I challenge you all to make two changes today with regard to this. First, switch your phone to give you the weather in Celsius. It gets super simple fast:
0 and below - Freezing. Wear a warm jacket and closed toe shoes or boots.
1 - 10 - Cold. Wear an overcoat (a light one if you are used to colder weather)
10-15 - Early spring time. Long sleeves are probably in order, maybe even a sweater.
15-20 - Late spring. Wear short sleeves.
20+ - Warm to hot. Wear short sleeves. If it gets to be 24+ shorts are appropriate.
I am deliberately not giving conversions to Fahrenheit here because I think that's how you just go back to using it. Try to internalize the metric system here.
The second challenge is to switch your clocks/watches to the 24 hour mode. Not strictly metric system related, but you will not have to worry about AM vs PM again.
For the advanced users: switch your car to show your speed in km/h instead of m/h.
For the super-advanced users: try to figure out how many liters per 100 km does your car consume :).
Edit: if you cook (and you really should), use a scale set to grams instead of measuring cups for any recipes you are making. Almost all foods list both oz's and grams on them. You will get much more accurate measurements this way and will learn to gauge what 150 grams of cheese looks like, etc.
Specifically regarding temperature, I don't think Celsius is granular enough, unless you like working with fractions. For instance, in my home, I can feel the difference between 72 F (22.2 C) and 73 F (22.8 C), and I prefer 73 F. Fractions would be just as easy for me to decipher, but there are some dim folks out there that have to be catered to, because they are legitimate consumers.
Regarding other measurements, I agree that metric should be used, because it just makes sense. Millimeters are about as granular as 1/16 inches, so that would eliminate the need to work with fractions in most cases.
> I am deliberately not giving conversions to Fahrenheit
But I spent all that effort learning what temperature water boils at in Fahrenheit. Who the hell is going to remember what that temperature is in Celsius??
Does most of this apply to newer things (cars, clocks)? My car has a clock but I have no method of changing anything but the hour/min. The speedometer is analog...I guess I could try to read the small print that displays in km...my alarm clock doesn't even have options for 24h.
With the cooking one (assuming you meant recipes from books); all the cookbooks I've seen have nothing in metric so I have to do another step of converting before I can measure properly.
The only problem I have with taking up your challenge is...why? I'd be the only one of the people I know and I would have to convert everything for them when I communicate.
If everything tomorrow and beyond was in metric, I am guessing a lot of people wouldn't replace their old items with the new one (displaying metric) they would just find a quick way to convert from their current way.
You do know that Fahrenheit was designed with humans in mind, while Celsius was designed with water in mind. The average person really doesn't care at what point water boils or freezes. They care about hot and cold, something F does better for humans than C.
It reminds me when we moved from national money (Franc) to Euro in Europe. The conversion rate was something like 1 Euro was 1.67 Francs (IIRC). I don't remember how long it took for the shops to remove the dual price tags, and when people stopped using converters or doing the conversion in their head. I decided just to forget about Francs from day one of Euro.
It would make a lot more sense if we used a system where 0 was the coldest it normally got, and 100 was the highest it normally got. Way more integer data points, and a lot less use of negative numbers.
The strange thing about articles like this is that they seem to assume that converting between units is something that happens all the time, such that doing so is a huge drain on the economy and engineering time. I don't know if my experience is the common one - but with a few exceptions (inches/feet, oz/pounds) such conversions seem kind of rare. Instead, you pick an appropriately sized unit to begin with, and stick with it.
It's interesting to note that all of the examples the article gives are caused by metrication - which forces conversions - rather than by problems using the customary units.
I don't see the point of a half-assed metrication, where everything remains the same size but is measured in centimeters. (Such that lumber is sold in lengths of 243.82 cm rather than 8 feet.) The US is already half-assed metric in a lot of places, with both customary and metric units printed on packaging when appropriate.
I guess the question is - what are the benefits of metrication that justify the massive expense required to convert?
Probably a host of stuff from one less NASA orbiter crashing, down to not having the sticker on millions of car B pillars printed with imperial and metric tyre pressures.
There are lots of downsides, it's interesting you give a construction example; in the UK we have houses built from imperial bricks. Metric bricks aren't the same size, but a conveniently round number in millimetres. A house I'm buying was built in imperial bricks and someone with not quite enough sense has filled in some old doorways with metric bricks.
The costs of maintaining different systems aren't large but accumulate indefinitely, the cost to switch is finite.
> (Such that lumber is sold in lengths of 243.82 cm rather than 8 feet.)
