Measurement-Units

Weights, Measures and Money

Back in The Olden Days, our various units for weights and measures, as well as other things like money, were different from today's. For instance when I got married I weighed 12 stone 12 pounds, or 180 pounds, and my height was 6 feet (see below for a list of these units and their meanings). Today I still weigh 180 pounds (although my centre of gravity is a bit lower) and my height is, in the old terms, 5 feet 11 inches. But our stones and pounds have been changed to kilograms and grams, and our feet and inches have been changed to metres (meters in US) and centimetres, so now I weigh almost 82 kilograms and I'm 178 centimeters (or centimetres) tall. Feels like I've been re-modelled, somehow!

In the "good old days" our money (in England and Australia anyway) was in pounds (yes, a different pound), shillings and pence, with 20 shillings to the pound and 12 pence (pennies) to a shilling. Then in 1966, Australia changed to decimal currency, with our newly-formed dollar equal to 1/2 a pound, or 10 shillings. The dollar (first named the Royal, but changed before coins were released) was divided into 100 cents, so a cent was worth 1.2 pence.

The English currency consisting of pounds, shillings and pence was changed to a decimal system in 1971. It dropped the shillings and pence, and replaced them with new pence; 100 new pence= 1 pound sterling. So an amount of 1 pound 12 shillings and 6 pence, which was 1 5/8 pounds, became about 1 pound 62 new pence. The word new was dropped in 1981.
For a discussion of Bitcoin, see below.

For quite a while the decimal conversion was confusing, especially to us "old-timers" and we had to be very careful that we weren't "ripped off" by more agile-minded and shifty dealers. But overall, the change (no pun intended) was for the better, as it simplified calculations and made money-handling machines simpler.

The units for distance have also been changed, also for the better I believe. The old units of miles, yards, feet and inches have all been dropped in favour of the meter with its decimal based sub- and super-units, the kilometer, centimeter and millimeter. Some older units, the furlong, chain and link had already become redundant in most fields (again, no pun intended) except surveying and horse-racing.

Some of the tools for measuring weight, size and distance and many other things have also improved. Room and furniture sizes for instance, once done rather awkwardly with a tape-measure, can now be done with a laser device that is merely pointed at the distant point to accurately display the distance digitally.

The following was submitted by a visitor to this site, TDarcos:
Louis Rossman, a YouTuber who operated an electronics repair store in New York City before he got disgusted with city incompetence and ridiculousness and moved himself and his business to Texas, tells how when he was shopping for a new store in NYC, real estate agents would show him locations that didn't seem as large as they claimed. He'd try measuring with a tape measure and would come up short. They'd claim he wasn't doing it correctly. So, he would bring a laser measure, place against a wall at the widest point in the store, and measure to the other wall. Then going to the longest point and repeat. This gives the absolute maximum size it could possibly be, and agents didn't like it, because it proves conclusively that the landlords routinely overstated actual square footage, typically by 30-50%, and sometimes as much as 100%. If a landlord quotes a lease rate of $90 per square foot, claims it's 900 square feet when it's actually more like 600, that 30% difference - and attempt to extract an unearned $2700 a month isn't mere error, it's fraud. And real estate agents shrug it off, as "that's the way the real estate business is done in New York City." People don't like it when they're forced to recognize reality.

Some Old Units And Their New Counter-parts

Old Unit	New Unit	Scale Value	Comparative Value
Length
Inch	Centimeter	12inches=1foot	1 inch≈25.4 millimeters
Foot	Centimeter	3feet=1yard	1 foot≈30.48 centimeters
Yard	Meter	22yards=1chain	1 yard≈0.91 meter
Link	inch	100 links= 1 chain	1 link= 7.92 inches
Chain	Meter	80chains=1mile	1 chain≈20.1 meters
Mile	Kilometer	1mile=1760 yards	1 mile≈1.6 kilometers
Weight (Avoirdupois)
Ounce	Gram	16 ounces=1 pound	1ounce≈28.35 grams
Pound	Gram	28 pounds=1 quarter	2.2 pounds= 1 kilogram
Pound	Kilogram	14 pounds=1 stone	(Stones were for body-weight)
Quarter	Kilogram	4 quarters=1 hundredweight	80 quarters≈1 tonne
Hundredweight	Kilogram	20 hundredweight=1 ton	20 hundredweight≈1 tonne
Ton	Tonne	1ton=2240 pounds	1tonne= 1000 kilograms
(A ton is 1,016.047 kg or 2,240 lbs. A tonne, (metric ton) is 1,000 kg or 2,204.6 lbs).
Money
Farthing	cent	4 farthings=1 penny	100cents= 1dollar
Penny	Cent	12 pence=1 shilling
Shilling	Cent	20 shillings=1 pound
Florin	Cent	2 shillings=1 florin
Half-Crown	Cent	1 half-crown=2 shillings and 6 pence
Crown	Cent	1 crown=5 shillings
Weight (Troy, or Precious Metal)
Grain	Grain	24grains=1pennyweight
Pennyweight	Pennyweight	20pennyweight=1ounce
Ounce	Ounce	12ounces=1pound
Pound	Pound	1pound=5760grains
Capacity (liquid)
Pint	Litre	2 pints=1 quart	1 pint≈0.57 litre
Quart	Litre	4 quarts=1 gallon

As you will see if you examine the third column, the simple act of adding or subtracting quantities in the olden days could be quite tedious, as the units had to be converted between the various sub-units by dividing or multiplying, and similarly for other actions.

