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Why Does the US Cling To Imperial Measurements?
PhunkySchtuff writes "As one of only three countries on Earth that hasn't converted to a metric system of units and measurements, there is a huge amount of resistance within the US to change the status quo. Whilst the cost of switching would be huge, there is also a massive hidden cost in not switching when dealing with the rest of the world (except for Liberia & Burma, the only other two countries that don't use the metric system) With one of the largest organisations in the US, the military, using metric units extensively, why does the general public in the US still cling to their customary system of units?"
I think its alright to have a few different systems in the world. Sure, there is an attractiveness to consolidation. But what are we going to do when we encounter aliens? Demand that they switch to the metric system? I'm actually serious. I'm not saying it will happen tomorrow or even in the next decade or century, but eventually it will. There is a lot to be said for having a tolerance for the differences among cultures and retaining those differences.
It'd smack too much of you giving in to the French.
Seriously, it's really frustrating when watching American science documentaries and all of the units aren't SI units. Scientists should always, always use metric.
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
In 1988, Congress passed the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act, which designates "the metric system of measurement as the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce." Among many other things, the act requires federal agencies to use metric measurements in nearly all of their activities, although there are still exceptions allowing traditional units to be used in documents intended for consumers. The real purpose of the act was to improve the competitiveness of American industry in international markets by encouraging industries to design, produce, and sell products in metric units.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
Because we're a bunch of idiots. Next question?
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Americans like monosyllabic or abbreviated words wherever possible. Especially in commonly used words, like those involving measurements. We've got pound, inch, foot, yard, pint, quart, and gallon....gallon being one of the few multisyllabic words. Most metric metrics (lol...ya, I just did that) are multi syllable compound words, and most of them don't have any obvious way of being shortened. Americans just don't want to say "Kilometer" when they can say "mile. They don't want to say "centimeter" when they can say "inch".
The Metric System is elegantly simple and beautiful, in everything but the English pronunciation of said metrics. What a shame.
The interesting thing about this is that Liberia is comprised of US ex-pats; slaves who populated the country when "Back to Africa" was embraced by ex-slaves. It's really amazing to study this area of history. Even their flag is Red White and Blue. It's weird that they share the same addiction to imperial measurement also.
In a way. The US is a big country so it takes a while to change things. All the signs would need changing, all the measurements in laws, all the schools, and much of the culture. For a smaller country it's more practical to change those all over in a short period, but for a larger country like the US it would be very expensive and take a long time. Such a move wouldn't be politically popular (people don't like change).
Even the UK still hasn't converted over to kilometers yet, and it's much smaller.
I've often wondered this very same thing. I grew up having learned both systems but it wasn't until I joined the Army that I realized how much easier the metric system is to actually use, not just on paper. Fractions are quite possibly the dumbest incarnation of math we humans could have ever invented; I could understand if it actually made things easier, but it does not.
Perhaps there are jobs created or money to be made with continuing to use Imperial and metric at the same time e.g., tools created in both systems.
On the other hand, how can we Americans continue our ethnocentric ways if we were to join the rest of the world? (ok that was a troll, but come on...it holds some truth).
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Dunno about you guys, but whenever I have to actually design or build something, I use the metric system. I have foreign cookbooks where everything is metric, and my scales and measuring equipment all accommodate. Sure, sometimes i have to use imperial, such as when working on older cars, fixing someone else's handiwork, etc., but I also know a lot of common conversions off the top of my head. I've actually been called a "communist" once because of this. I consider it an accomplishment.
Besides, all the engineering, manufacturing, scientific and medical sectors in the U.S. have been using the metric system for decades. /dev/phaeton
do() || do_not();
Call them American units!
I mean, we don't use Imperial gallons here anyway
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.
Actually you are the one paying the tax for your mistakes.
When NASA lost the US$125 million Mars Climate Orbiter for example.
And here are some more examples of where the US is paying for not being consistent.
And when the mistakes include possible loss of life, it's quite a heavy tax you are paying.
ran out of fuel in mid-flight because of two mistakes in figuring the fuel supply
and
confusion between grains and grams is sometimes the reason for medical errors
Not to mention "Four dollar and ninety two cent thirty centimeter" doesn't make for a very memorable jingle.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
In a way. The US is a big country so it takes a while to change things. All the signs would need changing, all the measurements in laws, all the schools, and much of the culture
There was an abandoned project in the 80's (I think) where highway signs in parts of the US were using metric and imperial measurements on it, however as these signs have aged they're getting replaced with imperial only versions.
