大象传媒

Hi

Fallibility -is that spelled right, makes us human, I'm more worried by people who never want to be seen making a mistake, in the scheme of things this is less than nothing but its good to see the show presented by fellow human beings, unlike some of your guests who sometimes appear....

I wouldnt have a clue what the conversion ratio, probably most people asked havent a clue idea

re the Imperial measures i remember reading 30 years ago in a magazine supplement maybe to the Sunday Times or Telegraph that there was a sense in this type of measurement as it had some relationship to wider physical laws relating to the universe, but there again maybe I'm completely wronhg abut that to2

Bob

Schools don't teach mathematics so its not your fault.What they teach is manipulation of quantities. The brutal 'drill and kill' method we all know. Real Mathematics means 'learning' or in old english 'to be aware' or 'to awaken.

Mathematics is number, geometry, music and astronomy where the numbers themselves have 'characters' and 'personalities' and are symbols of principles. A number three is a triangle in geometry, a reggae beat in music and pops up in the english language as idioms and natural rhythms e.g its 'one two three go' not one two go, its 'three cheers for them' not four cheers etc.

Given that number has personality we instinctively recognise [remember the TV Magpie song?] then there is a case to view imperial and metric in those terms. Imperial has a base 12 character and metric has a base 10 character. So they have different geometry and different 'music' that have a different psychological effect upon us as listening to techno pop has a different effect than Mozart.

So there is a significant and interesting story to be told between the ideas of metric and Imperial [which goes back to roman days and the standard revolution of a cart wheel and paces of a soldier or 'feet'] Imperial is connected to 'man as the measure of things' [horses measured in hands etc] while metric is not.

for any interested in the personality of number and real mathematics there is a book regarded as the standard text called A voyage from 1 to 10 by M Schnieder. You won't find it in the drill and kill schools.

Hoisted by your own (or your producer's) petard, eh? The conversion to 4 decimal places (which few of us who make the effort ever use) did seem to suggest the story was less than objective--make it seem as complex as possible. Or perhaps that was Jeremy's introduction?

Anyway, 1.6 will do for most of us converting miles to kilometres. Leave 1.609 to the mapmakers and surveyors.

And if it's so difficult for Britons to handle, why is it that most of the 200,000 or so permanently leaving these shores each year (except for those heading to the US) manage to make the switch once they get to their new homes?

Growing up in Canada, we made the switch more than 3 decades ago! Now metric is second nature.

The Imperial system (ironic the Americans cling to something thusly named) is that rather quaint (to me) system, not neatly based on multiples of 10, that appears on food cartons, road signs, and weather maps south of the 49th parallel. But at least the Americans are consistent in its use, unlike we Britons, who apparently cannot decide.

Maybe Brussels fears alienating British voters, lest an EU referendum ever be proferred.

I just wish realtors would consistently indicate the floor area of their properties for comparative purposes, whether metres squared or square feet or both. Just how big is a 2-bedroom flat, anyway?

Hoisted by your own (or your producer's) petard, eh? The conversion to 4 decimal places (which few of us who make the effort ever use) did seem to suggest the story was less than objective--make it seem as complex as possible. Or perhaps that was Jeremy's introduction?

Anyway, 1.6 will do for most of us converting miles to kilometres. Leave 1.609 to the mapmakers and surveyors.

And if it's so difficult for Britons to handle, why is it that most of the 200,000 or so permanently leaving these shores each year (except for those heading to the US) manage to make the switch once they get to their new homes with 30-degree Celsius patios... in the shade?

Growing up in Canada, we made the switch more than 3 decades ago. Now Metric is second nature.

The Imperial system (ironic the Americans cling to something thusly named) is that rather quaint (to me) system, not neatly based on multiples of 10, that appears on food cartons, road signs, and weather maps south of the 49th parallel.

But, at least Americans are consistent in its use, unlike we Britons, who apparently cannot decide.

Hmm... Maybe Brussels fears alienating British voters, lest an EU referendum ever be proferred. Or maybe they realise trade and time will likely take care of the conversion of people's minds.

I just wish realtors (er, estate agents) would consistently indicate the floor area of their properties for comparative purposes, whether metres squared or square feet or both. Just how big is a 2-bedroom flat, anyway?

Karin Edwards
London

I watched the article and replayed to check i had seen it right. I thought it was patronising, trite, and added nothing to our knowledge. We know there are plenty of people who dont know the conversion factors, there is a post above that points out that all these people happily convert (even to the euro) when they need to. When they dont need to why should they?? And to cap it with an elementary mistake on a recording that could have been corrected - a complete waste of 5 minutes of newsnight. Sorry to be hard, but if you set yourselves up as a prime news organisation, you'd better be good. This wasnt.

I was dismayed that a programme such as Newsnight should put forward the Led Zeppilin drummer as a great drummer. If Newsnight wishes viewers to know what a really great drummer sounds like, please play a clip of Gene Krupa

If your 43 your face does time travel - 35 tops.

Nice to see a Euro story done with a light and practical touch as well. The hysterical doom and gloom angle is getting a bit boring.

Did you receive my email from yesterday concerning the above issue? I haven't received an acknowledgement.
I guess someone should have looked over Jackie's conversions. How does one go about posting comments by the way. Is it what I'm doing now? Just one more thing for now, in the first comment, 'its' is spelt wrong twice - it should be it's - and it should have a capital lettet both times.
Anyway.

