It's obviously a great idea, and obviously (to Americans) unlikely to happen in the lifetime of anybody reading this forum.
Does anybody else from America remember being taught the metric system in public elementary school, and being told that we'd be switching to it over the next few years? I was taught this around second grade (1981), I think based on the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act), which was not just signed by some random interweb tubers -- it was signed into law by the president. But IIRC, it was a toothless and impotent piece of legislation that was effectively stymied by the US auto industry.
P.S.
Amusing visual evidence that the US system sucks:
I actually remember when the metric system was introduced in elementary schools.
Looking back, there was far too much emphasis on getting all prefixes and their relationships memorized: micro, milli, centi, deci, hecto, kilo, mega. And virtually no emphasis on developing an intuitive "metric" feel for the common quantities in everyday life.
Most of the comments in this thread are talking about the units for personal height, weight, local road signs or for the weather forecast. Those are by far the least important things to be worried about. All of those things are local and there is no carrying cost for them. There would be a cost to change all those signs and forecasts - for no real gain.
However, dimensions of physical goods are a constant recurring cost to the economy. Anything that crosses the borders for trade (all resources mined/farmed, everything manufactured) has to be dealt with in both sets of units. There is massive redundancy in fasteners, components, scales, paperwork, etc. It requires companies to keep two sets of tools (and not just wrenches, also drills, taps, dies, cutters, etc).
I agree the examples are irrelevant. A better example (from my experience) would be the oil/gas/chemical industry where you have millions of miles, oops kilometers, of pipes, uncountable valves, fittings, sensors, vessels, etc. What's the counterpart to a 6", sch 60 pipe? You definitely do not just convert to metric!
My favorite nonsensical (not-quite-non-dimensional unit)? Heat rate: MMBtu per MWh
THe 'sets of tools' argument is kind of spurious. I already have a box full of wrenches; I'd need some more in the box. Nobody argues 'lets get rid of 5/32 bolts, so I can get rid of that wrench'.
Its the mental effort to rationalize them that is the real cost. Lets see, slightly larger than 1/4 - is it 7mm? or 8? or 9/32?
Quite right.
I just finished a civil engineering degree and found that despite the vast amounts of published academic research and literature from the US, the use of imperial units rendered a very large proportion virtually unusable. Its an inherently empirical subject and continual conversion was both incredibly tedious and introduced a likely source of error (you get "an eye" for metric units so you can quickly tell if you are obviously an order out from where you should be).
I agree that it is all about cost, however this is far more "local" to many US citizens than they might imagine. For example, most of the coke bottles outside of the US come in half litres, while in the US they come in 20 fluid ounces (this is certainly true for many other products, too.) Hence, companies that make coke filling machines must accommodate the imperial system on top of the metric system, as well. Given that the metric system company can easily grab most of the market share, it should eventually be able to get larger economies of scale. In the end, it could very well be that machinery to supply imperial unit sized products becomes more expensive, a cost that will most certainly be relegated to the consumer.
Before we start with the standard junk about "imperial measures are better because they are easier to understand / better suited to human scale / etc." can I say nope.
The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.
People complain about the usual issues: multiple definitions of a mile, the odd ratios between inches, feet, yards, etc. It gets even more fun in agriculture, where the bushel is a frequently used unit. Now, the bushel is a unit of volume, whereas much of the world prefer to measure their crops by weight. To convert between the two, you essentially need to use conversion ratio (or table) for the crop type, along with an estimate of the moisture content of your product. To be fair, this is more to do with a difference in measuring methodology, rather than a failure of the imperial system, but it still highlights the kind of issues that come up between the systems.
To be honest, although I know the obvious benefits of metric, I still prefer imperial simply because of its messiness. I realize the system is archaic, etc., but I still like that connection, as attenuated as it may be, to our ancient past. Use metric for all scientific purposes, etc., but keep that connection to the natural world.
I suppose I like it in the same way I prefer natural languages to some artificial languages like Esperanto, etc. - or our base-60 time units as opposed to some other decimal-based system. :)
These "apologies" are not gibberish. Measurements units are like words in that they are conventions that enough people agree with to make them useful as a way of communicating. Measurement units exist to help us quantify our world and if two systems do this equally well then there is no recompelling reason to switch.
