How Can We Convert the US to the Metric System?

thesolo asks: "Despite past efforts of the 1970s and 1980s, the United States remains one of only three countries (others are Liberia and Myanmar) that does not use the metric system. Staying with imperial measurements has only served to handicap American industry and economy. Attempts to get Americans using the Celsius scale, or putting up speed limits in kilometers per hour have been squashed dead. Not only that, but some Americans actually see metrication efforts as an assault on 'our way' of measuring. I personally deal with European scientists on a daily basis, and find our lack of common measurement to be extremely frustrating. Are we so entrenched with imperial units that we cannot get our fellow citizens to simply learn something new? What are those of us who wish to finally see America catch up to the rest of the world supposed to do? Are there any organizations that we may back, or any pro-metric legislators who we can support?"

Comments

What's stopping you?

[porkchop_d_clown]

If you want to use the metric system in your research, then use the metric system. What's stopping you?

Why do you need the government to change the speed limit signs if your problem is interoperating with scientists?

Re:What's stopping you?

[ChowRiit]

If children aren't taught the metric system, they'll have to learn it. As a scientist, I can attest to the massive superiority of the metric system for scientific measurements et cetera, after all, that's partly what it was DESIGNED for. (1cm^3 of pure water doesn't weight 1g at sea level for no reason, for example...).

I like in England, where we're mostly metric (although a lot of Imperial units are still used), but ALL scientists use metric for everything. It's not because of some magical superiorty science that normal people need either, it's mostly because multiplying by 10 is a lot easier than multiplying by 12 then 16 then 8, or whatever!

Re:What's stopping you?

[neiko]

I have only one hold out personally for the Imperial System and that's the measure of temperature. Celsius is all fine and good when using it in a scientific scope, but when talking about the weather, the units are TOO big. The difference between 12C and 13C is too great. A degree in Fahrenheit is about the right size when thinking if something is hot or cold. It may just be my lack of thinking about the temperature outside in Celsius, but being comfortable with both measurements, Fahrenheit allows me to predict a little better what it will feel like when I walk out the door.

Re:What's stopping you?

[robinjo]

The difference between 12C and 13C is nothing. Wind and sunshine/lack thereof affects way more than half a degree Celsius.

Re:What's stopping you?

[nine-times]

It's not because of some magical superiorty science that normal people need either, it's mostly because multiplying by 10 is a lot easier than multiplying by 12 then 16 then 8, or whatever!

It's not easier if we were using a base-16 numbering system!

Ok, but seriously, it is an issue of context. If you're a scientist doing scientific research, by all means, use the metric system. However, for some purposes, the metric system isn't superior.

The easiest example I can think of is temperature. I've been told by lots of people that we (I'm American) should use the Celsius for temperatures. They tell me, "It makes a lot more sense, and it's more elegant. 0 degrees is the temperature that water freezes, and 100 degrees is when it boils. Think of how nice that is. It makes so much sense for cooking and scientific experiments..."

Well, that's fine, and so I support anyone who wants to use Celsius measurements for cooking or science. However, think for a second about the Fahrenheit scale. The range of 0-100 degrees is roughly the temperature in which human being can live. The exact range that's comfortable for people depends on various things, including the specific person, clothing, wind and humidity, etc. However, somewhere 100 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature that people need to be careful about heat-stroke, and around 0 degrees is where people are in danger of freezing to death or getting frostbite, even if they're wearing warm clothes.

So while Celsius makes sense for some scientific purposes, I think Fahrenheit is where it's at for talking about weather. Likewise, if I need to estimate the length of the room and I don't have a measuring device, do you know how I do it? I walk, one foot in front of the other, and see how many steps it takes. My feet are each just about 1 foot long, and it works pretty reliably. If you want argue that meters are better for scientific purposes, manufacturing, or even construction, then by all means do so. However, different units are more appropriate for measuring different things, so don't try to tell me that I can't use Imperial units where it makes sense.

Re:What's stopping you?

[Mex]

Well, to me, Farenheit seems ridiculous. Why is 40F "Very Cold" or Freezing? Shouldn't it be 0? or 100?

You're saying that because you grew up with it, but ask anyone who uses the Centigrades and they'll be able to tell you what temperature they are at (ballpark number, at least).