It's interesting that you pick that example. In many cases, the "measurements" for lumber don't actually correspond to the true dimensions of the product purchased. For example, a "2x4" has dimensions of 1 1⁄2 inches x 3 1⁄2 inches[0], rather than 2 inches by 4 inches. So, at least for the example you give, it's not clear to me that converting to metric is a bad idea, since the specifications are already somewhat nonsensical. Granted, a "2x4" does have a standard size.
I am not sure if this fully answers your questions, but one of the places where unit conversions happens a lot when doing customary unit engineering calculations is dealing with various constants/properties. For example, you might get the specific heat capacity of some material in terms of gallons, but you're dealing with ounces of fluid, and so you stick a conversion in there. It's certainly kind of niche, but it's really annoying to deal with.
But agreed on the half-assed metrification. I'm from Canada. I still buy pop and beer in 355ml cans, 591ml coke bottles, 600ml pepsi bottles, and 2L big bottles. My wood is still sized in inches (or nominal inches).
(I fully support SI though. In theory, I no longer need to memorize a whole set of conversion constants. In practice, I live in Canada, so I still need them).
Because I don't want to look at 243.82cm on my tape measure, or if I am trying to lay something out to match the 16 in on center studs 40.64 cm, 81.82, 121.92, 162.56, 203.2, and then 243.82 cm.
For new stuff you could probably cheat and just base it on 40cm, which would be fine and perfectly acceptable, but for the old stuff which is still out there over the 8 feet, I'm already off by more than an inch which is enough to not hit the stud. Most framing isn't great, but still the error is additive and fractions are hard enough to work with that I'd want to avoid it.
I think the transition for lots of things really has an additional cost. Is that speed limit sign metric or imperial? Sometimes its obvious, other times not, and there are thousands and thousands of different governments responsible for them.
The point is that the US would be half-assed metric whether it wanted it or not because it's part of the global economy. So your choices are half-assed metric or full on metric. There are no other choices.
These articles are always missing the subtly of the issue. I'm going to ignore MPH signs & mile markers, because they really don't matter much for international interoperability. The important things are focused around dimensions on parts, packaging, engineering drawings, etc.
Sure, we all know that lots of areas in the US already use the metric system. I have personally used metric in the biomedical & consumer electronic industries, but had to use imperial in the defense industry. Generally the more advanced or international the industry the more metric it is. (That's why construction may simply never switch).
What people generally don't realize is that other countries are still using the imperial system because the US drives the market. Lots of imperial system parts are made in Mexico, China, etc to feed into US supply chains. Complete wild ass guess, but I bet more imperial system bolts are made in China than in the US.
It's not like there is a ban on making non-metric parts in the 'metric countries'. They'll do it, and often times non-metric parts are cheaper even coming from metric countries because of the volumes.
It really seems like an industry by industry fight, and by and large it is a ratchet turning in only one direction. Even the defense industry is started to use metric for some parts. I think 50 years from now it will be a moot point.
your comment about having to use imperial in defense industry reminded me of working for the US Navy in the early 90s, where a standard unit of measure is a "kiloyard" (1000 yards) when measuring the range of sonars. Apparently a lot of the early testing had been done using yards as a unit. Since people often round to the nearest whole unit, they thought converting those historical measures to meters would introduce inaccuracy, so they continue to measure in yards, which yields big numbers with modern gear. Rather than use miles (1760 yards) as the ranges got long, they use kiloyards to record all data (presumably because dividing by 1000 is easier than dividing by 1760). Only in America...
What's your point? I also try to only use metric in the us, and a m3 Tap and bolts is cheaper than whatever silly fraction equivalent even buying from.consumer stores here. So, yeah, the economics of all this is crazy.. But i think the point is to improve it even more by removing the odd ones entirely.
It's hard to "make people think" in the different unit system. I'm in the UK and people talk about sizes in feet and miles all the time even though the society is supposed to have switched to the metric system.
There are places like on product labels where both units should be mandatory. Hopefully in a few generations people will gradually switch over.
> It's hard to "make people think" in the different unit system
It is, but it can be done in just one generation. The generation that is raised metric finds it even harder to think in imperial measurements, since the imperial measuring system is significantly more complex. Source: I grew up in a fully metric country.
I just looked it up, apparently the conversion to metric happened around the time that I was born. I had no idea, I thought that it was a decade or two before that.
i.e. if the USA had tried a bit harder in 1975, they would be done now.
Also, the UK is not "fully metric". If it was, there would not be road signs showing numbers in miles and miles per hour. You can't stop people from buying beer by the 568ml, but if the UK was serious about metric, official communications and education would be all in metric.
As a USian I can testify that there's a lot of irrational opposition here. Disclaimer: I don't have scientific sources on this, just subjective impressions from a lot of little interactions and clues.