Besides which, what problem would be solved in the process? People will use whatever units they prefer anyways at the end of the day. As a negative, forcing top-down change would irritate people.
I didn't think there were people that really tried to defend the imperial system on anything but familiarity. not very happy of having been proved wrong.
It's not really "standard junk" though. Imperial measures are standardized human units. I have a foot that is about a foot, a knuckle that is about an inch, a stride that is about a yard. One day carrying a gallon of water a decent distance I realized that this was about the max amount the average person could carry comfortably over distance.
That is what kills me about the metric system. It seems to intentionally ignore the human scale. Why is 10 centimeters not a standard unit of measurement, and this is the important part, that is marked on every ruler and tape measure? The same for 10 Milliliters, 10 grams and 100 grams. Over the entire metric system the base 10 increments that are human scale are always ignored. The liter is the only one that comes close. Why is this?
Until the human scale is taken in to account I'm perfectly happy using more than one measurement system...
Reasonably scaled measurements are very useful, though. Everything in astronomy is measured in scaled units. Mass is in solar masses, interstellar distances are in parsecs (well kiloparsecs) or light years, planetary orbits are in astronomical units. Similar, a lot of atomic physics uses angstroms.
Of course, that doesn't apply much when the difference is only a factor of 2, like the pound/kilogram difference, but even there people cheat a bit by just saying "kilo."
Aren't their much easier to use? Conversion between units is straight-forward, there is connection between length and volume units, and probably much more common-senses-ness. I mean, the ft+inch system for human height is absolutely horrible.
From what I've experienced, we use the imperial units for the same reason we use degrees over radians: the units allow for common use of integer multiples of simple fractions. For some people, a simple fraction of a relatable unit really is easier to deal with than a base ten decimal, and a lot of labor out there simply doesn't need higher precision.
Of course, once you enter any sort of engineering work, well, simple fractions often won't cut it and it's far, far easier to simply use a decimal number. And then there's no reason not to use metric measurements.
"Familiar" is a bit off target because it implies that use is a matter of individual choice.
The system is embedded in standards, such as SAE. It is embedded in industries such as construction. It is embedded into statutes, regulations, and deeds for real property.
Yes, the system is familiar, but wiping the slate clean and starting anew is not a feature of stable democracies.
I was raised metric, but still find utility in the imperial system under some circumstances. I use my anatomy to measure things all the time while out on the farm, for instance. You could say step off 914cms, but I think 30 feet makes more sense in the context since you are literally counting your steps.
If you have precise measuring tools at your disposal, then I'm inclined to agree though.
Actually, I think metric could be improved with a few imperial equivalents - A "metric foot" as 30cm, for instance - because they are convenient measurements.
e.g. If somebody asks me "How tall is that person?" it's easier to say "About five foot" rather than "I dunno, about 155cm?"
I moved from Belgium to the US last year, and one of the things that surprised me was that metric measures actually see a fair amount of use in the States. It makes a convoluted system even more weird, but it's also just plain fascinating.
2L bottles of coke and 9mm bullets, miles except when people suddenly switch to kilometers, 50 meter pools and 5K jogging runs but a 120 yard football field, 2 oz shaving cream but eye drops come in a 20ml bottle and so on.
Only vaguely relevant, but I grew up in a rural area in Canada which caused me to learn a strange set of units. For me, highway distances are measured in kilometres, but country roads are measured in miles. Groceries are priced per kilogram, but my weight is in pounds. I readily swap inches and centimetres for measuring small sizes and distances (sometimes on the same project). I am more comfortable with Celsius, but the thermostat in my parents' house was in Fahrenheit.
Just to throw an additional wrench into things, prior to official metrification (which technically predates my birth), Canada used "imperial" (i.e. British) units, not "standard" (i.e. U.S.) units. Because of this and the close proximity to the U.S., one had to be careful about just which gallon or pint you were talking about.
People younger and/or more urban than me seem to be 100% metric. I am starting to learn my weight in kilograms, but I still have no idea what my height is in cm without converting.
At the risk of being lumped in with the negative/unhelpful/HN-is-on-the-decline comment crowd, and I hate naysaying here but...
