When do you refill your tank?

[Janx101]

geez mitch! .. talk about on the smell of an oily rag! .. stretchin it! 

[007brendan]

I didn't claim that I made that line up. I in fact said Wikipedia states 

No one uses Newtons as a unit of measurement? You have got to be kidding me. I don't know whether you do engineering or not, but by that kind of statement I would assume you do not. It might be like that in the USA, but the vast majority of the world does NOT use pounds.

People who use the metric system cannot tell you much something weighs in Newtons because it's not a common language term, it's almost invariably used in scientific applications. You are also completely incorrect because Newtons is NOT a unit of MASS. It is a unit of FORCE. So to say something's mass is 10N is as correct as saying something is 18 feet hot. 

I'm sorry to say that most of your opinion here is pretty redundant because you assume all along that everyone else thinks the same way people do in the USA. Most people in the rest of the world don't think in pounds, similarly, Newton-metres is easily grasped by the same token as how you described foot-pounds. When I went to school, learning Physics in year 11/12, we dealt with Newtons and Newton metres. Not foot-pounds.

Car/bike owner's manuals here state torque values in Nm, some may have ft-lbs in brackets. When I bought a torque wrench, the eBay description stated the range in Nm, need I go on?

Correct this strange notion you have of assuming that the rest of the world must naturally be in tune with something because you think it to be so. People cannot tell how much force they are applying in terms of Nm? You are obviously in a different part of the world to understand that. Think about it, if one works with Nm, then your muscle memory adapts to that eventually. This is difficult to understand because?

If I lived in the USA, I would adapt to ft-lbs similarly, you just aren't used to it. Similarly, if people give me speeds in mph, I can roughly understand it, but it doesn't have the same meaning to me. It is the same for gallons, ounces, etc.

I think you misread my post, because nowhere did I say that Newton was a unit of mass.  And yes, I am an engineer, though I mostly do programming now.

My snarky wikipedia comment was meant to say that we don't need a lesson in what Newtons and torque are, we already know what they are.

The point I was trying to make is that the MOST common force that people deal with every day is weight, and for some reason, people that use the metric system have chosen not to express weight in force units (Newton), and use mass units (kg) instead, which is what I meant when I said that people don't use Newtons in everyday situations.  Meanwhile, the imperial system treats weight like any other force, and expresses it with force units (pound), not mass (slug).  This simple difference means for most people, conceptually, it is easy to translate that knowledge over to other types of forces, and torque, because they use the same unit. 

[GS500F2004]

I didn't claim that I made that line up. I in fact said Wikipedia states 

No one uses Newtons as a unit of measurement? You have got to be kidding me. I don't know whether you do engineering or not, but by that kind of statement I would assume you do not. It might be like that in the USA, but the vast majority of the world does NOT use pounds.

People who use the metric system cannot tell you much something weighs in Newtons because it's not a common language term, it's almost invariably used in scientific applications. You are also completely incorrect because Newtons is NOT a unit of MASS. It is a unit of FORCE. So to say something's mass is 10N is as correct as saying something is 18 feet hot. 

I'm sorry to say that most of your opinion here is pretty redundant because you assume all along that everyone else thinks the same way people do in the USA. Most people in the rest of the world don't think in pounds, similarly, Newton-metres is easily grasped by the same token as how you described foot-pounds. When I went to school, learning Physics in year 11/12, we dealt with Newtons and Newton metres. Not foot-pounds.

Car/bike owner's manuals here state torque values in Nm, some may have ft-lbs in brackets. When I bought a torque wrench, the eBay description stated the range in Nm, need I go on?

Correct this strange notion you have of assuming that the rest of the world must naturally be in tune with something because you think it to be so. People cannot tell how much force they are applying in terms of Nm? You are obviously in a different part of the world to understand that. Think about it, if one works with Nm, then your muscle memory adapts to that eventually. This is difficult to understand because?

If I lived in the USA, I would adapt to ft-lbs similarly, you just aren't used to it. Similarly, if people give me speeds in mph, I can roughly understand it, but it doesn't have the same meaning to me. It is the same for gallons, ounces, etc.

I think you misread my post, because nowhere did I say that Newton was a unit of mass.  And yes, I am an engineer, though I mostly do programming now.

My snarky wikipedia comment was meant to say that we don't need a lesson in what Newtons and torque are, we already know what they are.