The resistance seems to be largely: (a) older people who doubt their own ability to adjust (b) right-wingers who are convinced it's a socialist conspiracy or somesuch (these are people who think international cooperation is taking sovereignty from the US, or something like that - they're a bit incoherent) and (c) politicians perceive it as unpopular and risky to advocate (presumably because of a and b) or just not a vote-getter.
I've occasionally tried to promote SI by using units in casual contexts, but it's perceived as pretentious or obnoxious. The situation is better online as I participate only in fora like this where US obtuseness is not necessarily expected. It is hard to even find products like thermometers and measuring cups (for cooking) with all-SI.
In the European Union we changed currency, which is arguably a riskier change of measure, and much more abrupt a change.
We did fine! Even my grandma got accustomed quickly. Of course one could argue that is precisely because of the importance of a currency that we adapted so quickly...
Yes, it's difficult to make people think about it. At the same time, sometimes the units "don't matter" (like speed limits, 50 is 50 in the speedometer, just make sure you're not looking at the mph scale)
I want to slap somebody when I hear about "pounds" or "feet/sq ft", or even worse, Fahrenheit (since this is a non-linear transform)
At least everything in the supermarket is marked per pound and kilo
I disagree. When I'm working with computers, I find 24-hour time more convenient. It was a little difficult for the first few months, but now I really am ready to think only in 24-hour time.
Unfortunately, my brain won't fully switch over because everything else in my life is 12-hour time. Having both means I can't help but stick to the old way. When my computer clock says 17, I know people will start leaving the office. But, when it says 19, I don't think of supper. Supper is when my kitchen clock says 7.
Having a short adjustment period would be good, but at some point you just have to commit. Generations is too long in my opinion.
I think most people in the UK use a pretty mixed up set of measures.
I think of beer in pints, wine in ml, driving distance in miles, walking distance in km, height in feet and inches, but weight in kg. Lengths are in m/cm/mm as are weights and volumes for cooking. Mountains in Scotland in feet and mountains in the Alps in metres...
Oddly, my teenage son uses m/cm for height and stones/pounds for weight...
A bank officer recently heard the following explanation for a farmer's financial trouble:
It all started back in 1966 when they changed from pounds to dollars. My bloody overdraft doubled.
Then they brought in kilograms instead of pounds, my bloody wool clip dropped by half.
Then they changed rain to millimetres and we haven't had an inch of rain since.
They bring in celsius and it never gets over 40 degrees. No wonder my bloody wheat won't grow.
Then they change acres to hectares and I end up with half the bloody land I had.
By this time I'd had it and decided to sell out. I just get the place in the agent's hands when they changed from miles to kilometres. Now I'm too bloody far out of town for anyone to buy the bloody place.
I would like to see the USA switch to the metric system. However, I will point out, just because a "new" (the metric system was developed during the French Revolution) measuring system is more rational, does not mean that it will catch on. I'll offer a hypothetical example of another change that would be rational:
We currently divide the day based on time a system of time developed by the Babylonians roughly 4,000 years ago. Because the Babylonians had a math system that was base-60, it was rational for them to divide the day into sections that fit easily into a base-60 system. Ideally, they would have been consistent and gone with 60/60/60, but for some reason they went with 24/60/60. We have 24 hours, then 60 minutes, then 60 seconds. There are 86,400 seconds in the day, which may have made sense to them, but it makes no sense to us, in the modern world, since nowadays the whole world uses base-10 math. If we wanted to modernize the time system, we would switch to a base-10 system: 10/10/10/10. That would mean our smallest unit of measure would be a 100,000th of day, which would certainly be easier to work with, and reason about, than the crazy 86,400ths we have to deal with. 86,400ths are an artifact from the dawn of civilization, and should be gotten rid of.
Will we ever have a clean and rational 10/10/10/10 system for dividing up the day? Probably not. From the Babylonians we get the 24 hour day, the 7 day week, and the crazy idea that a circle should be divided by 360 degrees. All of these ideas are so deeply embedded in our culture it would be extremely hard to change them. Clean and rational systems do not always win out.
I keep hoping that the USA will switch to the metric system. On that front, I still have some hope. On other fronts, such as a rational system for dividing the day, I have no real hope at all.
Metric measurements just make sense. I never understood why the US does not adapt and use this system. I was glad my engineering education used it, so that once again, I felt back at home using the metric system. Ask any US born engineer and they will likely tell you that if they had been using the metric system all their lives, they wouldn't have had to waste all that time trying to learn it in college for physics, etc..