Seriously?
1) If you haven't seen enough of these White House Polls go by yet (and there is a never ending list of inanity, for example: http://www.modernman.com/12-dumbest-whitehouse-petitions/) let me clue you in. They do nothing. Nothing. No one reads them. Just go back to wishing on a star.
2) The belief that something like this would ever be on the White House's radar/todo list is honestly just retarded.
3) Why is this even here? This isn't Reddit. The focus of HN is pretty nebulous these days but this is well outside the realm of entrepreneurship and programming which I believe has always sort of been at the heart of HN.
There's a couple of things you'd want to consider converting to metric: long distances, short distances/dimensions, volumes, weights, and temperature come to mind.
Long distances: swap out a bunch of highway signs, consider that 60mph (a mile a minute) ~= 100km/h, not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to change. Feasible.
Volumes: people are used enough to 2-liter bottles of soda, expect the 3.78 liter milk to stay around for a while because of supply chains. Gas prices will be modestly interesting for people, but really easy on the industry.
Short distances/dimensions: now things get tricky and potentially expensive. There are a lot of fractional-dimensioned parts out there in industry in different supply chains.
Temperature:
Here's the thing about temperature: converting would be relatively useless because Real People don't do math with the temperature outside. Even scientists don't do math with the temperature outside all that much. For most people, a scale that starts at 0="civilization shuts down because you can't ice the roads" and goes up to 100="heatstroke territory" is a fine representation of humanity's day to day temperature. Why would we bother changing it?
It's nice to be reminded that there will always be fresh waves of not-yet-cynical people to take up issues like this. But boy, am I cynical about the chances on this one.
The wikipedia article on Metrication in the US [1] isn't the best article ever but is worth reading for mentions of previous efforts.
A few things:
- the US Congress has in various ways 'blessed' the metric system, more than any other. However...
> Proponents of the metric system in the U.S. often claim that "the United States, Liberia, and Burma (or Myanmar) are the only countries that have not adopted the metric system." This statement is not correct with respect to the U.S., and probably it isn't correct with respect to Liberia and Burma, either. The U.S. adopted the metric system in 1866. What the U.S. has failed to do is to restrict or prohibit the use of traditional units in areas touching the ordinary citizen [2]
Did you know that Jefferson proposed a decimal system for the US before the SI system had come about? (See e.g. [2].) There were also proposals to measure land in decimal units rather than in 640-acre sections.
I was born in Russia and used the metric system until i moved to the US. Imperial system is so archaic it's amusing to see a developed nation use it. A few centuries ago Russians used to measure weight in "handfuls" and short distances in "elbows." (scratch that, it's "cubits") When only a fraction of the population had any sort of education, it was easier for everyone to understand an anatomical measurement. Eh, some things never go away. I don't anticipate US dropping this... ever.
The way I explain this one to my European friends is:
Do you remember the transition to the Euro? How you had to mentally convert prices at first? And how old people had more difficulties with it in some cases? Now, imagine that, not just for one unit, but weights, lengths, temperatures and volumes, all at the same time.
Oh, the problem with the Euro was that they raised prices everywhere where they introduced the new currency. What was previously 0.8€ becase 1€, 28€ to 30€ and so on. Economic power also moved from individual countries to the ECB in Brussels. If the US started using SI (Systeme International), it's not like you would be subject to a metric-controlling organisation in Paris. :)
They (I'm swiss, so I wasn't affected that much by the transition) had a double display (prices in french francs/ deutschmark / lira) for quite some time before and after the introduction of the actual currency (coins and banknotes). It's not a perfect solution, of course, but the point is that the transition wasn't abrupt.
Well, you don't have to be so drastic. Just teaching metrics in all schools and requiring their use in higher education would be enough for the next decade or two. Only then you can start thinking about something as the petition asks.
When do you even deal with these things on a day-to-day basis? These days most people buy prepackaged stuff from the supermarket. I don't think many people go to market stalls and struggle telling the merchant how many potatoes they want. I mean, some do, but it's rare enough that they would probably figure it out quickly.
quite frankly this is deceitful, a lot of Americans already use the International System daily for their work, and I would bet that a very large number of Americans have some knowledge of it. Whereas the Euro was completely new, the International units have been here for years.
