American Reacts to The Falkirk Wheel - What is it? What's it for? And how did it come about? 

Your welcome

​@@ItsCharlieVest I'm from Belgium and we have 2 even more spectacular boat lifts than the Falkirk Wheel: the Inclined Plane of Ronquières (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DqFdkRFqfMU.html) and Strépy-Thieu boat lift (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wySQJ9hJQv8.html).

Wel, thats a thing the dutch do not have.😂😂😂

​@lorrefl7072 Yeah that is the main detail "Rotating Boat lift" while there is plenty of other boat lifts that are also mind blowing. I say this having lived and worked at the Falkirk wheel lol

He🎉🎉🎉😂😂😂

Nope. The British use Imperial, where SI isn't more convenient (I use SI exclusively within engineering calculations, even where the source material is historical). The US uses an approximation to the older Winchester standard that Imperial replaced and rationalised in the 1820s. Their distance and weight standards were actually destroyed in a fire in the late 1700s and there was some debate about whether to obtain copies, or to take the opportunity to adopt the novel metric system that France had adopted in their revolution. America missed the opportunity to commit to the conversion fully then, though for a long time they have used metric measures in many technical fields, and with their military ~ with a few exceptions. Aside from an expensive crater on Mars and some user interface stuff all of the NASA space stuff has been in SI. All the computing, all the planning, specification, manufacture.

I live very near the Wheel.and the Kelpies and often spend time there walking and on bikes. My USA visitors have all been amazed to go on this enormous boat lift. Like the Kelpies , it has to be seen to appreciate the scale. The canal towpaths are used by everyone and are a big favourite with dog walkers. There are narrowboats and kayaks on the canals too but it’s still quiet and there’s lots of wildlife to enjoy as you walk along.

Especially at night when they are all lite up

It's astonishing how little Americans know about their beginnings.

In Sweden we adopted metric system 1878 and from 1889 it was the only legal system. but as UK was a big importer of our lumber we keept using inches for wood. I think they stoped that around 1970 even if you still used it when desribing the lenght of a nail or the dementions for contructual timber when in the 70s and 80s and may pop up sometimes even today.

​@@ingegerdandersson6963sweden use to use swedish inches and feet, then swiched to imperial, then swich for metric inches quite soon after that to make it simpler to go over to metric units. The size of the timber is pre cut metric inches. So that is why 2 inch lumber is 45mm. 2 metric inches is 50mm then 5mm is removed in cutting and planing.

@@101steel4 Perhaps better to have just said "It's astonishing how little Americans know".

1971 saw the decimalisation of the currency , widespread use of metric didn't happen until about 1976.

We are still slightly confused by •F/•C haha

I had Better Builder when I was a kid in the 60s and I loved it.

And bloody amazing...

Nope, the tallest equestrian statue is the Statue of Genghis Kahn in Ulaanbaatar Monglia at 40m.

@@RighAlban The statue of Genghis Khan is the tallest equestrian (rider on horseback) sculpture, the Kelpies are the tallest equine (horse) sculptures.

@@mizzymo64 Equine is pertaining the characteristic of a horse and having a rider is equine, so the statue of Genghis is both equine and equestrian, I mean since we're being pedantic and all.

You mean the tallest equine sculptures, they are actually quite low, not much above sea level.😃

I'd have said fol-kirk

or Faw- kirk . My granny was born there.

@@auldfouter8661 yes and its named after the little church on the cow wynd road the Fa`kirk though for some reason they have stuck a placard outside the steeple church.

@@dantheman9228 Granny was born at Muirhouse Farm near the High Station in 1896. Her father was born at Standalane farm.

@@auldfouter8661 My Granny lived in Camelon and my father told us tales of when they were able to get on the barges travellng up and down the Clyde when lock 16 was a swing bridge,me i was raised in T-Hill in the 70`s in fact my family was one of the first in the village after the hurricane blew off the roofs of the houses in union road.

We are fairly universal.

UK road signs themselves, including the numbers, in miles or yards, on them, have been metric since 1968.

@@peckelhaze6934 Some might say indecisive

Yeh it’s a mess

Not really, everything is metric except: Road distances are miles Road speed limits are mph Beer is served in pints Milk is sold in metric amounts that are the same size as pints.

The clue is in the name! The system was intended to standardise the weights and measures across the British Empire. Pity that they didn't opt for something more rational...