The US already uses the metric system. It is taught to every child in school. Engineers and scientists use it as their default.
What the soi-disant pro-metric faction really wants is to stamp out the English system from the culture. Why can't they tolerate people measuring themselves, their recipes, their temperatures, and their vehicle speeds in their preferred units?
I think there has already been significant discussion here about what the advantages (and disadvantages) are.
The US rarely uses metric in it's popular culture. Weather reports are in Fahrenheit, movies almost always use miles and pounds. By any measure of cultural output that you export that I've seen (and Australia is a huge consumer of your popular culture) you do not use metric.
I've heard the argument that the US already uses the metric system before by people who are resistant to the US using the metric system. It always sounds disingenuous.
But I may be wrong. I have not walked one point six one kilometres in your shoes.
I don't see any mention at all here that the United States adopted the metric system officially as legal for all purposes in 1866.[1] Because this was by act of Congress, the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution means that all state governments have to fall in line and permit the use of metric measurements--and they do. It is custom alone that has slowed the thoroughgoing adoption of the metric system in the United States. Lots of subsets of private industry have been mostly metric for many years,[2] so we are talking about activities at the margin of international trade and science and other activities in the United States that have long been increasingly metric.
I have lived in Taiwan for six years of my adult life (two three-year stays) and I have become used to thinking metric about overland distances in kilometers or my own height in centimeters or temperatures in Celsius degrees. But over there too, customary units survive long after official metrification, although some of those (like the unit of weight 斤, usually translated into English as "catty") have been conformed to the metric system by being defined in metric units (so that now a catty is half a kilogram). This process may go on for a long time in the United States.
Hearing Fahrenheit in Toronto does surprise me on the few occasions that it happens (usually either retirement-age seniors or American visitors).
Recently I noticed the medical profession has come on board with cm/kilos for measurement which is pretty surprising since hearing inches/pounds is still fairly common.
Having grown up in the 70s and 80s I still find I float between the two fairly easily but I sure did find Scotland confusing last time I visited - as a metric country they sure do a lot of things non-metricy.
Scotland (as part of Britain) is not metric as far as I know. The imperial measurement system was created by the British after all. The rest of the EU is metric, but not Britain.
I wonder if a successful TTIP agreement would be the catalyst for this? It's inexplicable that the EU/ EEA would allow for non-metric goods to freely flow into the market.
Should it also be illegal for the UK to teach Imperial units? I find the European attitude that government should ban everything they don't like perplexing.
In the EU, when we had to change from national currencies to Euro, the outcry was big -- because everybody was only able to "measure" money in the old currency. That even exactly this currency changed over the past decades very much, seemed to be not in the minds.
I guess, there are still people out there, which recalculate into Francs or Marks, or whatsoever -- but I think most Europeans have adapted.
So, when "old Europe" can change -- why not "modern USA"?
The article doesn't go far enough in showing the genius of the SI system (known as metric system most of the time).
The conversion factor between mechanical values in the SI system is 1.
Example:
E = F * delta_x
= m_1 * a * delta_x
= 0.5 * m_2 * v^2
Energy = 1 J
= 1 kg * m^2/s^2
= 1 N * 1 m // Force: 1 Newton applied for 1 meter distance
= 1 kg * 1 m/s^2 * 1 m // Acceleration: 1 kg accelerated at 1 m/s for a distance of 1 m
= 0.5 * 2 kg * (1 m/s)^2 // Velocity: 2 kg accelerated from stand still to 1 m/s velocity
So you can see that no magic factors popped up at any point. This is because the SI system describes the real world very well: for example mass and force are rigorously defined units and can not be used interchangeably.
While you are at can you change the date format as well? DD/MM/YYYY instead of MM/DD/YYYY (US). It should go from small to big. The other way around makes my head hurts every time.
There is a link in the article to metric interstate highway of Arizona. I-19 from Tucson to Nogales is signed in metric. When you enter the freeway there is a sign that says "This highway signed in metric" Every sign on the freeway is in metric, EXCEPT for the speed limit sign. I realize they did that so people wouldn't be doing 100+ MPH but I always wanted to drive it at 60KPH, and explain to the judge "the sign was in metric"
Some thoughts on a conversion that I don't generally see brought up:
* From an economic standpoint, the US is a big enough market that it is profitable to make things in weird US units, you have 350M people to sell to, most of whom are pretty well off by world standards. It makes sense to make a line catering to them. If businesses can start making a true or good economic argument it will happen more.
* Tooling that exists in standard units seems to be a bit of a red herring: I dislike having to own wrenches in both standard and metric units - a transition to one set would actually be nice. At a larger scale, i.e. manufacturing, it would make sense to start replacing things with metric on regular maintenance cycles. With very long cycle things just having a label change.
