi-natural Units) system

we can do that by defining AUXILLIARY units.

the only force unit we have so far is the dog (which
is a bit over 27 pounds) and for physics problems the
idea is to keep it simple and only have one unit of each kind. But nothing prevents us from defining an
auxilliary unit (for non-technical aspects) of a
STONE which is of course a half-dog

and then pounds and ounces come along as usual from that, or howeverelse you please but that is one way
of quickly defining a CONCORDANCE with traditional units or an embedding of traditional units within the new system.

the only practical volume unit we have so far is
the CUBIC BRYAN which is 1000 cubic fingerwidths or 1000 cubic bones and comes to about halfway between UK and US gallons. so we just call a cubic bryan a gallon and quickly we have quarts, pints and all from that in the traditional fashion.

the practical distance we have in BSU so far is the MILE which is 100 thousand bones (fingerwidths) and in metric terms 1616 meters. The easiest way to get a concordance is just to use all the traditional numbers and say that a yard is 1/1760 of that mile and a foot is 1/3 of that yard and an inch is 1/12 of that foot.

Then it will turn out that the technical base unit of length which is bone will be exactly 0.6336 inches. Well how terrible is that really? It just means that
in BSU system you can keep using inch and foot if you like but if you move into technical areas like physics problems then you must shift to using bone which is exactly 0.6336 inch. I do not think that is so terrible.

OK so this is called peaceful coexistence of one system as an embedded subset of the other or of the other as a subset of the one--it doesn't matter how you think of it. the main thing is we now have nice
numbers like 12 and 36.

So probably your weight, if you are a guy, is 4 dogs.
Just remember that a dog is two stone so that if
a Britisher asks your weight you can say 8 stone.
Your weight is really 4 dogs but it will make the islanders happy if you say 8 stone and it is very little trouble just to double the dogs.

Unfortunately the BSU system is not a real system (how wonderful if it were!) but only at least for now a kind of KAZOO with which to jeer at metric. But give it time.

"Double the dogs" LOL Truly, that is a dream for a 'public education broadcast'. They used to have "Two and a quarter pounds of jam weighs a kilogramme" now they too can have something catchy to do with "doubling the Dogs"- it would be a fun to teach kids. Of course, I am totally against "educating the public" especially in matters where they ought to be left to the public, but I could definately see this working. The names are fun too, expecially as when compared to the dreary metric names:

Hey kids! Look at this kicking kilogramme! Man, is the mighty metre cool! Look! Look! Its our hero, Captain Litre! He's light! Man, this dude ain't heavy!:

I just don't see it working somehow.

we must play the kazoo with fitting dignity
and so we shall refrain from saying "double the dogs"
too often or too loudly

but the fact remains that a dog is two stones
and this cannot be denied by reasonable persons
nor is there any comparably simple connection of metric
newtons to anything, stones or otherwise

I'm sorry Bryan, KIBBLE (about 27 pounds force) is
what we were calling the force unit.

a kibble is two stones

one doubles the kibbles to get the stones of weight

typical weight for a grown man is 7 kibbles

double that and get 14 stones (AH THAT IS BETTER)

BONE: fingerwidth, appr. 5/8", 1.616 cm
DOG: 48 pound mass unit, appr. 22 kg
KIBBLE: force unit, 121 newtons, 27 pounds force.
SNICKER: time unit, 1/18.55 second

again, sorry about that slip. I must be careful
not to confuse mass unit (dog) and force unit (kibble).

I worked out the mass of the dog unit in pounds and it came to 47.98 lb in conventional terms which is remarkably close to 48.
So maybe it would be best to take a pound mass to be 1/48 of a dog.

Let's temporarily ignore the force unit (kibble) in trying to relate BSU to traditional units. Let's say that
a pound mass is 1/48 of the BSU dog unit mass.

The relations among the length units, mile yard foot inch bone, are still all right. I just blundered initially in talking about mass.

And in fact a typical mass for a grown man is 4 dog
(I wasn't mistaken about that) so multiplying by 48 you get 192 pounds. Only trouble now is stone doesn't
fit in nicely.

A pound is 1/48 dogge, so why not let's make a stone 1/3 of a dogge (16 lbs). Then we have 16 drams= 1 ounce, 16 oz= 1 pound, 16 lbs= 1 stone.

excellent idea! if you know the mass of something
in terms of dog, then you TRIPLE the dogs to get
stone

and from there it is all sixteens

I think we have had a bit of unexpected (by me) luck
and the pattern of ratios is very appealing

so a typical man's mass is 4 dog

which is 12 stone

(but these stone are 16 pound ones so)

in pounds it is 192 lb. and in ounces etc etc
but that is all just the same

Glad it works out this way!
Thanks,

L

bwma says that a twelvester website says that
stone used to be 16 pounds anyway but the fishermen
had trouble with it so it was changed to 14 but
this could be a myth or I could have misremembered
what bwma actually said. still it is possible that
16 is an OK size for stone.