I also understand that in US schools they're taught metric measurements as well as imperial measurements (however I'm sure the focus is vastly in favour of imperial units)
The laws, that's a big issue, but one that can change gradually. If the speed limit is 100km/h or 60mph, it's (almost) the same, and if you're caught going 75mph or 125km/h, it's still the same amount over the limit...
Culture - now, there's one thing that's going to be harder - hence the posting of this question...
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Australia fully converted in a relatively short space of time in the early 70s. Different areas of life were changed at different times, but they were changed very quickly (e.g. a particular date was set for road signs to be taken down and replaced across the country, a different date for weights and measures in supermarkets, etc). The younger generations don't even understand imperial measurements now (it's not like the half-converted situation that the UK finds itself in).
Australia is almost exactly the same size as the lower 48 US States. So I don't think it's necessarily hard for big countries to do it. Having said that, there are some obviously differences between Australia and the US such as the smaller and generally more urban population, so it's not a perfect example. Still there's lessons there to be learnt, I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Australia
I was born and raised in a country that is firmly and decidedly "metric". I finished school and college knowing nothing but metric system. So, you could say that metric would be my "natural choice".
Then I moved to US. At first non-metric units were a PIA. Admittedly, conversions are not nearly as convenient - you can't just shuffle a decimal dot around.
After a while, though - it really started to "grow on me". The first shift occurred when I started driving a lot - both in US and in Europe. For reasons, that are purely subjective, I began to feel like a mile (statutory or nautical, your pick) is a more "natural" unit of distance. Kilometer always fell short. In a way mile represented what I feel a "decent distance" should feel like.
Then, as I took up a hobby (or a waste of money, depending on your take on it) that required significant amounts of engineering, machining and manual work - I started to feel the same way about other units. Inch is exactly what a "small but human scale" distance should be (it is unusually pretty close to what you'd get if you were to show a "very short distance" by making a semi-circle with your thumb and index fingers, like a slightly opened O), so did the foot, the ounce for "a small amount of weight" etc. I also began to appreciate division of inches into powers of two (rather than centimeters into powers of ten etc).
In time, conversions became a non-issue. In fact, it probably helps keep my "doing arithmetic in my head" skills less rusty.
I still occasionally use metrics as a way to do "thru conversions", in particular between volume and mass (because one deci-meter of water is one liter of water is approx 1 kg). I also use metrics where they are the only units - such as electricity, for example.
But at this point, I would not voluntarily go back to metric system for anything that's related to weights and dimensions.
YMMV. That said, perhaps there are other people who feel like me. If so - that's your answer as to why Imperial units are still here (and, hopefully, going to stay for a while)
Road signs are in miles, beer comes in pints (proper ones, too, none of this 473ml rubbish) but that's it, officially speaking; packaging and so forth is all in metric. Obviously there are plenty of people who still think in Imperial, and strangely much more so than most other countries I've visited (maybe just that I have more experience with older British people, maybe it was more ingrained; it's not something I've though a lot about), but in terms of official business the change has long since succeeded, and in terms of public perception it crawls further towards metric with every generation. For what it's worth, I'm from the UK and when you say 'gallon' my brain says 'about 4 litres'.
I was taught metrics in 1st grade, that was back in the 70s, and it's so easy a 7 year old can master it.
This imperial crap almost everyone else in the US uses is rather incomprehensible.
Your foot is divided by 12 inches, which are divided by 16ths, yet it's 3 foot to the yard, and god only knows how many yards in a mile. Here's a fun trick to do, ask some of your friends or relatives how many yards are in a mile. How many of them will actually give you an answer, much less the right one. Bet more than half can't, at least without someone else how many feet are in the mile. And let's not forget the long delay as they try to divide by 3. Not very impressive is it.
Now, ask some kid who knows metric how many meters are in a kilometer. How many centimeters are in a kilometer. Bet you that prepubescent child that know metric will give you an answer really fast, and be right every time. It's because metric is a concise system based on 10 that even an imbecile can understand it, and smart people make far fewer mistakes because it's a consistent system.
You want to screw over the country when dealing with the rest of the world, keep using imperial.
We've lost people and multi-million dollar machines because of imperial, is it really worth it?
Very simple reason: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
And while I'm a metric guy myself, and hate having to work with imperial units, I can't say it's exactly "broken".
As a side note, you could probably create a rough metric for measuring time based solely on the frequency of posts about why the US doesn't fully embrace the metric system. I swear these posts are like clockwork.
I agree, much easier to cut a board in half than into 0.5 (seriously).
In these parts we call 2x4's "studs". My wife goes out at night to get them. I haven't seen much in terms of progress, but with all the banging I hear when she gets back I figure she's building up some big surprise for me, so I don't bother her.