The units are not "Too big" either. Can you use decimal points? 22.5C

To me, Farenheit units are ridiculous and nonsensical.

Re:What's stopping you?

[Mi5ke561]

You just described the problem without realizing that you did it. If you're used to thinking in terms of imperial measurement, you can mentally estimate things. You've got a familiar frame of reference.
When things get converted to Metric, it gets confusing because you don't have that internal referent.
It's like when I got some xrays done a year ago. I asked the tech how much I was getting, because I keep mental track of that because going to different doctors, I can't always be sure that everybody's
gotten a look at my chart and knows how much of a dose I've had over the last year. So, I tend to think in terms of rads or other old familiar units of measurement. When I got a figure in Milisieverts, that told me worse than nothing, because I was quoted a unit of measurement that I couldn't relate to anything at all.

And that effects other things as well. If you're working on equipment that's on the old National Standard or even the old British Imperial Measure, (a Woolrich thread on a screw has a different pitch than a US equivalent, and that's just one example) jumping back and forth between systems is asking for it.

The thing that you've missed, over all, is that the US National Standard System which derived from the old British Imperial Measure, is a system. Lots of people hold it in common. Technical standards based on that system are what you're dealing with whether it's a complex machining job or the blueprints for your house. And getting the kind of confusion that NASA had when they lost that satellite because of a confusion in systems of measurement, can be both expensive and in some cases deadly.

Sooner or later the US will change over, but it will be from economic pressure rather than political mandates. But it's not going to happen overnight as much as you'd like it to. Figure about a century,
simply because manufacturing has shifted. The US is a technological power but no longer an industrial one, and China has become the preeminent industrial power on the planet. They make most goods and when you're buying, especially on the basis of cost, you buy Chinese and the Chinese use metric. But that's going to be a slow conversion and mandating it from on high will cause you and everybody else, no end of grief.

Why change....

[wiit_rabit]

What is the reason for this change? As another poster has said, if you want to use the metric system, just use it.

Most, if not all of the problems I deal with (mechanical engineering) have systems and specifications that are in metric units now. Most (nearly all) national standards I deal with are already in metric units. CAD and analysis systems can switch units without problems.

What use is it to change units for the general population? Is there a need to buy apples in Kg? Or gasoline in Liters? Medicine is specified in Mg. Engine displacement is shown in Liters. Should 2x4's be 50x100's?

Re:Why change....

[Guppy06]

"Because the US needs to pull its finger out and get with the program."

What, that's it?

We're getting along fine, our units of measure are, by definition, exactly as accurate as SI units. SI doesn't have a monopoly on using either decimals or prefixes, so even decimalization isn't a particularly compelling reason. There is no technical reason for a compulsory switch.

great arguments...

[JamesTRexx]

From a link on the freedom2measure site:
Sexist
The metric system has been almost wholly created and standardized by male scientists and bureaucrats. At the time, during which women were considerably less liberated than today, woman had virtually no say in the creation and, in many countries, the imposition of these units. Perhaps, if they had, the value of the practical units used in those tasks undertaken by woman at the time would have been recognized.

I can understand trying to make a point against the metric system, but this!? Any other real arguments won't be taken serious anymore..
Not to mention that I doubt women had any say in the current system.

Re:great arguments...

[AaronLawrence]

With a waving flag on the front page and "criticising metric as un-American" I doubt you will find any arguments worth listening to on that site.

School and Law

[lazysonofab]

Start with the schools. It will require quite a bit of initial investment, but it is the only way to introduce a new mindset to the public. You'll need to replace a LOT of textbooks (maths problems will need to be posed in metric terms, same for science books, etc) and all of your measuring devices will need replacing with metric versions (throw out those yard sticks and replace them with metre rules). If the kids grow up learning metric terms, they'll see the benefits of simplicity, easier unit conversion, and so on.

Then comes the tricky part: legislation. The resistance from the lazy public and business will be incredible - it'll be seen as one extra unnecessary expense - but it has to be done. It must be a legal requirement that wherever an amount is shown in Imperial, it must also be shown in metric.

That should be enough to get the ball rolling, but it's a long process, and - as the poster above pointed out - it may not stick right away. The UK has used metric officially for many years now but go into a hardware store and they'll still sell you a length of 2-by-4.

It may take many years to kill off Imperial measurements, but I think those are the two most important steps to affect the change.

