Talk:English Engineering Units

In chemicall engineering
Felder and Rousseau call this "American Engineering units" system. 76.117.247.55 (talk) 22:04, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

English is a language
References to English language measuring systems have differed between the various places where the English language is the standard language for surveying, drafting plans for buildings, specifying parts for cars, trains, planes, boats, railways, submarines, and all their various mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems (MEP) and heating ventilating and air conditioning systems (HVAC).

In many places in the world English was established as an engineering and administrative language by colonial governments in countries where indigenous languages had their own standards of measurement.

One of the more interesting historical facts about English measures is that they include in their etymology a period in which Roman units were the standard in England while most of Europe west of the Rhine and Scotland were using Greek standards of measure. The Roman standards derived from the Egyptian palm while the Greek standards were based on the hand of the Mesopotamian systems. The Mesopotamian and Egyptian systems were commensurate on a metric foot of 300 mm composed of three hands of 100 mm.

Because International trade required that measures be commensurate or convertible in the second millenium BC they became geo-commensurate with body and agricultural measures in a series that in English is finger, thumb (inch) palm, hand, span quarter, foot, remen,short cubit, long cubit, elle. Areas are generally defined as rectangles having sides of a unit length and volumes as cubes having edges of a unit length.

Its a mistake to think that because body measures were referenced to parts of the body as a reference approximation they were not strictly standardized, they were. So were units such as a minute of march measured as 300 royal cubits, a river journey (Itrw) measured as 70 minutes of march

This extends to distance measures used in surveying with yards, fathoms, rods, cords, chains, stadia, miles, and degrees; area measures based on variations of the acre which is fixed by the size of the fields necessary to provide for the oxen or horses plowing it which generally have unit lengths as sides, and to volumes which tend to be the measure of a liguid in cubic inches or a dry measure in cubic feet which will fill a container with subdivisions and extensions using body measure multiples or divisions.


 * One Egyptian foot is 300 mm which can be subdivided into 4 palms or three Mesopotamian hands.
 * One Greek for is 308.4 mm with 600 feet to a stadion or furlong of 185 m
 * One Roman foot is 296 mm with 625 feet to a stadium or furlong of 185 m


 * By the time of Herodotus 75 Greek or Roman miles of eight stadia make a degree of
 * 600 stadia of 600 Greek or 625 Roman feet = 111 km for Ptolomy
 * 500 stadia of 222 meters = 111 km for Marinus
 * 700 Persian stadia of 157.5 = 111 km for Eratosthenes

That's where English measures were at when in 1593 Queen Elizabeth 1 signed off on a change to the length of a furlong that increased it from 625 Roman feet of 296 mm to 660 English feet of 304.8 mm making the Mile 5280 English feet so that there were exactly twice as many seconds in a century as inches in the circumference of the Earth at the equator a couple of decades before the formal discovery of the seconds pendulum. 142.0.102.175 (talk) 11:51, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

help needed with correcting error in unit symbol
The symbol for the pound when used as a unit of mass is lb, not lbm. I tried to fix it (twice) but failed both times. Can someone help with this? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:34, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Never mind - I fixed it. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:53, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Move to "English engineering units"?
, I see you changed all cases of "Engineering" in the text to "engineering" per MOS:CAPS. Time to move the article to English engineering units, I suggest, swapping the redirects. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:48, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I support the proposed move. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 05:41, 22 June 2020 (UTC)


 * No, I think this is a proper name for a specific set of units, not just a general class of English units.kbrose (talk) 19:04, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * On further thought, I accept Kbrose's argument and withdraw the proposal. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't understand. Should United States customary units be moved to United States Customary Units? If not, what am I missing about the word "Engineering"? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:50, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The point is that the article name really should be capitalized in every word. This is a very specific set of units, much like the International System of Units. I don't think this can be asserted for US customary units. kbrose (talk) 23:51, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That makes sense except for one detail: Why is no one proposing a move to English Engineering Units? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 05:38, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, it is a hassle, I suppose, because it requires admin action at this point.kbrose (talk) 18:40, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * User:Dondervogel 2, if you concur, we can show consensus and User:Kbrose can open a non-controversional WP:REQMOVE. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:01, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Your reasoning makes sense to me. I concur. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 21:08, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Submitted. kbrose (talk) 15:28, 5 September 2020 (UTC)