* Paper would be a nightmare for a while - A4 and 8.5x11 are just dissimilar enough for it to be weird, and paper has a very long lifetime, dual storage systems are a pain.
* A lot of very low level infrastructure has built in assumptions about standard measure that would take a long time to convert, and some would never convert. For example, a lot of cities put roads so that $X blocks is a mile. The midwest from the air looks like a quilt - thats because all the fields are partitioned by roads which are (generally speaking) a mile apart. Land ownership for rural areas is by the fraction of a section, and by acres - it's built in to how everything is laid out. These aren't impediments but it does create a weirdness. I navigate the backroads and a lot of parts of cities by knowing how far it is and just counting how far over and how far up i need to go subconsciously, and it is an issue.
* Now is a better time than ever for doing this in terms of accessibility to the public. Everyone has a smartphone - apps to do conversion in lots of intuitive ways can ease people's discomfort.
* Car, motorcycle and other mechanical equipment manufacturers should be the people to start the transition. They can all agree to just stop using standard things for the 20XX line of equipment. Or be legislated to do so. Similarly gas stations can be required to change on $DATE, and car manufacturers can just send everyone stickers to put near the gas-hole of cars to say "your tank is $X litres". I think this would help tons. No dual labeling, just bam - it's in litres now.
* Housing things are another weird infrastructure thing: they last for a very long time. Codes are all in inches -- doors must be 36" wide, switches must be placed at 48" and so on. The sudden appearance of a second width and height for new stuff would be bizarre, or building it at 91.44 and 121.92 cm respectively would also be annoying.
I still think it's a good idea, but some thought needs to go into these weird cases that are surprisingly common before a transition would be acceptable. But like I said - everyone carries a computer or two these days, so there is probably a lot of work that could be done to simplify the transition via good apps.
I think, even, when the US is changing to the metric system, the bigger problem will still linger around (and when I have hope for the the metric system, I don't have any for that):
How on earth can we make the British driving on the "right" side of the street.
I was in high school when the US planned to switch to the metric system, then suddenly the deal was off. I never learned why, and I was too busy playing D&D to care.
The article is right, though; metric measures are easier to work with. I will vote in favor of changing.
The last road sign I've seen in metric was one on I-95 northbound, just north of the I-26 interchange. Sadly, SC DOT changed it out a few years ago and now it just reads in miles.
I understand there's a road in Arizona that is still signed in metric.
[+] [-] IgorPartola|11 years ago|reply
0 and below - Freezing. Wear a warm jacket and closed toe shoes or boots.
1 - 10 - Cold. Wear an overcoat (a light one if you are used to colder weather)
10-15 - Early spring time. Long sleeves are probably in order, maybe even a sweater.
15-20 - Late spring. Wear short sleeves.
20+ - Warm to hot. Wear short sleeves. If it gets to be 24+ shorts are appropriate.
I am deliberately not giving conversions to Fahrenheit here because I think that's how you just go back to using it. Try to internalize the metric system here.
The second challenge is to switch your clocks/watches to the 24 hour mode. Not strictly metric system related, but you will not have to worry about AM vs PM again.
For the advanced users: switch your car to show your speed in km/h instead of m/h.
For the super-advanced users: try to figure out how many liters per 100 km does your car consume :).
Edit: if you cook (and you really should), use a scale set to grams instead of measuring cups for any recipes you are making. Almost all foods list both oz's and grams on them. You will get much more accurate measurements this way and will learn to gauge what 150 grams of cheese looks like, etc.
[+] [-] stronglikedan|11 years ago|reply
Regarding other measurements, I agree that metric should be used, because it just makes sense. Millimeters are about as granular as 1/16 inches, so that would eliminate the need to work with fractions in most cases.
[+] [-] sjwright|11 years ago|reply
But I spent all that effort learning what temperature water boils at in Fahrenheit. Who the hell is going to remember what that temperature is in Celsius??
[+] [-] hfsktr|11 years ago|reply
With the cooking one (assuming you meant recipes from books); all the cookbooks I've seen have nothing in metric so I have to do another step of converting before I can measure properly.
The only problem I have with taking up your challenge is...why? I'd be the only one of the people I know and I would have to convert everything for them when I communicate.
If everything tomorrow and beyond was in metric, I am guessing a lot of people wouldn't replace their old items with the new one (displaying metric) they would just find a quick way to convert from their current way.
[+] [-] chrismcb|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astrobe_|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smackfu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fuxy|11 years ago|reply
I get people telling me measurements in inches sometimes here in the UK and I always tell the to measure it again in centimeters.