Now we have a system where
c is a billion
G is a millioth
e is a quintillionth
h-cross is 10**-33

(in marked contrast with metric where these numbers
are definitely not powers of thousand)

and furthermore the system has the handy half-foot bryan
and gallon (cubic bryan)
and mile (ten thousand bryan)
and yard (1/1760 of mile)
and stone (1/3 of mass unit)
and pound (1/16 of stone)
and ounce (1/16 of pound)
and various other good auxilliary options
connected by pretty decent ratios
so it is working out
better than might have been expected
IMHO Selah.

I still don't see how the number 1760 is superior to the number 1000 in a decimal counting system...

Ralf

How are you on the base units? Could you derive them?
Here again is the main point:

"Now we have a system where
c is a billion
G is a millionth
e is a quintillionth
h-cross is 10**-33

(in marked contrast with metric where these numbers
are definitely not powers of thousand)"

For reference and as a comparison, the metric values are:
c 299792458
G 6.673..x10**-11
e 1.602176...x 10**-19
h-cross 1.0545716...x 10**-34

Your skill with algebra and understanding of the quantities is such that I expect you to be able to
PROVE that if, in a system, the values of c G and h-cross are as stated (billion, millionth, 10**-33) then the time unit, for example, must be 1/18.55 second
or very close to that.

I would value your contribution to the discussion very much as someone who understands the mechanism of how the set of base units is defined.

How would you prove, then, that the BSU time unit has to be approximately this value, or if you prefer that the length unit has to be about 1.6 cm?

As for the traditional units which we can use as
auxilliaries, like mile (100 thousand times base length) or stone (1/3 of base mass unit) they are
pretty much given by history and society and the problem is how gracefully can one relate to them and assimilate them. I did not think traditional units were such a big interest of yours. So I propose that at least for starters you and I make sure you understand
how the base units are determined (there are still possibly interesting unresolved questions there.)

Proving this may be very easy for you, but if not and you need help getting started, let me know. Either Paul or I could help.

I created a separate thread "Ralf's question about 1760" to discuss your remark about 1760. In case
you want to. (You may have meant it purely as an
ironical aside and not want to discuss further.)

with a couple of exceptions the sizes of traditional units change by less than half a percent.

the idea is that in school and home same old yardsticks scales and measures can be used for most purposes (because half a percent is small)

the exceptions are gallon and stone (stone is 16 lbs
instead of 14) and the change in pound is much smaller than half a percent, being less than 1/20 of a percent.

from brief progress report July 21 2002:

[Now we have a system where
c is a billion
G is a millioth
e is a quintillionth
h-cross is 10**-33

(in marked contrast with metric where these numbers
are definitely not powers of thousand)

and furthermore the system has the handy half-foot bryan
and gallon (cubic bryan)
and mile (ten thousand bryan)
and yard (1/1760 of mile)
and stone (1/3 of mass unit)
and pound (1/16 of stone)
and ounce (1/16 of pound)
and various other good auxilliary options
connected by pretty decent ratios]

WHY 0.04 % DECREASE IN POUND
System is defined by specifying 1/18.55 second for time unit (to make something else work out later) and then making c a billion and h-bar 10**-33, exactly. That determines the sizes of all the (non-electric) units. In particular it makes the mass unit, dog, equal to 47.98 conventional lbs. To get it to be 48 exactly we have to shrink pound slightly, essentially to 4798/4800 of conventional pound. With that new pound we can say 1/3 dog is stone and 1/16 stone is pound. Even small changes can make people nervous so
we have to be prepared to dispell worry.

WHY 1/2 % INCREASE IN MILE AND OTHER TRAD. LENGTHS
Defining the system in the way described causes length unit (bone) to come out 1.616 cm (if you do the calculation in metric terms) so that metric equiv. of
mile is 1616 m. But metric equivalent of current US and UK mile is 1609 m. So mile must be stretched out a little--about 0.4 % and anyway less than half a percent.

Our aim I believe is to keep all the traditional length units in same relation and very close to what they are now. Keeping all traditional ratios means that each length unit stretches out by this approximate
0.4% or 1616/1609 factor. Yard, foot, inch are all
a longer by less than half a percent.

Inch becomes 2.55 cm (officially it is now 2.54)
too bad about that. You can see it is a 0.4 percent
increase. Probably anything else would be more trouble. Best to grin and bear it.

New system should be used first in schools and home anyway not for precision industry!