The US is a big country so it takes a while to change things.
We started teaching the metric system to kids in elementary school in the 1970s.
All the signs would need changing ...
I recall a lot of the signs were changed, displaying both imperial and metric for a while, then a decade or so later they went back to just imperial. Also if we had only changed signs on the normal replacement cycle we would probably have been done by now.
, all the measurements in laws ...
Trivial effort is required to convert, far less than what is expended interpreting the law. Also note that in many contexts, units on packaging, imperial and metric are still side by side.
, all the schools, ...
Done in the 1970s.
and much of the culture ...
If we had stayed on course it would be over by now.
:-)
The sig doesn't mention it but yes the calculator does metric.
Yep. Just to give more background for the young-uns, I was a very young school kid in the 70's. We were told to learn the metric system and get used to it, because before we were out of high school, the country was going to be converted over entirely to the metric system.
That proclamation from our teachers was after congress passed The Metric Conversion Act in 1975. They created the U.S. Metric Board to oversee the conversion.
1979 - The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms required wine producers/importers to switch to metric.
1980 - The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms required required distilled spirits producers/importers to switch to metric.
1982 - Reagan disbands the Metric Board, and fires everyone associated with it.
So we have Reagan to thank for our reliance on an outdated system of measurement. As well as the new trend for Republicans to deficit spend like mad, ballooning the National Debts as never before, and getting religious nut wings involved in politics like never before.
I also understand that in US schools they're taught metric measurements as well as imperial measurements (however I'm sure the focus is vastly in favour of imperial units)
Actually, all of my classes were in metric. They don't teach imperial in school. At least, not in Texas (anti Texas rants in 3, 2, 1.....)
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
My Chemistry teacher preferred Metric and I learned to live with them. However, I'm a poor judge of length and distance and often have to use a ruler on maps to get any sense of distance, and couldn't tell you the length of this computer screen without looking it up. Hell, I don't even know how many centimeters tall the average ten-year old is, something I would like to know due to Trauma Center using metric all over the place (charts mostly- I guess I understand since it's medical stuff)
Any comments made by the owner of this signature should be disregarded as irrelevant, uninformed, and idiotic.
How so? Seriously, I'm interested why Imperial is better for carpentry only.
A foot, 12 inches, is easily divided by 2, 3, 4 and 6. The first three seem quite practical. At least that's what I recall hearing once before.
I'm an architect, and I'll tell you that the building industry is so entrenched in imperial measurements I haven't used my metric scale in five years. Every single product is based on imperial dimensions, meaning design, coordination, and calculation require the same.
Some examples: joist spacing tables display span lengths for 16" and 24" on center spacings. These tables are everywhere and they've been around unchanged forever. All the plywood sub-flooring is in 48" x 96" sheets. Works great for either joist spacing and in either horizontal or vertical orientation. If you buy a house in the US, standard is an 8' ceiling, "up scale" is 9', exclusive is 10'. (Who would know the status of a 2600mm ceiling?!) Studs are already available and pre-cut to accomplish these heights. Drywall is sold in these lengths. Concrete and soil are measured in cubic yards, roofing by square, carpeting by yard, ceiling tiles in 24" squares, etc. The International Building Code (what most of us use) gives dimensions in Imperial dimensions, including sprinkler head spacing, floor loading requirements, floor-to-floor, allowable areas, etc. Think about it, every plumbing, gas, and sanitary drain system connecting your building to infrastructure is calculated in imperial from engineering tables more than fifty years old. Tape measures are all imperial as is surveying equipment. The entire commercial real estate market is in imperial, changing to metric would crush every agent and developer trying to calculate pro-forma for all real estate in the country. Lumber mills and woodworking equipment that has been around for years and that produce moldings, doors, boards, handrails, furniture, etc., are all imperial. Existing surveys, architectural drawings, engineering calculations, and every other kind of specification, calibration, documentation, regulation, etc. in the building industry is imperial, doing a simple renovation or addition (actually >50% of the building industry) would require the overhead of converting all existing information prior to proceeding.
I've worked on several metric buildings. It takes about two days to get into the swing of it. From an architect's view, scaling and plotting drawings is much simpler than imperial. Not having to deal with foot-inches is easier, too. (Although everybody seems to disagree about whether to use m, cm, or mm. We have native metric users that can't even agree on that.) But it doesn't take long before somebody starts discussing "hard" vs. "soft" metric and wondering if buying 900 mm doors will cost 50% more than 36" doors, if a wheelchair can still fit through it, and where they might come from in the local market if they can even be found. About a day later the whole endeavor goes down the tube when one party in the process gets nervous. We usually switch to "soft" metric for a few weeks (designing in imperial but also stating metric on the drawings) and then abandon the entire metric effort in favor of imperial. The only way a project will stay in true hard metric is if it is being built overseas.
