Desperate measures

Spotted in the Science Museum’s touring exhibition on Tim Peake’s spacecraft – the one that visited both York and Shildon earlier in the year: the use of metric measurements only. Did you know his Soyuz capsule rushed along at 27,000kph*?

Does this mean the Science Museum has dropped imperial – despite the mile still being official in the UK? If so, will we soon be referring to Mallard’s record speed as 202.8kph?

Well, no. Or at least probably not. I asked for the official line on this issue, and I’ll repeat the response here in full: “The Science Museum Group style guide suggests that measurements are referred to using the metric system as a general rule, but staff have the option to defer to common sense in particular contexts, so you’d refer to serving a pint at a bar for example. In historical contexts it might also make sense to refer to imperial measurements (especially for things like top speeds and world records for locomotives, as these were the measurements used at the time). However, staff have the option of adding a metric conversion in brackets.

“The reason for this is that the Group uses the International System of Units (SI) which is used in the scientific community for accuracy.

“The National Railway Museum follows the Science Museum style guide but individual teams can deviate if necessary and the main thing is that we use language in a way that people understand.”

From which I take it that the NRM (or is it ‘Railway Museum’?) might use metric, or imperial. Or both.

Glad to have cleared that up…

* Roughly 17,000mph.