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

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: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: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: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?

[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: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.