I'm in the UK, 27 and still struggle at times to comprehend lbs, ounces, stone, feet, inches, yards, miles etc., when everything I was taught in school was in metres, litres, newtons and kilogrammes.
From the petitions.whitehouse.gov petition kindly submitted for comment here:
"The United States is one of the few countries left in the world who still have not converted to using the Metric System as a standardized system of measurement. Instead of going along with what the rest of the world uses, we stubbornly still adhere to using the imprecise Imperial Unit - despite the fact that practically every other country that we interact with uses Metric."
This petition has the same problem most petitions submitted to the White House have--its factual premise is incorrect. I'm an American who has lived in another country (Taiwan) for years. The National Institute of Standards and Technology reports that "The United States is now the only industrialized country in the world that does not use the metric system as its predominant system of measurement."
". . . . In 1866, Congress authorized the use of the metric system in this country and supplied each state with a set of standard metric weights and measures.
"In 1875, the United States solidified its commitment to the development of the internationally recognized metric system by becoming one of the original seventeen signatory nations to the Treaty of the Meter."
In other words, the United States has treated the Metric System as official and legal since before my great-grandfather was born. The customary measurement system is, by contrast, simply customary, not mandatory. The United States has been metric since 1866 "in the sense that Americans have been free since that time to use the metric system as much as they like."
If a particular individual or corporation engaged in manufacturing or trade wants to use metric measurements to meet customer needs and gain a profit, no one in the United States is stopping that. If someone desires to use customary measurements out of sheer habit from long-established custom, no one is stopping that either. My late dad the industrial engineer was aware of plenty of industries in the United States that from the 1970s, at the latest, had gone fully metric simply because those industries were involved in vigorous international trade. Perhaps the best governmental nudge that can be given for more use of metric measurements in the United States is more encouragement of developing international markets for domestic businesses.
I note that customary measurements are often used in other countries even long after metric measurements are adopted officially. For example, the Republic of China (the regime that governs Taiwan at present) has been officially metric since before I was born. Japan (the former governing country in Taiwan) was metric from the 1920s. But the unit of weight for vegetables bought in an open-air market in Taiwan is still the traditional 斤 (jin "catty," or Chinese pound), although that is now standardized at 500g. Prices are given in monetary units per 斤 for most fruits and vegetables to this day in markets in Taiwan (and in China).
A Facebook friend with a scientific education recently told me about the saying "A pint's a pound, the whole world round." If the United States begins using metric-standard units more for selling foods and the like, then perhaps a half-kilogram (500g) package will be considered to be one new "pound," just as a half-liter (500ml) package will be considered to be one new "pint." It is interesting to me that traditional Chinese culture and traditional British culture both had weight units in that range, about a half kilogram even before standardization to metric units. How are grocery measurements treated in Britain these days?
Ireland has converted mostly to the metric system, we switched to kilometers for speed limits in 2005. To be honest you get used to it pretty quickly. There are a number of items, particularly those that are traded with our neighbours in the UK that are shown as both metric and imperial. You still get a pint of Guinness in the pub but all bottles and cans of beer are in metric.
Metrickery is a socialist plot to weaken America. First it's units of measurement divisible by ten, then it's universal health care, then gun control, and finally off to the gulag for the last remaining freethinkers.
Sadly, there are people who believe more of less exactly what I just wrote.
Every objection that is being raised on this thread was raised when other countries enacted metrication. You are free to read the history of these processes. Nations did not collapse and people learned how to use new units.
We already have the metric system. An inch is defined as 2.54 centimeters. Et cetera. I can't think of a single way in which we're NOT metric, except that stubborn people refuse to let go of gallons, miles and pounds.
Every item you buy in the stores will be measured in metric units. Just because we call it a gallon doesn't mean it isn't actually 3.785 liters. And just because the serving size is a cup, doesn't mean it isn't actually 240mL. And check the nutrition label sometimes. It's all metric.
It very likely is never going to happen. The main reason for resistance apparently is the various land boundaries that would have to be re-scaled to metric, which would be a source of endless legal wrangling. Already houses in the US have the longest history attached to them, sometimes all the way from the homesteading days if the plot is old.
