January 20, 2005

• Yeah, I would love the US to adopt the metric system, because working in english engineering units is a pain in the ass.
• During the Carter administration, we were supposed to convert to metric, so road mileage sign showed kilometers as well as miles, but it didn't take. Have the Brits given up weight measurements in stones?
• During the Carter administration, we were supposed to convert to metric, so road mileage sign showed kilometers as well as miles, but it didn't take. Of course it didn't take. You had both metric *and* imperial. The only way to do it is cold turkey. Switch all the signs to kilometers only. That's how Canada did it. Same goes for your half-assed attempt at switching to a dollar coin. You left the bills in circulation so nobody was motivated to switch.
• Nah, won't happen. I vaguely remember them telling us as kids that we all had to learn the metric system because it would be replacing the old system. No one paid attention. You're right, if they just one day changed everything, maybe it would take, but I kinda doubt it will happen anytime soon. I'm sure the religious right would be more than happy if we measured in rods and stones.
• Hey, even Canda is not completely metric. Cooking is mostly in imperial, with some use of the gram and litre (but a litre is 4 cups in cooking and 400-600g is ~1lb). Most building work is done in feet and inches. Many people still give their weight oand heigth in pounds and feet/inches. BTW The US has been officially metric for many years. It's just that no one uses it. All of the 'standard' measures are defined based on metric measures. See for example http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html
• Rocket could not be more right (I said "right," not "to the right"). If you are going to switch, you switch. Easing people into changes of habit like that is not really an effective way to handle it.
• A 9 meter boat which displaces about 2 tons is 2 miles out of the harbour after filling up with 200 litres of fuel. She cruises at about 15 knots and it's about 60 miles across the strait. The weather radio says that 15 kilometers away a squall is developing. The engines burn 15 gallons an hour and the wind is blowing from the southeast at force 4. The waves are 2 meters high with a 4 foot southeastely swell and the charts show that around the harbour there are shoals of 2 fathoms or less. With a 7 foot draft and a spare 5 gallon tank, a radar with a 5 kilometer range, a cargo weighing 40 stone and a 3 meter mast, is there any hope of a successful voyage?
• As a monkey of science, I have integrated the metric system haphazardly. I have a good sense of celsius when it comes to certain temps, but ask me about the weather and I can only think in terms of Farenheit. Some goes for other units of meaure. Somehow the context matters. Go figure.
• Same goes for other units of measure. /correction
• I can work with metric units quite easily, obviously, but I can't estimate in them. However, given the choice, I'd switch over in a heartbeat. Why? My girlfriend and I were laying tiles the other day, and we had to measure the edge tiles. We really didn't have much by way of leeway, so precision counted. Unfortunately, our T-Square was in Inches, so we didn't actually have that much precision. My tape measure had some metric, and I found that we were able to do a much better job than with the inches. But why not use more precise inch measurements? Well, 2 1/16 - 1/4 = how much? 1 13/16th, I think, but sheesh, that took forever to calculate. And that was an easy one. It's just a pain working in powers of two and fractions, really it is, especially once you get lower than 1/8".
• "Unfortunately, the metric system never really caught on in the US, unless you count the rise in popularity of the 9mm bullet." -- Dave Barry
• Metric System Thriving In Nation's Inner Cities
• I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Does the English system not work? I mean, can we not, you know, measure things with it? Assuming the answer is yes — and I'm not aware of any reason why it wouldn't be — then everything else is just preference. Sure, it's easier to do decimal arithmetic than work with fractions, for most folks. But the metric system has its own share of shortcomings. If you don't notice them, it's because you've never tried to measure a third of a liter of something.
• Why do you need to measure a third of a liter of something?
• I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Does the English system not work? I mean, can we not, you know, measure things with it? Assuming the answer is yes — and I'm not aware of any reason why it wouldn't be — then everything else is just preference. Yeah, but if the US converted to the metric system, then stuff like the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft crashing into Mars due to using two different system of units would have never happend.
• The same argument could be advanced in support of any system of measurement. "If only we all standardized on the teaspoon-cubit-fortnight system …" and so on. Personally I think the only tangible benefit the metric system has is that computers can deal with it more easily. Of course, if that were the goal we all would have settled on a base-16 system a long time ago.
