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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?"
...nobody here uses metric. Everything is in miles rather than kilometres such as all of our traffic signs for distance and speed and I don't know anyone who uses metres and centimetres for measurements - it's always feet and inches when buying anything in hardware stores for example.
I'm currently studying Physics in the UK but come from one of the most SI countries in the world, Luxembourg. When talking to people I discovered that even though the UK has officially gone metric most people still think in imperial units when it comes to body weight and height, liquid volumes, speeds and distances (long and short) and those who I asked said they found it hard to picture 170cm or 70kg, very common numbers which I find extremely natural, much preferring "feet/inches" and "stones".
I must admit however that the foot is a very appealing unit in that it can be easily measured using common body parts such as the hand-elbow distance or the foot.
I think the problem is that the parents who grew up with imperial units use them in day to day conversation, hence associating different benchmark sizes with specific words in their children's developing minds, making a natural transition to metric quite difficult, but certainly not impossible... i guess the situation will improve once britain follows ireland in getting the traffic system metricized.
Canada switched to the metric system decades ago. Being a British commonwealth for such a long time, of course most of us were well accustomed to Imperial units. I still remember as a kid, how my Mom was one of the holdouts for the Imperial system for a long time. She would tell me to get a quart or gallon of milk, and I would have to ask her how many liters that was.
The thing is that the metric system is officially used everywhere. Road signs, groceries, public schools, the works. The only basis that we have for even knowing the Imperial system is our parents. I've used the metric system my entire life. I know my height and weight in feet and lbs, but couldn't tell you what it is in metric units. But I can guess fairly accurately how much something weighs in kilograms, but I'm not so good with pounds. Likewise, I'm more comfortable with measuring things in meters, rather than feet.
A rather amusing story though. I am currently living in the US, trying to get by without using the old ways. I am not always successful. But I try. Anyways, I was on the phone with my Mom the other day, and she asked how warm it was here. I googled the answer, and got it in Fahrenheit (46F). I laughed, and said she would be right at home here, and gave her the answer in Fahrenheit without doing the conversion. I was rather amazed at her response. She told me that it's been so long since she's used the Imperial system that she's forgotten it. She honestly didn't remember what 46F was.
Anyways, my point is that it doesn't matter if the older people don't use the metric system. Teach it to the young, and switch the entire country to the metric system on all official items. It will all sort itself out in time.
I'm a young fellow from Australia, and I guess from my perspective growing up in a metric society perhaps has given me biased for the way we measure things. Our Television so saturated with American television has acustomed me to seeing your world in imperial measurements. There's just something about an American house built on inches compared to an Australian building built in centimetres - I guess it comes down to culture. At the end of the string though, we are slowly moving to a globalisation - the ability to communicate, travel and live throughout the world without headance means that more than ever we need to communicate and collaborate together in the most efficient way possible. I know this is a very idealistic view on the world, but surely we will all eventually have to start working together to reach the same goals - renewable power, elimination of poverty, global harmony. There is certainly room for both standards and I'm sure if America moved to metric, Impreial would be a common association in describing physical characteristics. Almost all people in Australia know their height in feet and inches, building materials are still sold in inches - whatever happens, I'm sure the old way will not be forgotten with the incredible data collection of todays society it surely will not be forgotten. Perhaps we should look at what would be best for the world instead of what works for our country. Heck, if that meant the world went Imperial, I'd be all for it, it is just the time that it takes for our Governments to gell together enough to figure out what is best - for all I know, it may be better to keep going the way we are, really we have made it this far without any major short commings. Everyone has their beliefs, and it's my view that everyone has the right to believe whatever it is they want to believe. As long as this is the case, there will always be a fight about who is right and who is wrong.
Well, as a maths student, I would prefer to ban degrees and keep radians. Radians are actually useful to work with.
I'll pick the box marked, "American Rocket Scientists".
SPACE.com -- NASA Finally Goes Metric (8 Jan 2007)
Maybe the conversion "isn't rocket science", and therein lies the problem?
The argument that imperial is better for daily use is repeated here over and over. However I have been using metric system all my life and it is intuitive for me that where I live there is at least 30C in hot summer, about 20C in spring and 0C to -15C in winter (except January 2007). I can easily estimate dimensions of things in cm by looking at them, their weight in kg by trying to pick them up etc. I know how 500ml of beer will affect me and what will happen after four shots of 100g vodka glasses (or 8 x 50g, both are common).
There is nothing special about imperial or metric system for daily use. You just have to be accustomed to it.
A unit between cm and m exists: 1dm = 10cm = 0.1m, but is rarely used (at least here).
Heh, where are the chains, nails, bottles and pottles? BTW, I prefer my beer measured in firkins - if only people could decide how much exactly a firkin is. That is the big problem with the old units - not the unit iself - the lack of standardization is the problem. An English foot, Dutch foot and American foot are all different - same with everything depending on those, but volumetrics are just as bad.
You could buy a firkin of beer in the country side and sell it in London for the same price, at a tidy profit. You could do the same with a gallon of gasoline bought in Canada and then resold a few yards to the south accross the American border...
In an old Dutch City like New York, the land titles were a huge mess, with Dutch, English and American measures.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I'm a Canadian living in the US. Temperatures are about the biggest thing that bothers me down here. Most groceries have the metric equivalents written in smaller letters, and portion sizes are usually the same as in Canada anyways. So it doesn't bother me very often, unless I am buying fountain pop, and someone tells me the drink sizes in ounces. Then I will just give them a blank look for a minute, and ask to see the cups. I also had difficulty when mailing a letter. I was quoted prices by the ounce. But the guy working there converted it to grams for me right off the top of his head (I was grateful).
But I have a fast way of converting Fahrenheit to Celsius, with a reasonably small margin of error for common values. 100F is more or less the same as 40C. Every degree in Celsius is about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. So if someone tells you that it's 80 degrees, you can guess that it's about 30C. It isn't exact, but it's within about 5 degrees, which is good enough for the most part. It at least tells you what to wear.