We're going to have to go metric one system at a time. First was soda bottles. Then automobiles. Science is there, and a lot of SI units are becoming comfortable on food packaging. The building industry is going to have to do the same, I predict in places where highly manufactured components interface with imperial ones in a relatively unimportant way. (Think windows cut into a wall.) Commercially, roof membranes are specified in mm and many other components are manufactured in hard metric dimensions with proximal imperial values (like thicknesses of drywall and plywood). But things like bricks, lumber, and plumbing pipe may take a while.
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Now, of course, the US has trouble exporting to a world where nobody has Imperial-sized tools or fasteners.
Not to mention your weird "Letter" size which is inexplicably the default in all your word processing programs when all the rest of the world uses A4.
I don't think I've ever seen Letter paper in my life, but I just installed LibreOffice and whoops, Letter, and measurements in inches. Grrr.
Don't worry, we don't think the less of you all in the States for it. Well, that's not actually true, we think it's kinda cute and sweet that you have your precious little antique measurement systems - aww, how retro! - but we figure eventually you'll grow out of it and become a proper country.
Then we think about all the nuclear reactors and rockets you built using feet and inches and get night sweats.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
The real reason is that, subconsciously, US citizens woe the day they left the British empire. They have a deep, age-old yearning to go back into the fold, and thus cherish this last remnant of britishness.
Last I heard, they are also starting to have those quaint tea parties, too. I'm holding out for the day they trade pancackes for scones!.
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Manufacturing also. Most pcb etchers require and do business in imperial measurements. Many extrusions and dies are imperial. Just look at cyclists who get their fancy Italian bicycle parts and are all confused about if their 31.8mm handlebars will fit in their 31.7mm stem. Well... they are both the same size: 1.25 inches. Big money is tied up in manufacturing equipment and will dictate what industry uses. Common people are really irrelevant here.
Seriously?? A "Metric" board???
Look, all US measurements are already based on SI units. The so-called, "standard" units are defined as constant multipliers of the SI ones. We're already metric, we've just "customized" it a little...
But since our measurements are all just constant multipliers of SI units, why should we need a whole bureaucracy to implement it? Just make it the law that all new official business will be done using SI units, and have a period where road markers and so forth are posted with both.
The only real difficulty is with tooling: bolts, screws, and other parts designed for Standard units that are a close, but not quite, match up with preferred number metric counterparts, and no nationally funded "board of metrics" is going to solve that problem....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Weight is measured in kg, force in Newton. There is a difference between the two, you know.
Weight is a force and is measured in newtons. Mass is measured in kilograms. There is a difference between the two but clearly you did not know!
In the US, the spirit of rugged individualism is held up an an ideal to aspire to. In the US, the government imposing mandates saying "You WILL use THIS system." is likely to result in a backlash. More so than in many other places.
Look at the recent health care legislation. There are arguments pro and counter, but Americans hear that they won't have a choice and they freak the fuck out. So much so that they gave one house of Congress to the opposition party just to slow that kind of thing down.
Personally, I still don't *think* in metric. I am 6'1". I would have to do math to figure out exactly how many meters that is.
I have to mentally convert km to miles to get a mental picture of distances.
I don't expect the US to convert in my or my childrens' lifetimes.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
But I admit it doesn't matter whether you call it centimeter or inch or measure the distance by the eyebrow length of the great communicator Ronald Reagan.
Call it the freedom fighting anti-communist inch of the greatest empire on earth, if you wish. And make it twice as long as every other country's unit.
Doesn't really matter.
What matters, is the fucked up unit system within the imperial system.
Let's say you want to convert 1/8 inch rainfall to gallons per square yard? Yes, doable, sure. In the metric system however it's just counting zeros and shifting a decimal point.
A meter has 100 centimeter, so a square meter has a 100x100 square centimeter, or 10000. Easy, just count zeros. Liters in a cubic meter? Easy. Kilograms per square centimeter to tons per square meter? Easy, just counting zeros.
But square inch to square feet? Square miles? floz to gallon?
And if that isn't bad enough, add all the competing units used in the US. Air pressure is a different unit when the air is in the atmosphere or in the tire. For energy, there are different units depending on whether it is an air conditioner, a furnace, a car, what company I get the energy from, and whether the second Friday after Lincoln's birthday falls on a full moon.