Re:Pipe dream.

[Dunbal]

Old houses don't go away.

      Right, because there are no old houses in Europe. This is why they have successfully converted to metric.

      Your argument is flawed.

Re:Funny, but lame

[mattpointblank]

At the end of the day, can you imagine how many millions of man-hours of effort would go into such a conversion? For what? UNITY, so that every nation could be the same? I thought DIVERSITY was supposed to be the valued goal?

Oh please. I agree with the rest of your post, but you can't argue that imperial vs metric is about diversity vs uniformity. It's quite clearly being argued because of the difficulties in conversion, not some assault on the brave USA, willing to stand alone from the metric crowd of sheep.

Re:No benefit

[Balthisar]

>>Ease of calculations is the key. If you don't do much actual mathematics in your daily life, you won't see the need for the metric system. If you're a scientist, you do, and you will.

Well, yeah, that's my point. I'm an engineer, and my American (global) Fortune 5 company is completely metric in its operations. So as a scientist (you) or engineer (me) we see the value of and use the metric system. There's no US law prohibiting us from doing so. Why, then, should we mandate that the country switch to the metric system? You and I already use it; why make Joe Blow purchase lunch meat priced at $x per 100/g?

Simply, what's the cost-benefit analysis of changing our society to the metric system?

Re:I'll let you into a secret about Britain

[cyber-vandal]

What a strange country you must live in and you must not have travelled at all.
Alcohol is still sold in standard amounts in bars in metric countries too and that's what you ask for; people buy as much fruit as they need/want not a specific amount as they're sold in both bags of apples (which are neither 1 pound or 1 kilo) or loose so you can buy what you want; people order coke in cans because funnily enough you can't buy it in anything else but cans or bottles. The development of the language had nothing to do with imperial measurements; someone somewhere had to define what a pint/pound/inch actually represents and guess what it was this in the UK.

Get a Grip

[smack.addict]

The snooty arrogance in this thread is astounding.

There is no doubt that if you are designing a system from scratch, the metric system is superior.

There is also no doubt that if you are in science and engineering, you should be using the metric system.

But for every day use? It does not matter one tiny bit. Whatever accurately supports commerce is really all that matters. And the Imperial system works in the US.

Some dirty secrets for you all who think the rest of the world has adopted: a lot of the Commonwealth nations have adopted the metric only in an official capacity. Go to the UK and see how often you see Imperial units.

Tradesmen VASTLY Prefer imperial units

[DoninIN]

There are BILLIONS(Maybe Trillions) of dollars worth of tools to use imperial units. Lumber is made in 2X4" pipe fittings are measured in inches, the handy use of fractional units when doing carpentry, which what's half of 5/8"? (A: 5/16") is a serious factor. The lifespan of all these tools, such as the tooling to roll steel and brass and aluminum into inch sizes etc is something no one ever talks about, how long does the largely theoretical "gain" made by switching to SI units take to pay off all the steel mills the lumber mills the switching over of all the plumbing in America to metric pipe fittings???? (Hint, civilization and technology are 90% plumbing) Listen, I work in manufacturing, we have customers with english and metric prints, I convert back and forth on the fly a few hundred times some days. Not a problem, anyone who's a Scientist shouldn't be doing anything in imperial units at all anyway. So what's the problem? As for the "difficulty" in conversion, the imperial units are DEFINED in SI units, right? I know one inch =25.4 mm by definition.

So let my summarize by saying "Who will think of the rulers!" (And steel mills and pipe fittings and rolling mills and everything I'm ignorant of)

Re:Funny, but lame

[1u3hr]

Put into Slashdot terms, note that if you get rid of the Imperial Inch, say goodbye to "point" font-sizes; no more will you be able to specify a simple 12pt (ie, 12/72 of an inch), but rather 4.233mm! Selection boxes just got wider, eating up all that valuable screen real-estate. Speaking of, no more DPI or PPI resolution metrics.

Bullshit. In almost every metric country, type is measured in points. Certainly from my personal experience, Australia, Hong Kong, Thailand, India and the UK, which are all metric in most respects. There are proposed metric units to measure type, but they are not offically part of the SI. And the idea of a font "size" is actually fairly arbitrary and fuzzy. It's generally defined as the smallest line spacing so that the descenders of one line do not collide with the ascenders of the line below. But there are many cases where this rule is violated. Consider it more like women's dress sizes rather than relating to a specific dimension.