Well done Karin. I don't think the 大象传媒 would deliberately try to make a point by using 4 sig. figs. because the level of mathematical understanding in the corporation is too low, all those Oxbridge Arts graduates. No, just another example of the general ignorance. Most of the speakers on Radio 4 cannot read any number with more than 2 digits. Just a few examples: 5236 read as fifty-two thirty-six; 6500 read as sixty-five double Oh (Ohs in telephone numbers because they are not numbers); 24-hour clock 1525 read as one five two five (should be fifteen twenty five hours) and 1300 as 13 double Oh (should be thirteen hundred hours).
The 大象传媒 has a special unit to help with pronunciation of foreign place and personal names. It is time to provide something similar for mathematics (actually just simple arithmetic).

It was the great Napoleon himself who at the time of conversion in France, said of the metric system that .... "Nothing could be more contrary to the mind, to the memory, or to the imagination"... and he was absolutely right.

Mind's eye appreciation of the relationships of numerals when placed adjacent to each other in order to form larger numbers is crucial in terms of achieving accuracy.

The fact that the metric system uses decimals to describe its fractional values means that in mental arithmetic calculations the decimal point becomes elusive and gets in the way of the the brain's calculation processes; which is precisely why the French and others found it necessary to resort to describing measures etc, in multiples of the smallest unit - e.g. 1011mm instead of 1.011 metres.

The trouble with that is; by no stretch of the imagination can a human being actually 'visualise' 1011 millimetres placed side by side, so a mental reconstruction of the figures towards a larger unit value has to take place simply in order to proceed, meaning that the decimal point has to be re-introduced.
Hardly practical.

Oh dear, another transcription error - clearly you mean "I'm 34, love"..

Re #10 above.

Using the word 'hundred' when applied to the twenty-four hour clock is totally wrong. A military expression and bad habit that has found its way into our everyday speech.

At 1p.m. thirteen hours of that day have passed - not thirteen hundred.

Minutes are sixtieths not hundredths of an hour: the dividing point - when written - is not a decimal point: and therefore the two digits following the dividing point are not decimal fractions.
This is why the word 'hundred' has to disappear when saying e.g. 'fifteen forty five hours', because 'fifteen hundred and forty five hours' would sound ridiculous.

notice that metrication of time has not caught on. kiloseconds or centiday anyone?

The centiday [14.4 minutes] was used in China (called ke in Chinese) for thousands of years, until the Jesuits had it redefined from 1/100th of a day to 1/96th of a day (i.e., 15 minutes) in the 17th century.

Our time system is circle based [60 divisions] rather than square based [metric 100 divisions]. In sympathy with the 'circle' of the earth going around the sun.

Consider the problems this gives space travel. In any future space travel the 'earth sun circle system' breaks down as that 'earth sun circle' is no longer the reference point for space travellers who have left that domain. One could still use 'earth time' for space travel [but supposing if the space travellers earth time clock stopped and they had no contact with earth to recalibrate they would then have no idea what the earth time was and would it really matter?] but at some point space travellers would need a whole new non earth based time measurement system.

So a base 12 system is earth based [or 'circle' based].

Calenders are psychological statements that use mechanical means. There is no year zero although one might think there was/is ie the first year the earth moved around the sun. To say it is 2007 makes no sense when we know the earth is millions of years old.

You may know how to add and subtract but I strongly recommend you go back to your books and learn how to multiply. Now I understand why so many Brits want to adopt the Euro, it's because they have difficulty calculating the conversion back and forth into pounds. What a reason to give up national sovereignty.

Be of good cheer. I have never mastered tying shoelaces by what was referred to at my school as the 'rabbit going round the tree' method. After years of disgrace and ignominy I covertly learned the two loops method, but trying anything else still makes me bubble uncontrollably.

To witness people simply hearing but not visualising numbers, ask someone to write down eleven thousand eleven hundred and eleven and watch where they try to put the commas.

......12,111.

Apart from cheekily using 4 significant figures in an attempt to teach us how to do our conversions and equating 1 mile with 1.069km (how absurd), you also called a sum a "product". Awful, biased patronising piece.

Re #13 above, I don't really agree with your points.

The use of the 'hundred' when talking about the 24 hour clock has many advantages: it clarifies the difference between a time and a period of time (eg "It was 9 hours" vs "It was oh-9-hundred hours"); it helps us use the non-decimal minutes and seconds system without having to invent new words for them - two zeroes stand for a hundred in regular mathematics and stand for a hundred, when spoken, here too; the decimal point was perhaps invented to deal with the decimal system, but actually works for any number base - see the way in which overs are described in one day cricket these days; and finally, it is easy to learn and gives me hope that we will dump the ridiculous am/pm system that has left us with the nonsense these days of people saying that events could take place at 12 am or 12 pm (those times do not exist, 12 by definition separating am from pm and therefore being part of neither).

Besides, calling it 'wrong' is pointless - it is the only generally known and used convention for the 24-hour clock and, as such, is therefore the only correct way to use it.

FWIW I'm a fan of the metric system and believe the sooner our imperial measures go the way of shillings and farthings, the better off we'll be.