Olympic measurement units
Everyone knows that measurements in the Olympic games are in metric units, right? Skiers, speed skaters, swimmers, and runners all race on courses, tracks, or pools measured in meters. Why then, are the bobsled and luge speeds given in miles per hour? Could it be that NBC converts the measured speeds from km per hour to miles per hour for the American audience?
Do you deal with both English and metric units at your job? You probably do. Is that confusing?
Petr commented:
All World should use SI unit system. That is why it was based for. Meter is only part of it.
If I hear mile, I must ask. Which mile? Imperial, nautical, roman or one of many national miles around the World.
JOHNNY69 commented:
It's all really about ten's isn't it?
IA commented:
It's all stonecutters work.
Jim commented:
Americans just have an intuitive feeling for speeds in mph, that's all. They drive everyday and so they know what 60mph or 90mph is. If a luge or bobsled speed is given as 90mph, then people will be very impressed, whereas if it is given as 150kph they won't relate to it, and it won't mean as much to them. I don't think you should read any more into it than that. I would imagine that if they report on NASCAR or the Indy 500 in Europe they probably convert the speeds to kph for the audiences there.
petedcurtis commented:
Hi, I worked in Brasil for many years which is mainly metric after coming from a Imperial UK. I have no problem with either. Meanwhile the UK converted officially to Decimal on the 1970's although they kept Miles & MPH for road traffic. Frankly I see no reason why the US should not convert to Decimal measurements for engineering purposes. I'm pretty sure many products the US export were designed with and already have metric components anyway. And most foreign imported cars have metric comonents so tooling should not be a big problem. Peter
Dave commented:
England still uses good old miles per hour on their roads. Historical or the same problem the US faced where people just didn't want to adopt the change?
Robert G commented:
Agree with Jack that NBC converted the final speeds of the bobsled and luge runs into MPH (from KM/HR) based on their non-engineering audience. This way we can compare to speeds we experience in an enclosed vehicle such as the automobile, which everyone comprehends. As engineers we should always be aware of which system we are using, metric or English, to avoid costly mistakes in dimensioning such as in space travel.
RDSexton commented:
Is this an invitation to rehash the whole English vs Metric argument? The vaunted superiority of metric is mostly a chimera because neither system can claim superior accuracy. Frankly, while i regularly use metric where applicable I would rather use "miles per hour" over the verbally clumsy "kilometers per hour" the pronunciation of which has yet to be settled.
Larry commented:
The metric/imperial system seems to be a complex paradox for America. Many years ago there was movement by some of the Prof' Engineering Institutions to introduce metrication but it seemed to lose it's way. The US is now (I suspect) the only country that is using the old and disjointed imperial system and, ironically, the US calls it the "English System" to distance itself from the understandardly clumsy system that it is - the trouble is, even the English don't use it except for a few historical applications!!
For export purposes, I would think that most US manufactured goods would have to meet metrification standards to be acceptable - yet the same product for the US market would have to have imperial measurements to be acceptable. This would appear to not only add extra cost providing two sets of specifications but also increase the risk of translation mishaps - ergo, the lander crash on Mars!
Jack commented:
NBC converted the units. I recall seeing kph figures on CBC and CTV.