• Metric is the only system I ever learned in school - the thinking was that the US would convert any minute now. But the building trades are still using the old system, for what they say are good reasons. [Dang - there was a fine and concise article about the trades and measurement that I just can't find right now. Something about plumb and proud being easier to find within an imprecise measuring system.]
• I think metric is sneaking in here and there. We buy soft drinks (and liquor) in liters, and most prepared products (processed food, shampoo, etc.) give the volume of "stuff" included in metric (some also include English measurements). In some parts of Houston, you can still find speed limit signs in kilometers. Most of them have lots of bullet holes, though. Near where I live in OH, there's also an odd sign that gives the distance to the town where I live and to Dayton (about 150 mi away) in kilometers. Odd.
• Of course, what Americans call the English system really isn't - the system haphazardly in use in England and the rest of the UK is known as the Imperial system. The two systems are the same for the most part, except for liquid measurements, where they differ. A UK pint is 568 ml, with the rarely-used quart being double that at 1140 ml (to 3 significant figures). The US quart is significantly less at only 946 ml. And then there's the US dry quart, which has no UK equivalent to the best of my knowledge. Metric measurements are in fairly widespread use in the UK, due mainly to their exclusive use in the education system. Temperatures are almost always given in degrees Celsius; metres (yes, we do spell it that way) are used for length, and litres are common for liquid measurement. In spite of this, road distances are marked in miles, and the speed limit is decreed in miles per hour. Beer must by law be sold by the pint (or half) - unless it's bottled, in which case it must be sold in metric volumes. No one has a hint of a clue how much an are or hectare is - acres are much more common. You'd probably ask for a pound (note that the abbreviation is lb. and not #) of fruit from a market trader, but he'd by law have to say that he was selling you the equivalent weight in grammes - 454 g or similar. And I don't think that anyone has ever described the length of their John Thomas in centimetres...
• i live in the UK and use both - depends on what i'm measuring / describing. Traveling in miles, measuring drawings etc usually in cm. I'm just gifted, I guess...
• BTW The US has been officially metric for many years. It's just that no one uses it. All American auto makers use Metric standard fasteners, and have been doing so for years. Many other industries are also firmly in the Metric camp. I believe the ball-bearing industry went Metric around WWII.
• One can only hope.
• Since I am moving to a country that uses the metric system, I have been trying to change my thinking. For the most part, I can do it with only a little effort. But when it comes to temperature, I fail miserably. After six months, I still cannot estimate accurately the temperature in celsius.
• Find it far easier to think in Fahrenheit readings when it comes to taking a person's or an animal's temperature. Haven't used metric in this context often enough -- if ever -- to a good grasp of what a normal metric temperature or fever might be, in fact. Otherwise I'm OK with metric.
• As an American I will switch my system of measuring just as soon as the rest of the English speaking world switches to our system of spelling!!!
• I agree that, in most every day situations, metric/imperial is purely a matter of prefference. Where the metric system is intrinsically better, however, is in situations where you need to convert between units. Ok, so what's 3.75 pounds in ounces. The answer is 60, but you either need to memorise each measurement or be very good at your 16 times table. What's 3.75 kilograms in grams? 3750. Easy. Didn't even need to think about it. The usual argument used against metric is the 'fractions are difficult' one. Yes, in metric it -is- difficult to work out a third of a letre. This, however, misses the point. When you use metric, you tend not to use units like 'a third of a letre'. Put it this way: when was the last time you saw something priced at three and one sixteenth dollars? When you have a decimal measuring system, you measure things in decimal. Maybe that's a better way of explaining it: with the metric system, all measurement calculations become as easy as calculations involving money. On a slightly different note, a friend of mine is an astronautical engineer, trained in the USA. Whenever he's working, he constantly converts between metric and imperial units in his head. It's truely frightening to watch.
• Eh, it's all the same to me. But in cooking, why are liquid measures different from dry measures? This angers me.