The difference to the metric system is not, that inch and cm are different. The beauty of the metric system is that you have a consistent system. And that's why scientific calculations are usually done in metric and the result is then transfered back to imperial, so the US public won't get worried that the French took over, communists gained control of the class room, or that their politicians betrayed the greatest conceivable nation on earth.
Same reason I spend 15-20 minutes shaving every other day with a straight razor rather than use a 20 cent plastic blade. Because we can. What is this fervor for homogeneity in every aspect of our lives? Countries have differences. Maybe there is some hidden cost adding up to billions but the same argument could be made to those stubborn European countries refusing to switch to English as their national language... If nothing else think of it as adding little local flavor to your trip should you come to visit us in the states...
As well as the new trend for Republicans to deficit spend like mad, ballooning the National Debts as never before, and getting religious nut wings involved in politics like never before.
I call shenanigans here. EVERYONE deficit spends like drunken sailors. Bush doubled the debt in 8 years. Obama is on target to double it again in 4. If McCain had won, the debt would be going up as well.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Quiznos is way better, and their "small, regular, and large" sizes mean they don't have to change their menus!
I don't think subway even has a size between "not quite enough" and "really, that's too much."...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
That's because everything else was already sold in half / whole gallon prior to the time metrification was attempted in the 70's/80's. But Soda was sold in bottles and cans. So when the larger jugs of soda came about during the middle of metrification, the softdrink bottlers figured they might as well start out their new product size in liters instead of having to convert later on (which would involve re-tooling the bottling plants). Hence we have 2-liter (and in some cases 1-liter) soda.
The problem is that people think that, if we switch, they're going to have to do math every time they see a metric value to make into a value they can make sense of. But that's just not true. What you need to do is just create new reference points. When I see a Celsius temperature, I don't try to convert it to Fahrenheit. I simply remember that 0 is freezing, I need a jacket at 10, 20 is comfortable if it's calm and sunny, 30 is comfortable if it's shady, dry, and breezy, and so on. That's what we've all instinctively done with Fahrenheit, and it's all you really need to do to be comfortable with using a different unit system in your daily life.
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
that's funny, because in ours (Australia uses metric) our drug dealers sells in ounces and pounds.
I would think that working in metric would be much easier and less error prone especially in engineering and construction:
Off the top of your head which set is faster:
1/4" + 3/16"
24" + 6.5'
7/8" + 1/2" - 1/4"
Or
6.5mm + 4.5mm
60cm + 2m
2.2cm + 1.2cm - 63mm
Given that you can convert millimeters to centimeters to meters by just moving the comma or adding 0's I would recon it's much faster than calculating/remembering how many inches is in a foot, how many foot is in a mile or how many miles in a hogshead.
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http://www.edinformatics.com/investor_education/us_debt.htm
Where does it start skyrocketing? Reagan.
http://www.lafn.org/gvdc/Natl_Debt_Chart-2004.gif
Obama is spending to try stave off another Great Depression brought on by deregulation and shenanigans pulled by a previous administration that started 2 wars and tried to keep them off the books.
I, too, thought this was a nearly ironclad argument until someone pointed out that standard metric drywall and plywood are 1200mm x 2400 mm - just as easy to divide.
there have been horribly expense accidents because of that necessary conversion business, including lost spacecraft.
Yes there was. My favorite sign was on a local highway segment. It said "Metric Signs Next 100 Miles." I swear to God.
I was considering this comment rude before I read other comments about pros and cons and finally it is somewhat accurate.
Accuracy is often rude, at least to some.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
But that's just familiarity. If you grew up under a metric system, were taught metric in school and saw metric measurements in everyday objects (other than the 2 liter soda bottles...) then you'd be able to visualize 1 kilometer just as easily as you could visualize 1 mile today.
The issue here is that it will take a generation (or more) to make that transition, during which time all the big nobs will feel increasingly isolated as they're more quickly overtaken by these 'new math' thinkers. Inertia is comforting.
-- Always borrow money from a pessimist; they don't expect to be paid back.
Obama is spending to try stave off another Great Depression brought on by deregulation and shenanigans pulled by a previous administration that started 2 wars and tried to keep them off the books.
How does deregulation bring on a Great Depression? Wait, don't bother - I don't even accept your premise that far. As far as spending to prevent a depression....WTF?
Dark Reflection
Metric is easier. The big thing that put a big halt on the adoption was the gas crisis in the 1970's when gas creeped to $1.00 gallon. The difficulty was having to compare two standards against each other and the new standard was much more expensive for consumers. As gas pushed $1.00 per gallon. the display on many pumps could not display the higher prices. To prevent buying new pumps, some switched to Liters. Consumers soon found the cheap 35 cent / Liter gas was more expensive and later quit trying to compare prices as common knowledge was the metric gas was more expensive.