For example adding 2 feet 6 inches to 3 feet 9 inches required the inches to be added (6+9=15) then divided by twelve to convert this to feet and inches (1 foot 3 inches), then added to the feet, giving a total of 6 feet 3 inches.
Using the metric system, to add say 1 meter 65 centimeters to 2 meters 50 centimeters, we simply add 1.65 to 2.5 giving 4.15 meters or 4 meters 15 centimeters.

There are a few Weights and Measures changes that remain, if not problematic, at least niggling for me and others of my vintage.

• I used to proudly claim that my car averaged thirty miles per gallon of fuel, which was pretty good. Twenty-five miles per gallon was ok, and even twenty was acceptable for larger cars.
  Now, economy is stated in litres per 100 kilometers, and my car would have been about 9 litres per 100k, and the larger car 14 litres per 100k. Of course, with improved fuels and motor efficiency, we get much better results now. But to someone who's grown up to regard a lower figure as desirable, adjusting our thinking to consider a higher figure better can be a bit problematic.
• I don't do much cooking, but I sometimes get called upon by my wife to convert quantities in recipes to those she's accustomed to. Some of her books give amounts in grams and in ounces, but most of her "old faithfuls" give only ounces, and to measure, say 12 ounces of butter from a 500 gram pack is a little awkward.
• When travelling on country roads, our usual speed would be 60 miles per hour and at this speed, when we saw a sign that said our destination was 45 miles away, it was easy to say "ok, that's 45 minutes".
  Now, with country speed being about 100K per hour, it's not so simple. We have to divide the distance (ok, it is in kilometers) by 100, then multiply by 60 to find the time in minutes.

Maybe the units for time should be decimalized: 10 seconds=1 minute, 10 minutes=1 hour... ?
Hey, we could all go home from work early!

Other units and levels

There are other units and levels that are used in less-common places, like electronics, astronomy and shipping. Here are some of these:

Electronics

(units mentioned here are the standard SI units).

Voltage (symbol: E, for electromotive force).

The electrical potential at a given point is expressed in volts.

1 volt will cause 1 ampere to flow through a resistance of 1 ohm

Current (symbol: I, for the French word Intensite)

The rate at which electricity travels through a medium is measured in amperes (amps).

1 amp flows when 1 volt is applied across a resistance of 1 ohm.

Resistance (symbol: R)

The resistance offered to the passage of current is measured in ohms.

1 ohm is the resistance that allows 1 ampere to flow between two points with 1 volt potential difference between them.

Power (symbol: P)

The rate at which electrical power is dissipated is measured in watts or kilowatts.

1 watt = 1 ampere travelling between two points with 1 volt potential difference.

Energy units (symbol Q, for Quantity).

The amount of electricity consumed over time is commonly expressed in kilowatt hours.

1 kilowatt hour is consumed when 1 kilowatt is dissipated for 1 hour.

Less common is the coulomb. A coulomb is equal to the electric charge delivered by 1 ampere in 1 second.

Capacitance (symbol: C)

A capacitor is a device that can store an electric charge, usually between two plates separated by an insulating material, and the amount of charge it can hold is expressed in farads, or more commonly microfarads or picofarads.

A capacitor of 1 farad holds a charge of 1 volt when 1 coulomb is stored in it.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the largest, and the original "cryptocurrency". It is a decentralized digital currency by which users can send "cash" directly to other users on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network.
It was launched in 2009 by a group known as Satoshi Nakamoto. As of Nov. 2019, there were over 18 million bitcoins in circulation with a total market value of around $146 billion. One of its most important features is that it is not controlled by any central authority, such as government bodies.

For any monetary system to function, you need a payment network with accounts, balances, and transactions. With crypto-currency, every user, or "peer" in the network needs to have a list of all transactions to check if future transactions are valid or an attempt to double spend.
Each peer has a virtual wallet, which is the storage place for his bitcoins. It has a secret, personal key and a public key. Coins may be purchased on-line from a bitcoin-atm.

Bitcoin uses a technology called block-chain. In it, when peer A wishes to send a number of bitcoins to peer B, he creates a transaction, with his own secret digital key, and it is sent to B. A copy of the transaction is sent to every peer on the network, but with his public key instead of his private key. So every peer has a copy of every transaction by every peer in the network.

When first created, the transaction is "pending" for a short time. During this time, some of the peers, referred to as "miners", who have a special verification tool, use this to check the validity of the transaction. The first miner to do so is rewarded for his work with a small number of bitcoins, created by the system. Once approved, the transaction is permanent and is added to the block-chain, and the recipient receives the bitcoins into his acount. The transactions are grouped together into blocks that form a history-chain of all transactions; hence the word block-chain.