I've used both metric and imperial, for construction imperial is lots easier, for physics and other things that involve frequent conversions metric is far easier.
The Canadians officially have metric, try buying a 250x125 sheet of plywood. Everybody will look at you as if water is burning.
englilsh units aren't any less precise than SI/metric ones. They're just more awkward and less used worldwide. The cases which I find particularly irritating in US units are lb mass vs. lb force, and HP/BTU/foot-pounds/calories/Calories (and kWh) when all you need is a J.
[+] [-] veidr|13 years ago|reply
Does anybody else from America remember being taught the metric system in public elementary school, and being told that we'd be switching to it over the next few years? I was taught this around second grade (1981), I think based on the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act), which was not just signed by some random interweb tubers -- it was signed into law by the president. But IIRC, it was a toothless and impotent piece of legislation that was effectively stymied by the US auto industry.
P.S. Amusing visual evidence that the US system sucks:
http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/metric-...
[+] [-] angdis|13 years ago|reply
Looking back, there was far too much emphasis on getting all prefixes and their relationships memorized: micro, milli, centi, deci, hecto, kilo, mega. And virtually no emphasis on developing an intuitive "metric" feel for the common quantities in everyday life.
[+] [-] krschultz|13 years ago|reply
However, dimensions of physical goods are a constant recurring cost to the economy. Anything that crosses the borders for trade (all resources mined/farmed, everything manufactured) has to be dealt with in both sets of units. There is massive redundancy in fasteners, components, scales, paperwork, etc. It requires companies to keep two sets of tools (and not just wrenches, also drills, taps, dies, cutters, etc).
[+] [-] ndonnellan|13 years ago|reply
My favorite nonsensical (not-quite-non-dimensional unit)? Heat rate: MMBtu per MWh
[+] [-] graeme|13 years ago|reply
But everyone adjusted to metric for less personal weights and measures, and other abstract measures.
Pretty good compromise, I think.
[+] [-] podperson|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|13 years ago|reply
Its the mental effort to rationalize them that is the real cost. Lets see, slightly larger than 1/4 - is it 7mm? or 8? or 9/32?
[+] [-] thomseddon|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SideburnsOfDoom|13 years ago|reply
The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.
[+] [-] danielbarla|13 years ago|reply
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushel
[+] [-] ubernostrum|13 years ago|reply
(and that there still is no such thing as a "one size fits all" system of units)
[+] [-] xefer|13 years ago|reply
I suppose I like it in the same way I prefer natural languages to some artificial languages like Esperanto, etc. - or our base-60 time units as opposed to some other decimal-based system. :)
[+] [-] rjdagost|13 years ago|reply
Besides which, what problem would be solved in the process? People will use whatever units they prefer anyways at the end of the day. As a negative, forcing top-down change would irritate people.
[+] [-] micampe|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BashiBazouk|13 years ago|reply
That is what kills me about the metric system. It seems to intentionally ignore the human scale. Why is 10 centimeters not a standard unit of measurement, and this is the important part, that is marked on every ruler and tape measure? The same for 10 Milliliters, 10 grams and 100 grams. Over the entire metric system the base 10 increments that are human scale are always ignored. The liter is the only one that comes close. Why is this?
Until the human scale is taken in to account I'm perfectly happy using more than one measurement system...
[+] [-] oddthink|13 years ago|reply
Of course, that doesn't apply much when the difference is only a factor of 2, like the pound/kilogram difference, but even there people cheat a bit by just saying "kilo."
[+] [-] rplnt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HCIdivision17|13 years ago|reply
Of course, once you enter any sort of engineering work, well, simple fractions often won't cut it and it's far, far easier to simply use a decimal number. And then there's no reason not to use metric measurements.
[+] [-] DanBC|13 years ago|reply
16 is divisible by 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16.
24 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24
10 just has 1, 2, 5, 10
[+] [-] brudgers|13 years ago|reply
The system is embedded in standards, such as SAE. It is embedded in industries such as construction. It is embedded into statutes, regulations, and deeds for real property.
Yes, the system is familiar, but wiping the slate clean and starting anew is not a feature of stable democracies.
[+] [-] randomdata|13 years ago|reply
If you have precise measuring tools at your disposal, then I'm inclined to agree though.