In products where we are not comparing metric and US, the metric standard has become the standard. Soda pop is only sold in metric sizes now. 12 and 16 oz are pretty much gone with 1 Liter 500 ml, 2 Liter etc sizes. Most bottled water is now in the 500 ml bottle. All hardware for mounting your flatscreen TV is all metric. Car engines are almost all metric. Serous, when was the last time you wanted to know how much your soda was in price per gallon? All comparison shopping is done is price per Liter for soft drinks except at the soda fountain where the cups are still 16, 32, 48, 64 oz.
The slow conversions is in entrenched measurements such as gasoline, kitchen recipes, temperature, etc where one is the standard and people still try to convert units. You tell them it is 24 degrees out and they want to know what that means in F. Having lived in another country I'm fine with metric as I was immersed in it and did not bother to convert. 21-24 is comfortable. 30 is really hot and 10 is time to grab a warmer coat.
If we started tearing down miles signs and mile markers and replacing them with Metric KM signs and changed the speed signs to 90, the country would soon adopt it. Most cars now can display either clicks or miles.
The truth shall set you free!
1/4" + 3/16"
24" + 6.5'
7/8" + 1/2" - 1/4"
If you know a little VERY simple math these are nearly instant.
4/16 + 3/16 = 7/16
2' + 6.5' = 8.5'
7/8 + 4/8 - 2/8 = 9/8
It took me about the same amount of time to do as the metric examples. If it takes someone any significant time to work out these examples then they should go back to school and re-learn basic math.
Sapere aude!
Conventional wisdom is that when your debt is as high as your GDP and you're budget deficit is still 20% of GDP that you have problems. There may be "bad things" happening in banks but frankly I'm a little more afraid of the bad things happening in government. $120,000 in debt for each taxpayer (rich and poor) is not something we should just ignore in the name of preserving fantasy spending land.
The "real world" includes every other person outside of the US. Most metric users have an understanding of feet and inches too, but as far as scientific stuff goes, trying to make imperial work is the old square peg/round hole situation.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
This post is an example of autoplagurism.
A good system of units needs:
1) Base units which are well defined and independently reconstructible (i.e. a suitably equipped lab can calibrate their equipment purely from the definition of the units.)
2) Logically constructed compound units (e.g. units of force are derived from the units of mass, time and distance.)
3) Logically constructed convenience units (e.g. kilometres for use for distances which would be an inconveniently large number of metres.)
4) To be widely used.
The initial choice of your base units is largely arbitrary - whether it was a from a not-very-accurate measure of a king's foot size or from a not-very-accurate measure of the Earth's circumference. Item (1) can be satisfied equally well (or, in the case of mass, badly) by the metric or imperial systems. The definition of the metre has long since changed from the size of the Earth to quantities measurable in a lab (as has the definition of the foot.)
The SI system (based on metric measures) beats the imperial system hands down on items 2 and 3, and because of this now has a large advantage also on item 4.
Item 2: In Imperial you might measure (heat) energy in BTU and mechanical energy in some mixture of foot-pounds-seconds, but then you need a conversion factor to compare the two. Such conversion factors are never needed in SI.
Item 3: Imperial also messes up the convenience units by having lots of weird conversion factors (e.g. an acre is (I think) a furlong by a chain. How many square feet is that? How many ounces in a ton?*) Metric uses convenience units constructed from base units via consistently named factors of 10 or 1000.
One could go a step further, and define your fundamental units in terms of fundamental physical constants (i.e. the Plank mass, Plank time and Plank distance, charge on an electron, etc.) In such a system of units, the speed of light is 1, the formula for the energy of a photon doesn't need a constant in it etc. In practice, we can't use such a system, because we can't measure (in particular) the universal gravitational constant G with sufficient accuracy. Every time we got a better measure of G, our entire system of units would need to be updated. (I.e. with current technology, this system can't satisfy requirement (1) above.)
* And how many different sorts of ounces and tons are there? It is quite a few.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Except you're incompatible with the rest of the world. Metric also gives you easy conversions between say, cubic metres and litres. Rather than cubic feet to gallons.
1 cubic meter = 1000 litres. 1 cubic foot = 7.4805 US gallons or 6.2288 Imperial gallons. I know what I'd much prefer to work in.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
The truth is that in the U.S. politicians are afraid of offending the majority of people, and a significant amount of them are just a bunch of redneck morons.