It's just easier and more accurate.
[+] [-] CapitalistCartr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trothamel|11 years ago|reply
It's interesting to note that all of the examples the article gives are caused by metrication - which forces conversions - rather than by problems using the customary units.
I don't see the point of a half-assed metrication, where everything remains the same size but is measured in centimeters. (Such that lumber is sold in lengths of 243.82 cm rather than 8 feet.) The US is already half-assed metric in a lot of places, with both customary and metric units printed on packaging when appropriate.
I guess the question is - what are the benefits of metrication that justify the massive expense required to convert?
[+] [-] cs02rm0|11 years ago|reply
There are lots of downsides, it's interesting you give a construction example; in the UK we have houses built from imperial bricks. Metric bricks aren't the same size, but a conveniently round number in millimetres. A house I'm buying was built in imperial bricks and someone with not quite enough sense has filled in some old doorways with metric bricks.
The costs of maintaining different systems aren't large but accumulate indefinitely, the cost to switch is finite.
[+] [-] privong|11 years ago|reply
It's interesting that you pick that example. In many cases, the "measurements" for lumber don't actually correspond to the true dimensions of the product purchased. For example, a "2x4" has dimensions of 1 1⁄2 inches x 3 1⁄2 inches[0], rather than 2 inches by 4 inches. So, at least for the example you give, it's not clear to me that converting to metric is a bad idea, since the specifications are already somewhat nonsensical. Granted, a "2x4" does have a standard size.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumber#North_American_softwood...
[+] [-] icegreentea|11 years ago|reply
But agreed on the half-assed metrification. I'm from Canada. I still buy pop and beer in 355ml cans, 591ml coke bottles, 600ml pepsi bottles, and 2L big bottles. My wood is still sized in inches (or nominal inches).
(I fully support SI though. In theory, I no longer need to memorize a whole set of conversion constants. In practice, I live in Canada, so I still need them).
[+] [-] cpwright|11 years ago|reply
For new stuff you could probably cheat and just base it on 40cm, which would be fine and perfectly acceptable, but for the old stuff which is still out there over the 8 feet, I'm already off by more than an inch which is enough to not hit the stud. Most framing isn't great, but still the error is additive and fractions are hard enough to work with that I'd want to avoid it.
I think the transition for lots of things really has an additional cost. Is that speed limit sign metric or imperial? Sometimes its obvious, other times not, and there are thousands and thousands of different governments responsible for them.
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krschultz|11 years ago|reply
Sure, we all know that lots of areas in the US already use the metric system. I have personally used metric in the biomedical & consumer electronic industries, but had to use imperial in the defense industry. Generally the more advanced or international the industry the more metric it is. (That's why construction may simply never switch).
What people generally don't realize is that other countries are still using the imperial system because the US drives the market. Lots of imperial system parts are made in Mexico, China, etc to feed into US supply chains. Complete wild ass guess, but I bet more imperial system bolts are made in China than in the US.
It's not like there is a ban on making non-metric parts in the 'metric countries'. They'll do it, and often times non-metric parts are cheaper even coming from metric countries because of the volumes.
It really seems like an industry by industry fight, and by and large it is a ratchet turning in only one direction. Even the defense industry is started to use metric for some parts. I think 50 years from now it will be a moot point.
[+] [-] pge|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb0|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zimbatm|11 years ago|reply
There are places like on product labels where both units should be mandatory. Hopefully in a few generations people will gradually switch over.
[+] [-] SideburnsOfDoom|11 years ago|reply
It is, but it can be done in just one generation. The generation that is raised metric finds it even harder to think in imperial measurements, since the imperial measuring system is significantly more complex. Source: I grew up in a fully metric country.
I just looked it up, apparently the conversion to metric happened around the time that I was born. I had no idea, I thought that it was a decade or two before that.
i.e. if the USA had tried a bit harder in 1975, they would be done now.
Also, the UK is not "fully metric". If it was, there would not be road signs showing numbers in miles and miles per hour. You can't stop people from buying beer by the 568ml, but if the UK was serious about metric, official communications and education would be all in metric.
[+] [-] ds9|11 years ago|reply
The resistance seems to be largely: (a) older people who doubt their own ability to adjust (b) right-wingers who are convinced it's a socialist conspiracy or somesuch (these are people who think international cooperation is taking sovereignty from the US, or something like that - they're a bit incoherent) and (c) politicians perceive it as unpopular and risky to advocate (presumably because of a and b) or just not a vote-getter.