They don't use Imperial. The British developed that mensuration from scientific principles in the 1820s. The US uses an approximation to the older "Winchester" system of mensuration that was based on a 'grain' system which had its roots in the Troy and Tower system of weights which had got so confused in statute and custom to be nearly unworkable when both were replaced for trade use by the subdivision of the wool-last the Avoirdupois pound which was a reasonable 'compromise' size when cast as 112lb cwt or 14 lb stones. (trade Troy 15oz was 7200 grain, the trade tower 15 oz pound was 6750 (though a 16 oz London trade lb Tower shared the same weight as the Troy 15oz weight... and both had (Troy still is) been used as Moneyers weight in a 12oz lb (5400 grains or 5760 grains (Troy)... but there was also a statute definition for tower weight still on the books which gave the weight as 7680 of a lighter tower grain... but gave the identical definitions for both pennyweights using identical language at 32 grains or as 24 grains... and the whole was also confused by whether things were measured by volume or by mass-balance and whether measures were heaped, struck, shaken and the shapes of the container... The whole was a mess, far worse than I can summarise with any coherence... so the novel pound, which eventually (though likely not immediately) was settled at 7000 grains troy, was a much easier solution with one rule than the unpicking of centuries of 'making do'. Winchester measure defined the pound, the gallon of wine, gallon of ale and gallon of beer, as well as the bushel for dry goods. The US adopted it based on the wine gallon and the Bushel. Imperial is based on the mass of a Gallon of distilled water at a particular temperature - 10lbs, and this makes the Imperial Gallon much larger than the Winchester/US Customary Gallon. The UK pint is 20 floz (imp), rather than the US pint, which is 16 floz (US) though the difference in size is lower than 5/4 because the US ounce is a bit larger. The Imperial Gallon is closer to and between the old Ale and Beer gallons than the Wine gallon. The Imperial ton is 20 cwt, or 2240lbs, the metric ton of 1000kg is ~2205lbs, and the US 'short ton' is a 2000lb short-weight. Winchester mensuration was also adopted from his Britannic Majesty, but it is an older and more outdated system than Imperial, and far less practical than the System Internationale.

​@@gracesprocket7340True that the US does not use proper Imperial. Which makes it even worse. They hate anything they did not invent.

​@@gracesprocket7340last thing I read was that each US state had its own weights & measures, which is why the US is lagging so far behind the rest of the world, in having and using a cohesive unified system. Eg soft drinks are sold in metric, but milk is imperial. Arms & ammunition are all over the place. US vehicle engines don't know or can't make their minds up whether they're cu or cc.

Best of all, here is the Act of Parliament which contains the system of weights and measures which came into effect on January 1, 1826 in England and Wales: www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1824/74/pdfs/ukpga_18240074_en.pdf

The antonine wall

You're from Loch Lomond???

@@williamwallace5857 Yes

@@mairiconnell6282 You live in a Loch?

@@mairiconnell6282 No you're not. Loch Lomond is a lake (a loch in Scotland) and therefore you can't be from a Lake....or Loch.

I spent most of my childhood around Thames, Reine, canal du midi, the Norfolk broads and many other waterways. Ive seen and worked my fair share of locks and i wish the standard was 11 at a time

plus sometimes more than one boat can fit in a lock.

There were local kids that would be paid a tiny sum to look after the canal boats for some boaters as it got up the locks and the boater would spend his time in the local pub.

We used to sell fuel ⛽ as so much per gallon. Its sold as per litre now just so the price doesn't " appear " extortionate, which of course, IT IS. Imagine advertising petrol at almost £8 per gallon!

@@richardcummins5465 We will soon be measuring our electricity usage in kilowatt-minute instead of kilowatt-hour😀

@@richardcummins5465I remember Roses Bitter at one shilling and three pence ( under 6 pence per pint )

See my comment about Falkirk vs Fawkirk above, Jonathan. I'm a Falkirk Bairn by adoption, having moved here in 2015. I love the place and the folk. I volunteer with the Seagull Trust in summer; free canal trips for special needs, elderly, schools...we're up and doon the Falkirk Wheel almost every day!

I would say you were correct. I live here ( my husband is a ‘Bairn’ as he was born here - I’m from south of Glasgow)

Yes, unfortunately the US Americans are never taught that Imperial measurement is a British measurement system and that Metric is essentially a French measurement system. This unfortunately is the same for many things. The US Americans believe in many cases that the world didn't exist before The USA. I'm not at all having a go at Americans as if they are never told or are misinformed its no wonder people don't know. 😊.

Pilgrim Fathers took a Measured Gallon of water with them from UK , but ran low on Water 1 of them was Drinking the water on Route, that's the Reason For a US gallon not being the Full 8 pts. it's 6.4 pts

@@douglastodd1947 That's a stupid made up story, why is the pint smaller too?

@@daveofyorkshire301 I read it somewhere round about 40 years ago. obvious if there's 8 pint in a gallon the water left was divided into 8 equal measures.

Or the English language, which so many think. Even though it's called English and not American 😂

Unlike a conventional lock, if both gondolas are in use, no water is wasted by filling/emptying the chambers.

Second this. We have a narrowboat and I really enjoyed using the Anderton boat lift. There are over 2000 miles of canal in the UK and my husband lived permanently on the canals for several years before we met. He still spends more time on the boat than I do and goes back to it every few weeks for a few days or weeks. A lovely way of life. Please look at the Anderton boat lift built in 1875

It's a little more than that. Roads are all imperial, speed limits are miles per hour, road sign distances are all miles and yards, milk and beer are in pints, McDonald's sell quarter pounders, we measure our height in feet etc etc

​@@markj66 Ooh, that's actually new information for me. I just read up on that. I didn't realize the signage was still in miles. And replacing the signs would have been to expensive... Imagine how much more expensive it would be nowadays...

The UK joined the EC on 1st January 1973.

A gallon of petrol was 4s-11pence before we went metric within a few months it went up to 33pence. 3gallons to the pound instead of four, beer was 1s-9pence a pint, that went up to 13pence which was 2s-7pence in old money. That was the reason there were strikes in the seventies big pay rises were needed just to keep up with inflation.