Making friends everywhere you go. Just making friends.
This passage from the Wikipedia seems relevant:
In his 1998 monograph Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, James C. Scott argued that central governments attempt to impose what he calls "legibility" on their subjects. Local folkways concerning measurements, like local customs concerning patronymics, tend to come under severe pressure from bureaucracies. Scott's thesis is that in order for schemes to improve the human condition to succeed, they must take into account local conditions, and that the high-modernist ideologies of the 20th century have prevented this. Scott cites the enforcement of the metric system as a specific example of this sort of failed and resented "improvement" imposed by centralizing and standardizing authority.
Metrication opposition
The geek tends to see himself as anarchic-libertarian. But technocratic and elitist would be closer to the truth.
The solution imposed from on high.
The vast majority of U.S. customary units have been defined in terms of the meter and the kilogram since the Mendenhall Order of 1893 (and, in practice, for many years before that date).
United States customary units
The question then becomes why it should anyone but the architect or mechanical engineer particularly care that room temperatures continue to be displayed in degrees Farenheit.
They're criminals.
They don't obey any other rules, so why would they obey rules of measurement?
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Yes, we old-timers all know how to add and subtract fractions, and convert feet to inches. And it's pretty easy if you're good at maths, and particularly if you're typing into a text box rather than doing it in your head.
It's not easier than metric though. With imperial you have to find the lowest common denominator AND add or subtract. With metric you just have to add/subtract. And metre/centimetre/millimetre conversion are obviously easier to do in the head than yard/feet/inches conversions.
And even if it's not too challenging for you, it's challenging for the average person. You know shop assistants today have trouble working out the change to give it the till doesn't help them. A few days ago one had a lot of difficulty giving me change from â3.27 out of a â5 note.
The stupid thing is that we here in the Netherlands measure TV and monitor sizes in inches. I know what to expect from a 32" TV, but when they advertise it as '81cm' I need a calculator...
Actually, in the UK, beverages are served in millilitres except for beer in pubs which will always be served in pints even if legally it has to be priced in units of 0.568261485 litre.
No, in the UK draft beer legally has to be sold (and priced) in multiples of 1/2 or 1/3 or a pint. Price it in any SI unit and it's a finable offence.
> This made them great when making exact measuring devices was extremely difficult.
No. As you pointed out yourself: A foot in Belgium is not the same distance as a foot in America
People were forced to create exact measuring devices for all units. Else, they will be cheated. There's a reason why every old church in Europe has circles etched on their front-side. People could hold bread to them to verify they were bought the correct amount. Etc pp.
> However, none of these units are remotely useful EXCEPT when measuring natural phenomena (which never happen in convenient SI units).
Celsius comes to mind.
> then do all the SI internally
Last I checked, computers used base 2, not SI units.
The anonymous post that is the parent of this comment is marked as a troll, but, honestly, it's just a statement of fact. The truth is that in the U.S. politicians are afraid of offending the majority of people, and a significant amount of them are just a bunch of redneck morons. We tried this in the 1970s, when the President was from Georgia and we thought we might be able to sell it to the rednecks, but they went apeshit. The only thing we got out of that was soda in two-liter bottles. (Glass in '76 ... plastic in the early 80s.) But you can't blame this problem on urban drug dealers. They sell their coke in grams and kilos.
Britain is quite resistant to metric too. It still maintains miles, pints, acres but most other things are now in metric. One can understand that pints (as in pints of beer) and acres have little significance to international trade. I would think that miles do though, especially for tourism. Ireland converted from miles to kilometers virtually overnight (all speed limits changed instantly and road signs were changed in under a week). Civilization didn't collapse as a consequence.
The funny part is watching so-called "metric martyrs" in Britain. It's usually market traders getting themselves fined or thrown in jail by selling goods in pounds & ounces on illegal scales. In Britain weights & measures are set by law (so traders can't sell people short with dodgy scales) and if you use illegal scales you can be prosecuted. FFS how stupid do you have to be to do this? It's not like the law requires customers to ask in Kgs, they can ask for goods in pounds and the trader weighs out the equivalent in grams.
The geek tends to see himself as anarchic-libertarian. But technocratic and elitist would be closer to the truth.
That's brilliant. Should be the footer on every slashdot page.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
The first one, by a long shot.
Now I have to qualify this.
I'm from Canada. I learned everything coming up through school in metric. Absolutely everything. Imperial is still easier. For programming computers etc, metric is easier. For engineering, Metric is easier.
I work in the contsruction industry and on a job site, Imperial blows metric completely away. Not because of understanding/lack thereof, but because of how everything is built.