[+] [-] RyanMcGreal|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oneandoneis2|13 years ago|reply
e.g. If somebody asks me "How tall is that person?" it's easier to say "About five foot" rather than "I dunno, about 155cm?"
(I'm British, btw)
[+] [-] stdbrouw|13 years ago|reply
2L bottles of coke and 9mm bullets, miles except when people suddenly switch to kilometers, 50 meter pools and 5K jogging runs but a 120 yard football field, 2 oz shaving cream but eye drops come in a 20ml bottle and so on.
Guess that's what globalization does for ya.
[+] [-] goodcanadian|13 years ago|reply
Just to throw an additional wrench into things, prior to official metrification (which technically predates my birth), Canada used "imperial" (i.e. British) units, not "standard" (i.e. U.S.) units. Because of this and the close proximity to the U.S., one had to be careful about just which gallon or pint you were talking about.
People younger and/or more urban than me seem to be 100% metric. I am starting to learn my weight in kilograms, but I still have no idea what my height is in cm without converting.
[+] [-] dickbasedregex|13 years ago|reply
Seriously?
1) If you haven't seen enough of these White House Polls go by yet (and there is a never ending list of inanity, for example: http://www.modernman.com/12-dumbest-whitehouse-petitions/) let me clue you in. They do nothing. Nothing. No one reads them. Just go back to wishing on a star.
2) The belief that something like this would ever be on the White House's radar/todo list is honestly just retarded.
3) Why is this even here? This isn't Reddit. The focus of HN is pretty nebulous these days but this is well outside the realm of entrepreneurship and programming which I believe has always sort of been at the heart of HN.
4) Rabble rabble HN is in decline.
[+] [-] fennecfoxen|13 years ago|reply
Long distances: swap out a bunch of highway signs, consider that 60mph (a mile a minute) ~= 100km/h, not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to change. Feasible.
Volumes: people are used enough to 2-liter bottles of soda, expect the 3.78 liter milk to stay around for a while because of supply chains. Gas prices will be modestly interesting for people, but really easy on the industry.
Short distances/dimensions: now things get tricky and potentially expensive. There are a lot of fractional-dimensioned parts out there in industry in different supply chains.
Weights: 2.2lb = 1kg and you're pretty good. Nobody really uses ounces anyway!
Temperature: Here's the thing about temperature: converting would be relatively useless because Real People don't do math with the temperature outside. Even scientists don't do math with the temperature outside all that much. For most people, a scale that starts at 0="civilization shuts down because you can't ice the roads" and goes up to 100="heatstroke territory" is a fine representation of humanity's day to day temperature. Why would we bother changing it?
[+] [-] Tloewald|13 years ago|reply
The problem is, I think the US has already declared itself to be metric to little effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act
It's not the do-nothing congress this time, it's the learn-nothing public.
[+] [-] thinkling|13 years ago|reply
The wikipedia article on Metrication in the US [1] isn't the best article ever but is worth reading for mentions of previous efforts.
A few things: - the US Congress has in various ways 'blessed' the metric system, more than any other. However...
> Proponents of the metric system in the U.S. often claim that "the United States, Liberia, and Burma (or Myanmar) are the only countries that have not adopted the metric system." This statement is not correct with respect to the U.S., and probably it isn't correct with respect to Liberia and Burma, either. The U.S. adopted the metric system in 1866. What the U.S. has failed to do is to restrict or prohibit the use of traditional units in areas touching the ordinary citizen [2]
Did you know that Jefferson proposed a decimal system for the US before the SI system had come about? (See e.g. [2].) There were also proposals to measure land in decimal units rather than in 640-acre sections.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_State...
[2] http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html
[+] [-] sakopov|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|13 years ago|reply
Do you remember the transition to the Euro? How you had to mentally convert prices at first? And how old people had more difficulties with it in some cases? Now, imagine that, not just for one unit, but weights, lengths, temperatures and volumes, all at the same time.
[+] [-] bjourne|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PetitPrince|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rplnt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RBerenguel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] talaketu|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotchmi_st|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tichy|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ohwp|13 years ago|reply
Just with the Euro the change should be at once. Then everybody will be fine in 2 years or so.