I've occasionally tried to promote SI by using units in casual contexts, but it's perceived as pretentious or obnoxious. The situation is better online as I participate only in fora like this where US obtuseness is not necessarily expected. It is hard to even find products like thermometers and measuring cups (for cooking) with all-SI.
[+] [-] harperlee|11 years ago|reply
We did fine! Even my grandma got accustomed quickly. Of course one could argue that is precisely because of the importance of a currency that we adapted so quickly...
[+] [-] raverbashing|11 years ago|reply
Yes, it's difficult to make people think about it. At the same time, sometimes the units "don't matter" (like speed limits, 50 is 50 in the speedometer, just make sure you're not looking at the mph scale)
I want to slap somebody when I hear about "pounds" or "feet/sq ft", or even worse, Fahrenheit (since this is a non-linear transform)
At least everything in the supermarket is marked per pound and kilo
[+] [-] adamtj|11 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, my brain won't fully switch over because everything else in my life is 12-hour time. Having both means I can't help but stick to the old way. When my computer clock says 17, I know people will start leaving the office. But, when it says 19, I don't think of supper. Supper is when my kitchen clock says 7.
Having a short adjustment period would be good, but at some point you just have to commit. Generations is too long in my opinion.
[+] [-] arethuza|11 years ago|reply
I think of beer in pints, wine in ml, driving distance in miles, walking distance in km, height in feet and inches, but weight in kg. Lengths are in m/cm/mm as are weights and volumes for cooking. Mountains in Scotland in feet and mountains in the Alps in metres...
Oddly, my teenage son uses m/cm for height and stones/pounds for weight...
[+] [-] petethepig|11 years ago|reply
A bank officer recently heard the following explanation for a farmer's financial trouble:
It all started back in 1966 when they changed from pounds to dollars. My bloody overdraft doubled.
Then they brought in kilograms instead of pounds, my bloody wool clip dropped by half.
Then they changed rain to millimetres and we haven't had an inch of rain since.
They bring in celsius and it never gets over 40 degrees. No wonder my bloody wheat won't grow.
Then they change acres to hectares and I end up with half the bloody land I had.
By this time I'd had it and decided to sell out. I just get the place in the agent's hands when they changed from miles to kilometres. Now I'm too bloody far out of town for anyone to buy the bloody place.
[+] [-] lkrubner|11 years ago|reply
We currently divide the day based on time a system of time developed by the Babylonians roughly 4,000 years ago. Because the Babylonians had a math system that was base-60, it was rational for them to divide the day into sections that fit easily into a base-60 system. Ideally, they would have been consistent and gone with 60/60/60, but for some reason they went with 24/60/60. We have 24 hours, then 60 minutes, then 60 seconds. There are 86,400 seconds in the day, which may have made sense to them, but it makes no sense to us, in the modern world, since nowadays the whole world uses base-10 math. If we wanted to modernize the time system, we would switch to a base-10 system: 10/10/10/10. That would mean our smallest unit of measure would be a 100,000th of day, which would certainly be easier to work with, and reason about, than the crazy 86,400ths we have to deal with. 86,400ths are an artifact from the dawn of civilization, and should be gotten rid of.
Will we ever have a clean and rational 10/10/10/10 system for dividing up the day? Probably not. From the Babylonians we get the 24 hour day, the 7 day week, and the crazy idea that a circle should be divided by 360 degrees. All of these ideas are so deeply embedded in our culture it would be extremely hard to change them. Clean and rational systems do not always win out.
I keep hoping that the USA will switch to the metric system. On that front, I still have some hope. On other fronts, such as a rational system for dividing the day, I have no real hope at all.
[+] [-] astrodust|11 years ago|reply
Said every country, ever, that switched to metric successfully.
[+] [-] thehme|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dietlbomb|11 years ago|reply
What the soi-disant pro-metric faction really wants is to stamp out the English system from the culture. Why can't they tolerate people measuring themselves, their recipes, their temperatures, and their vehicle speeds in their preferred units?
[+] [-] anotherevan|11 years ago|reply
http://www.metric.org.uk/myths/imperial#imperial-was-invente...
I think there has already been significant discussion here about what the advantages (and disadvantages) are.
The US rarely uses metric in it's popular culture. Weather reports are in Fahrenheit, movies almost always use miles and pounds. By any measure of cultural output that you export that I've seen (and Australia is a huge consumer of your popular culture) you do not use metric.
I've heard the argument that the US already uses the metric system before by people who are resistant to the US using the metric system. It always sounds disingenuous.
But I may be wrong. I have not walked one point six one kilometres in your shoes.