The point I was trying to make is that the MOST common force that people deal with every day is weight, and for some reason, people that use the metric system have chosen not to express weight in force units (Newton), and use mass units (kg) instead, which is what I meant when I said that people don't use Newtons in everyday situations.  Meanwhile, the imperial system treats weight like any other force, and expresses it with force units (pound), not mass (slug).  This simple difference means for most people, conceptually, it is easy to translate that knowledge over to other types of forces, and torque, because they use the same unit.

You are correct in that respect, I did misread your post somewhat. The average person does not deal with Newtons in a day-to-day basis, but then again, this is besides the point. It is not really a unit needed to be used in day-to-day calculations. I do not know when the misunderstanding between kg and N happened, but it has, and it has stuck. The one redeeming feature with this unfortunate event is that it's roughly a division by 10, so essentially it makes no difference in everyday situations. That is to say 1000N ~ 100kg (on Earth)

There isn't a huge problem actually when working with Newtons, whether or not you're the average person. I quizzed a local riding group here, and almost invariably everyone works in Nm for torquing. The only exception if you can call it that are some of the older people who say they are comfortable with ft-lbs. Probably because they lived through the time when Australia made the switch. If leaving aside this N/kg usage anomaly, the metric system is far superior in every respect. Imperial is an old system, it's outdated, and the metric system was developed particularly to combat the ridiculousness of the derivations of most of the imperial units. All calculations are so much easier as it works on the common sense base 10 system (more or less)

I'm not having a go at you, but I find it very odd that an engineer would be oblivious to the benefits of the SI system. I was reading through this imperial vs metric issue and I find that most scientific institutions in the USA already work in metric, and many places in the USA are already switching gradually (from road signs to consumer labelling) -- so I'm not sure when you exactly studied engineering.

The long and short of it is, yes there is a usage error between weight and mass in metric, but no it doesn't really cause any trouble as you have suggested, and people don't use imperial here, even for forces -- bar some of the older folk. All this being said, going through some of these units made me realise I still use imperial in some situations, I just don't realise/think about it! I suppose some of these units still hold its place in society and it wouldn't really do any harm to keep it. For instance, human height in feet and inches. I still get a little confused by heights in cm and m. Horsepower vs kW, etc.

[Janx101]

Oh come on guys! ... Don't go being reasonable and agreeing with each other NOW!.... I've just opened the 3rd box of popcorn! 

... Engineer fights ... I don't always get it... But it's definitely still more entertaining than daytime tv!

[GS500F2004]

Ah...it's no fight, just a little mental stimulation. I'm glad we've had this, I actually learnt a few things 

[GS500F2004]

Since we're on the topic of refilling, I will tell you my refilling incident today:

So I got my carburettors synch'd the other day, bike was doing roughly 300km - 320km on the 15L main tank before I had to switch to reserve. I noticed recently that I was able to push close to 350km, and I was still on the main tank -- so I thought the carbs must have really been out of whack before the synch. Decided to see how long I'd go today before I had to switch to reserve.

I reached 420km before the bike started to cough a bit, I switched to reserve and it starts to stall violently and then the engine dies. Thinking that I didn't turn to reserve quick enough, I restart the bike (I'm on an uphill section on Cumberland Highway near Fairfield). It starts idling rough and dies again. Wondering what the hell is happening. I restart it again and give it WOT. The bike roars into life and I quickly get into the left lane and turn out of Cumberland Highway. It dies again.

Having a slight suspicion of what's happening I switch it back to main -- it starts but has some rough idling. I look up ahead and it's a slight downhill. I start to accelerate hoping that there's a fuel station. The bike dies again, but to my luck there's a Shell about 200m away. I coast downhill, hang a right and fill up.

When I filled up, it confirmed my suspicion of what's happened

I switched the main and reserve fuel lines around by accident when I was servicing the bike earlier...



The tank was pretty much dry and I was running on the fumes I think.

20L tank, filled up 19.96L to the TOP.

[radodrill]

I'm an engineer myself and I say that most people are incorrectly referring to their mass as their weight.  In the English system people commonly use lb-mass (since it is a lot smaller than a slug), which coincidentally in numerically equivalent to lb-force (at sea level) yet most people are oblivious to this fact (unless they're scientists, engineers, etc.).

[sledge]

In the English system

The English system?

Its known as the Imperial system.....at least it is here in England 

[radodrill]

In the English system

The English system?

Its known as the Imperial system.....at least it is here in England 

Here in the states I've hear it called the English system, British Gravitational, SAE, and the US Customary; I guess in the UK and it's colonies it's the Imperial, though you use stone etc that we don't

[Turd Ferguson]

And certain units of measure are not the same between SAE and Imperial units; gallons being a common example.  1 US gallon = 0.83ish Imperial gallons.

Dan