[+] [-] czzarr|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Keyframe|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesjguthrie|13 years ago|reply
I'm in the UK, 27 and still struggle at times to comprehend lbs, ounces, stone, feet, inches, yards, miles etc., when everything I was taught in school was in metres, litres, newtons and kilogrammes.
[+] [-] tokenadult|13 years ago|reply
"The United States is one of the few countries left in the world who still have not converted to using the Metric System as a standardized system of measurement. Instead of going along with what the rest of the world uses, we stubbornly still adhere to using the imprecise Imperial Unit - despite the fact that practically every other country that we interact with uses Metric."
This petition has the same problem most petitions submitted to the White House have--its factual premise is incorrect. I'm an American who has lived in another country (Taiwan) for years. The National Institute of Standards and Technology reports that "The United States is now the only industrialized country in the world that does not use the metric system as its predominant system of measurement."
http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/upload/1136a.pdf
But the same government report notes that
". . . . In 1866, Congress authorized the use of the metric system in this country and supplied each state with a set of standard metric weights and measures.
"In 1875, the United States solidified its commitment to the development of the internationally recognized metric system by becoming one of the original seventeen signatory nations to the Treaty of the Meter."
In other words, the United States has treated the Metric System as official and legal since before my great-grandfather was born. The customary measurement system is, by contrast, simply customary, not mandatory. The United States has been metric since 1866 "in the sense that Americans have been free since that time to use the metric system as much as they like."
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html
If a particular individual or corporation engaged in manufacturing or trade wants to use metric measurements to meet customer needs and gain a profit, no one in the United States is stopping that. If someone desires to use customary measurements out of sheer habit from long-established custom, no one is stopping that either. My late dad the industrial engineer was aware of plenty of industries in the United States that from the 1970s, at the latest, had gone fully metric simply because those industries were involved in vigorous international trade. Perhaps the best governmental nudge that can be given for more use of metric measurements in the United States is more encouragement of developing international markets for domestic businesses.
I note that customary measurements are often used in other countries even long after metric measurements are adopted officially. For example, the Republic of China (the regime that governs Taiwan at present) has been officially metric since before I was born. Japan (the former governing country in Taiwan) was metric from the 1920s. But the unit of weight for vegetables bought in an open-air market in Taiwan is still the traditional 斤 (jin "catty," or Chinese pound), although that is now standardized at 500g. Prices are given in monetary units per 斤 for most fruits and vegetables to this day in markets in Taiwan (and in China).
A Facebook friend with a scientific education recently told me about the saying "A pint's a pound, the whole world round." If the United States begins using metric-standard units more for selling foods and the like, then perhaps a half-kilogram (500g) package will be considered to be one new "pound," just as a half-liter (500ml) package will be considered to be one new "pint." It is interesting to me that traditional Chinese culture and traditional British culture both had weight units in that range, about a half kilogram even before standardization to metric units. How are grocery measurements treated in Britain these days?
[+] [-] dmoo|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Ireland
[+] [-] RyanMcGreal|13 years ago|reply
Sadly, there are people who believe more of less exactly what I just wrote.
[+] [-] rohern|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication
I would more support a petition that was well and cogently written, however.
[+] [-] drcube|13 years ago|reply
Every item you buy in the stores will be measured in metric units. Just because we call it a gallon doesn't mean it isn't actually 3.785 liters. And just because the serving size is a cup, doesn't mean it isn't actually 240mL. And check the nutrition label sometimes. It's all metric.
http://www.fda.gov/ucm/groups/fdagov-public/documents/image/...
So what's the problem again?
[+] [-] jacquesm|13 years ago|reply
I've used both metric and imperial, for construction imperial is lots easier, for physics and other things that involve frequent conversions metric is far easier.
The Canadians officially have metric, try buying a 250x125 sheet of plywood. Everybody will look at you as if water is burning.
[+] [-] jesusabdullah|13 years ago|reply
englilsh units aren't any less precise than SI/metric ones. They're just more awkward and less used worldwide. The cases which I find particularly irritating in US units are lb mass vs. lb force, and HP/BTU/foot-pounds/calories/Calories (and kWh) when all you need is a J.