Of course, we can thank Adobe for embedding their definition of the point = 1/72" in PostScript (which is slightly larger then the older traditional point.) Page sizes however are often quoted in mm.

However, I suspect you are trolling. If so, well done. I also have to suspect that the site linked in the summary , http://www.freedom2measure.org/ may be a parody.

The metric system has been almost wholly created and standardized by male scientists and bureaucrats. At the time, during which women were considerably less liberated than today, woman had virtually no say in the creation and, in many countries, the imposition of these units.

... This is an utterly arbitrary way of fixing the size of a degree. In fact, under SI, water freezes at 273.16 K.

...Since the readership of most international US publications is majority American, American units should come first. (In survey after survey, clear majorities of all age groups in the US are more comfortable with American units.)

Could anyone write that stuff seriously?

Re:I'll let you into a secret about Britain

[mattoo]

Wikipedia now seems to say:

The rifle is 1 meter (39.9 inches) long with standard 500mm (19 inch) barrel.

You've got to love adaptable references :)

All of these things have already occurred.

[ArsSineArtificio]

You'll need to replace a LOT of textbooks (maths problems will need to be posed in metric terms, same for science books, etc) and all of your measuring devices will need replacing with metric versions (throw out those yard sticks and replace them with metre rules).

Textbooks in the United States already use metric units, and have now for decades.

If the kids grow up learning metric terms, they'll see the benefits of simplicity, easier unit conversion, and so on.

Everybody in the United States under the age of forty grew up learning metric terms. Virtually nobody in the United States under the age of forty, unless such person has some specific technical reason for doing so, has any interest in using metric terms in day-to-day life.

It must be a legal requirement that wherever an amount is shown in Imperial, it must also be shown in metric.

This is already the case. A can of cola in the U.S. reads "12 fl. oz. (355 mL)". A bag of microwave popcorn states "1.5 oz. (42.5g)". A snack bar reads "1.59 oz (45g)". No consumer product is sold without both Imperial and metric measurements.

Then comes the tricky part: legislation. The resistance from the lazy public and business will be incredible - it'll be seen as one extra unnecessary expense - but it has to be done.

If the public doesn't want it, and business doesn't want it, then who exactly is supposed to benefit?

both are illogical even

[r00t]

It should have been MGS. (meter-gram-second) The base units should not have prefixes like "kilo" and "centi".

Furthermore, there is nothing nice about the sizes of metric units. Nice units are ones that eliminate pointless numeric constants. Using natural units, e=mc^2 becomes e=m. Using natural units, the ideal gas law loses the R constant. Isn't that way better?

Metric is nothing special. For example, the meter is based on an erroneous measurement across France. This bad measurement was used to estimate the size of the Earth so that the meter could be claimed to have a tie to the size of the Earth. (which isn't unchanging anyway, even if it were perfectly round!) We might as well use a foot defined as the distance traveled by light in a particular amount of time, with that time amount chosen so that a foot just happens to match King George's foot.

Base 10 isn't special either. Binary is special, and trivially convertable to the more-compact hexadecimal.

Cultural preservation

[LihTox]

How Can We Convert the US to the Metric System? is like asking "How can we convert France to speaking English?" It would sure be convenient if everyone grew up speaking only English, but that's hardly going to convince the French or the Germans or the Chinese or.... "But people often have to learn English to participate in international life!" True...and lots of Americans learn the metric system for the same reason. Americans are actually rather "bilingual" with their units: we have gallons of milk and liters of soda, ounces of meat and milligrams of vitamins, 100-yard football fields and 100-m dashes.

Seeing Imperial units die out in the U.S. would be as sad as watching Welsh die out in Wales. (Knowing the sorts of people here, I imagine many of you wouldn't give a damn about either.)

Re:Metric Imperialism - Globalisation the goal?

[smenor]

Once one has both sets of tools, it ceases to matter what you're working on as you have the correct tool.

You say that as if having twice as many tools doesn't cost anything and doesn't take up twice as much space.