[+] [-] tokenadult|11 years ago|reply
I have lived in Taiwan for six years of my adult life (two three-year stays) and I have become used to thinking metric about overland distances in kilometers or my own height in centimeters or temperatures in Celsius degrees. But over there too, customary units survive long after official metrification, although some of those (like the unit of weight 斤, usually translated into English as "catty") have been conformed to the metric system by being defined in metric units (so that now a catty is half a kilogram). This process may go on for a long time in the United States.
[1] http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/204
http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/upload/1136a.pdf
[2] http://www.ebsinstitute.com/OtherActivities/EBS.qs2df2.html
http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/life-style/2013-04-04/metr...
[+] [-] the_unknown|11 years ago|reply
Recently I noticed the medical profession has come on board with cm/kilos for measurement which is pretty surprising since hearing inches/pounds is still fairly common.
Having grown up in the 70s and 80s I still find I float between the two fairly easily but I sure did find Scotland confusing last time I visited - as a metric country they sure do a lot of things non-metricy.
[+] [-] alphadevx|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistakoala|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoggle|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smackfu|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] PythonicAlpha|11 years ago|reply
I guess, there are still people out there, which recalculate into Francs or Marks, or whatsoever -- but I think most Europeans have adapted.
So, when "old Europe" can change -- why not "modern USA"?
[+] [-] Gravityloss|11 years ago|reply
The conversion factor between mechanical values in the SI system is 1.
Example:
So you can see that no magic factors popped up at any point. This is because the SI system describes the real world very well: for example mass and force are rigorously defined units and can not be used interchangeably.[+] [-] williwu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kourt|11 years ago|reply
The week dates are even more awesome, really: I use them whenever I can.
[+] [-] chrismcb|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sophacles|11 years ago|reply
* From an economic standpoint, the US is a big enough market that it is profitable to make things in weird US units, you have 350M people to sell to, most of whom are pretty well off by world standards. It makes sense to make a line catering to them. If businesses can start making a true or good economic argument it will happen more.
* Tooling that exists in standard units seems to be a bit of a red herring: I dislike having to own wrenches in both standard and metric units - a transition to one set would actually be nice. At a larger scale, i.e. manufacturing, it would make sense to start replacing things with metric on regular maintenance cycles. With very long cycle things just having a label change.
* Paper would be a nightmare for a while - A4 and 8.5x11 are just dissimilar enough for it to be weird, and paper has a very long lifetime, dual storage systems are a pain.
* A lot of very low level infrastructure has built in assumptions about standard measure that would take a long time to convert, and some would never convert. For example, a lot of cities put roads so that $X blocks is a mile. The midwest from the air looks like a quilt - thats because all the fields are partitioned by roads which are (generally speaking) a mile apart. Land ownership for rural areas is by the fraction of a section, and by acres - it's built in to how everything is laid out. These aren't impediments but it does create a weirdness. I navigate the backroads and a lot of parts of cities by knowing how far it is and just counting how far over and how far up i need to go subconsciously, and it is an issue.
* Now is a better time than ever for doing this in terms of accessibility to the public. Everyone has a smartphone - apps to do conversion in lots of intuitive ways can ease people's discomfort.
* Car, motorcycle and other mechanical equipment manufacturers should be the people to start the transition. They can all agree to just stop using standard things for the 20XX line of equipment. Or be legislated to do so. Similarly gas stations can be required to change on $DATE, and car manufacturers can just send everyone stickers to put near the gas-hole of cars to say "your tank is $X litres". I think this would help tons. No dual labeling, just bam - it's in litres now.
* Housing things are another weird infrastructure thing: they last for a very long time. Codes are all in inches -- doors must be 36" wide, switches must be placed at 48" and so on. The sudden appearance of a second width and height for new stuff would be bizarre, or building it at 91.44 and 121.92 cm respectively would also be annoying.
I still think it's a good idea, but some thought needs to go into these weird cases that are surprisingly common before a transition would be acceptable. But like I said - everyone carries a computer or two these days, so there is probably a lot of work that could be done to simplify the transition via good apps.
[+] [-] lectrick|11 years ago|reply
1980's: It's time for the US to use the metric system
1990's: It's time for the US to use the metric system
2000's: It's time for the US to use the metric system
2010's: OK, seriously guys, it's time for the US to use the metric system, this is getting ridiculous
[+] [-] PythonicAlpha|11 years ago|reply
How on earth can we make the British driving on the "right" side of the street.
[+] [-] faster|11 years ago|reply
The article is right, though; metric measures are easier to work with. I will vote in favor of changing.
[+] [-] chiph|11 years ago|reply
I understand there's a road in Arizona that is still signed in metric.
[+] [-] matthewmcg|11 years ago|reply