A roof has a 12:3 pitch. Ok, thats fine, it goes for 12 feet and goes up 3. Now jackasses, do that in metric. It goes for 4 meters and goes up 1? Nope. It'll be something like 22.6 degree roof pitch. You have to be pretty damned good at math to figure it out from there. I can, most job site foremen can't, and not just the old ones, the younger ones too. Adding 3/4 + 1/16 is faster in your head than adding 2.7 + 17.8. I'm used to both, I use both on a regular basis. 3/4 + 1/16 is faster, and thats about as complicated as it gets for those measurements.
Everything with metric is full of decimal points and fifteen different units of measure, which self important engineer assholes seem to want to use all of at every turn(yes, this is pretty much ALL of them). Imperial? 2 and then fractions thereof. Engineers don't have a choice except to keep it simple as there are no other units of measure available.
Its getting so bad I'm seriously about to start a company where I do nothing but charge a fee to fix engineered plans into easy to read proper measurements for job site construction.
The actual cost to the Canadian people of switching to metric was estimated at 3-4 billion(up from what they called a looney bin maximum cost of 1 billion) back in 2000 or so. The rate of cost is only increasing and I can completely understand why Americans don't want to switch. Other than purely scientific or mathematical pursuits, metric is by far the inferior system. IMO Metric should be reserved for trained professionals in super high precision practices.
As an aside, for construction purposes. MM lines on a tape measure are actually hard to distinguish from each other because they're so small. Imperial has even smaller ones if you really need them but 1/16th is as far down as you get on most measuring tapes, and is 50% larger than a MM, making it easier to identify by eye. In my opinion, this and things like it are the prime cause of the US not switching. People actually tend to listen to their work force down there. Crazy thought, I know.
Americans like monosyllabic or abbreviated words wherever possible.
It's about quick clear communication, not just a fetish for monosyllables. Polishing things down to single syllables without obscuring them is the ideal. But a two- or three-syllable term that rolls from the tongue rather than twisting it, and that doesn't collide with something else, is quite acceptable.
Metric PREfixes a power of ten to the unit. This doesn't just lengthen the term. It also puts the designation of WHAT KIND of unit you mean at the end, rather than the beginning. Bad enough that you have to work through the count before you get to the unit in "United States customary" (NOT Imperial, by the way) units. With metric you also have to get past the power of ten before you find out what you're talking about. Notice that, when abbreviating metric units, they shorten differently: A kiloMETER is a "K" or "klick", for instance, while a kiloGRAM is a "key". The tendencies of language and the centrally-planned systematization are at odds.
Then there's the issue of scale: Imperial and US customary units are mainly human-sized. A pound, for instance, is something that you can hold in your hand, with just enough heft to give you the impression of weight, while a gram is an anonymous pebble that has to be scaled up by three orders of magnitude to be comparable (about 2.2 lb). Yet a litre is about a quart - a handy bottle size for serving four. (And a litre is a cubic DECImeter? Why isn't it a cubic METER? So much for consistency...)
Then there's the use of the decimal system when scaling. Convenient for doing arithmetic for scaling. But the cardinality of the human brain is about six, not ten. So the scaling also is not easily imagined. Meanwhile the common units jump in steps that take you from a human-scaled unit convenient for one purpose to one convenient for another: Inches and feet for measuring objects, miles (a thousand paces) for distance travelled. Quart, gallon, barrel - convenient sizes for trade in liquids. Peck and bushel for dry farm produce. And so on.
But those are just possible reasons for popular distaste for metric units. The core issue is freedom.
The metric system was IMPOSED by governments. The people of the US tend to resist such impositions. As was pointed out in other postings, Regan canned the Metric Board and let the market decide - which means let the people chose which they prefer. The people preferred to stick with the common units. So the common unit markings on food packaging grew big and the metric units grew small and hid inside parenthesis. The states stopped re-signing the roads and the car manufacturers marked the speedometers with MPH in big numbers and a little metric scale inside for reference. And so on.
Seems to me the FOSS ideology fits right in with the one that led to the people of the US sticking with common units.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Actually, we say "reckon" - as in "I reckon that's not the way you spell that word."
Learn about Photography Basics.
And yet the kilogram is a measure of mass, not of weight. Perhaps you should have told them your baby weighed 35N instead.
I worked for the military for 10 years and only stopped working for them about 5 months ago. They use non metric all the time so I'm not sure what this post means.
Aircraft altitude and speed are measured in ft and nothing else, unless there is some kind of international operation, etc etc..
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Fun, useless fact of the day: :-)
There's an old English unit called the Pottle that is two quarts.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pottle
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.