Also, how many bolts have been stripped because someone wasn't careful and tried to use an SAE wrench instead of a metric one? How much time has been wasted trying to figure out if you need SAE or metric?

there's really no advantage to either method

But there is a huge advantage to going with only one rather than both - and since everyone else in the world uses metric, why not use it too? And actually there is a pretty big advantage to metric - you don't have to remember that there are 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, and some other random number of yards in a mile. Pushing a decimal around is just so much easier.

I don't expect us to ever switch, but much more because we're obstinate than because of any sort of rational cost-benefit analysis.

Re:Metric Imperialism - Globalisation the goal?

[ADRA]

You're own example proves the cost.

1. You, the engineer needed to buy two tools to do the same job.
2. Somewhere in a factory far far away, someone needed to develop two molds, one for the metric set, one for the imperial set and all the other overhead involved with selling two different products.

I agree the most Americans wouldn't want to learn something new and would rather begrudge the rest of the world (as per the norm) by doing things your own way. Think of yourselves as the Sony of countries. You only inter operate when its in your best interest.

Re:Euro-homos

[cayenne8]

"When I lived in the US I learned to quickly convert Fahrenheit to Celcius in my head so I could understand the temperature. It was annoying but after a few weeks it was automatic."

I think that is the one that would bother me the most!! I know how to dress if it is 32F, or 40F, or 99F.

I'd be lost with whatever the equivalents in C are...(yes, I'm too lazy to look up a converter). But really...most people in the US seldom have a need for accuracy needed in science. For daily life...the mile, mph, mpg...temperature in F is all way too ingrained into the culture and just isn't going to change anytime soon. Most people in the US have very little if any contact with any else in the world besides possibly a chat room on the internet....so, no one here generally sees any reason to change to 'go along' with the rest of the world. They don't see or touch the rest of the world, so, it pretty much doesn't exist to them.

Re:Euro-homos

[Selivanow]

It is not even so much as that the rest of the world doesn't exist. It's more like out of sight, out of mind. The grand-parent is correct that most Americans will never have any contact with people from another country (Outside Canada or Mexico). The same thing is true that most Europeans will not have any contact with Americans. Honestly, with a giant body of water between the two it isn't exactly easy. Planes don't count. Most people don't make day trips by plane :) I can easily get to Canada with in 2 hours, less if it is a slow day at the border. I can't say the same about France or Germany. But now I'm rambling. So I'll stop.

Re:Metric Imperialism - Globalisation the goal?

[SageMusings]

most Americans wouldn't want to learn something new

I live in the United States and learned the metric system in elementary school in 1975. My two children learned the metric system in elementary school just a few years ago.

Americans know the metric system. We see the units used on almost all food packaging, too. I have lived in Japan for 9 years and never had a problem with measurements there, either. I also learned SI units for physics class.

The hardest part of the metric system to me is not converting measurements, it's the intuitive feel for a liter, gram, or kilometer. My biggest hang up is temperature. I know that degrees 72F is comfortable and know that a 24C degree room is comfortable, too. However, I will always think internally in degrees Fahrenheit till the day I die. It is what it is.

Please, do not insinuate, however, that Americans do not know the metric system. You can learn it in about 5 minutes. You come off in your post as a bit arrogant and mis-guided.

Re: School districts votes to require 'Cubits'.

[Dolda2000]

I find the greatest problem with the imperial units to rather be the interdependencies between them. With the metric system, those are standardized for all units. Just as you have kilogram and milligram, you have kilometer, millimeter, kilosecond, millisecond, and so on, and they are always apart by even powers of ten. You also have meters, square meters and cubic meters, with the special case of the liter being a cubic decimeter. In the imperial system (I don't even remember it all), you have 1 mile, being 1760 yards, each being 3 feet, each being 12 inch. I always see smaller things being measured in units like 1/3, 1/12 or 1/16 inch. Then there is 231 cubic inches = 1 gallon, each being 4 quarts, each being 2 pints, each being 16 fluid ounce.

Even if all the world standardized their feet on being a U.S. foot, that problem wouldn't disappear.

Re:Metric Imperialism - Globalisation the goal?

[jwdb]

I will always think internally in degrees Fahrenheit till the day I die. It is what it is.

I think you'll find that your mind is surprisingly flexible.

Personally, I started with the metric system but moved to the US when I was ten. When I left the US nine years later I was just like you - using SAE because it felt right. I've now been in Europe for four years and I've completely switched back to the metric system.

It's all a matter of what your surroundings are measured in.

Jw