EXCEPTIONS We are very lucky that pound is so close
(less than 1/20 percent change) and mile etc are so close (less than 1/2 percent) but we face a big change in stone: 16 instead of 14 pounds.
However stone is said to be only used in expressing weights of humans and animals. May be able to cope with
change. Gallon is only serious case. Cubic bryan is 4.22 liters if expressed in metric terms.
To check this use calculator to cube 1.616. It will
come out to 4.220. But UK gallon is 4.546 liter if
expressed in metric! Very serious. Reduction in volume by 7% or so. However Bryan I believe you made this
calculation yourself several weeks ago and found the
change acceptable, or am I mistaken?

In US case pints and quarts must all be made somewhat larger because the 4.22 is larger than our present gallon. If I'm not mistaken our pints of beer will be some 11% more voluminous when our gallon becomes a thousand cubic bones or one cubic bryan. I personally feel all right about this but some people may find it a little rough adjusting. The miles per gallon of vehicles on the road will improve.

"However stone is said to be only used in expressing weights of humans and animals. May be able to cope with
change."

Leonard, the stone is used for expressing whatever- it just so happens that it is the most convenient measure for expressing the weight of an animal or perosn. It is comparable to a number of other units- gallon, for instance, is almost exclusively used for fuel consumption and other car elated goodness and n buckets of water (the average being around 2/3 gallons).
By all this I mean that the stone is not a marginalised or dieing unit, but is a key unit in every day life.


"However Bryan I believe you made this
calculation yourself several weeks ago and found the
change acceptable, or am I mistaken?"

I prefer our larger gallon, but then we have to, perhaps, accept that we can't have it all our own ways (we must confront our conservative natures, perhaps). However, what I said was that my *personal* bryan unit, that is, the size of that measure when based off of my own body exactly, was almost exactly one Imperial gallon (when cubed).

If you feel reluctance or resistance about
the 7 % change I mentioned in volume measure
then why don't we set that issue aside for
the time being. Each continue thinking in
the gallons/quarts/pints he is used to.

We have enough to do, in a sense, just getting
used to the idea of 16 pound stone.

(It is remarkable that so much else stays the
same, miles almost same, pound within 0.04 percent
which is amazingly close, and so on. But stone
being larger is a real transition.)

Imagine it as a military campaign. Paul Birch
says population of Isle of Wight is only 150,000.
This seems very low. Have I understood properly.
What would it take to convert the population of
IOW to using 16 pound stone. Stars at 160, 176,
192, on everybody's bathroom scales. This is the
criterion of success: that all scales have stars.

We must begin by convincing Paul to put stickers
or chalkmarks on his scale since he is the only
Isle of Wighter we know. From him the practice
may spread to others on the island.

Of course if it is not a dial kind he won't be
able to.

If stone were in general use. If today you found an oxbridge physics professor (theoretical) and asked him
"what's a billion times the natural unit mass?" he
might say "oh, about 3 stone", because it's 48 pounds.
that would impress me. but he would probably only know it in kilograms: 21.76 kg, if at all, and
what he would say would more likely be "oh around 20 kilos". If we succeed in this odd venture then he will know for sure and he will say "yes of course it is exactly 3 stone!" but first we have to convince Paul to fix his scales. One thing at a time.

No, first you have to BUY ME a set of bathroom scales and stick the stickers on yourself! But even then it would only get shoved away in a cupboard. I guess I weigh about 12 stone (ie 6 qtr or 1½ cwt or 3/40 ton), but I don't know. I seldom feel the need to know.

our first taste of the stern
reality of the situation

1. people don't have dial-type scales
2. they're apt to think it silly to stick stars on them
3. they're not interested in trying out judging
weight in 16-pound stone

and PB is actually a NICE random sample
as people go. so what to do

Heh, it's not that I don't have "dial-type" bathroom scales. I don't have any bathroom scales at all - and probably wouldn't use them if I had. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm not random (well, I wasn't last time I looked). But I'll accept "nice" (especially with the nice and accurate definition).

accurate is a nice (=accurate) meaning for nice


I put out a call for volunteers on metricsucks board
and (wonder of wonders) got a partly favorable reply!
thanks to them, they know who they are:

**************quote from other board*********
> CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS

> Please reply if you would be willing to try
> a deviant weight-scale for a month and
> report briefly on your subjective
> impression.

> You weigh yourself a couple of times a week
> in units of 16 pounds (or 7.25 kg) and
> record your weight and try thinking of your
> weight in those terms. Report your
> subjective experience of judging and
> thinking of your weight in those terms
> instead of usual pounds (or kg.) Reporting
> actual weight is optional, nobody has to
> reveal their weight if they don't wish to.

> PLEASE REPLY TO THIS BOARD IF YOU WOULD LIKE
> TO TRY THIS.

> Because the 16 pound unit is close to the
> British stone (14 pounds) we'll call it
> stone (or if you want to distinguish call it
> stone', stone-prime or make up your own name
> like stoon). so if your weight is 160 pounds
> that day your write down 10 stone. Or if it
> is 164 you record 10 stone 4.

I'd be willing to do it, but I don't own a scale.
*******************************