• Yeah, but if the US converted to the metric system, then stuff like the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft crashing into Mars due to using two different system of units would have never happend The same would be true if the rest of the world adopted the American system. And the mistake could just as easily have happened in metric if one company were using CGS for its software and the other assumed it was using MKS/SI measures, except it would have fucked up sooner. Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain
• If you've ever had any contact with engineering or science the advantages to the metric system are so obvious as to not even be a consideration. Why anyone would want to try to do engineering drawings in inches and feet, spec screws and wire by gauge, shims by the thou, is completely bewyond me. The major holdouts are the building trades and cooking, which is the major reason Canadians knwo anything about the imperial or US systems (not the same! Especially for cooking!), but even there, metric makes a lot of sense. Aside from the fact that builders have their own set of measurements for everything (12 penny nails? 16 gauge wire? At least 5 pipe standards?) going from 2x4s to 5x10s wouldn't be a huge change. Rather than cubic yards, we'd order cubic metres of soil. In cooking it makes even more sense: Imagine you have a recipe for bread wich calls for 3 tablespoons of leavening agent, yeast of baking soda or whatever. How do you cut the recipe in half, to go, for example in a smaller bread machine? Right now, I convert to metric (1T=30mL) , scale and convert back.
• Yes, it's the conversions that make the metric system easier. How many square feet in an acre? How many teaspoons in a gallon? In metric the answers are almost always powers of ten. And the fact that a litre of water weighs 1 kilogram makes weight-to-volume conversion easy, too. You get used to celsius temperatures, too: 0: You need a heavy coat 10: You need a jacket 20: Comfortable spring day (also room temperature) 30: Moderately hot summer day 40: Too hot Everything in between, you just interpolate.
• Where the metric system is intrinsically better, however, is in situations where you need to convert between units But except in cooking, you very rarely need to convert units, and in cooking, eyeballing it is good enough. There's just no reason to convert 3.15 miles to however many feet or so. The good reason to fully convert to metric is just that everyone else uses it and Standards Are Good.
• this is so retarded. I still don't get why we don't get on with the damn program. It only makes sense...
• The good reason to fully convert to metric is just that everyone else uses it and Standards Are Good. The pain-in-the-ass factor far outweighs. Why should I care how people in Mongolia measure the distance to the corner liquor store? Or vice versa? Yes, there are circumstances where it's necessary for everybody involved in a particular task to use the same units. I am not currently involved in any of them. So why should I change my system of measurement to one which is no better than the one I have?
• It won't. People would complain far too much. It's the wrath-of-little-old-ladies factor, like the reason Rex Whatshisname, MD still runs on the comics page. How dare they be asked to change something that they've clung to for no reason and adopt something just as easy and more useful in many situations! They've always had it that way! You know, though, as brought up by meredithea, people here have adapted to liter and 2-liter soda bottles without even noticing it. Once the original round of bitching was done, I suspect they'd survive. But woe betide anyone who invokes that first mighty wave of bitching. I learned both systems in school and can estimate lengths and mass in metric, though not temperature, exactly. If it became common, I would easily. I think people underestimate their ability to, y'know, learn things.
• Ok, this is going to sound hyper-nerdy, but here is an example of when I have recently had to quickly convert meters in to kilometers in my head. I was on a plane that had one of those readouts for the passengers that tells you altitude, speed, distance to destination, etc. We were on final approach and gliding down to the airport. Now the imperial measurement readout was entirely uninteresting, because it gave distance to destination in miles and altitude in feet. The metric readout, however, gave those values in kilometers and meters respectively. That made the metric readout very intersting, because I could instantly read the ratio between how high we were and how far we had to travel. Without any special effort on my part, I was able to picture the possition of the plane in space and know where we were going to move in the vertical dimension. I thought it was cool. Ok, so maybe that kind of example doesn't happen every day, and maybe most people wouldn't care about something like that. But that's not really the point. The point is that, because of the simplicty of unit conversion, ratios between measurements in different units become just as intuative as ratios between measurements in the same unit. I agree with Jeff Harrell that it's a pain in the ass switching over. If I had to learn the imperial (or US or whatever) system it would just boggle my mind. What most countries have done is made a generational switch. Kids grow up with metric and, eventually, you get an entire generation who think in metric units. People my age in my country can generally tell you what an inch or a foot is, but they actually -do- things in metric. Life is genuinely easier for it.
• This kind of reminds me of when, as a kid, I came across a book of old British political cartoons from around the time the decimalised the pound. Basically, the jokes were all about people adjusting to, and complaining about, the new 'confusing' and 'complicated' money.
• And why aren't 2x4's 2inches by 4 inches? Try and renovate an older house and find that they've shaved down lumber...and this applies to moldings too...Yet a 4 X 4 rough fence post is 4 inches by 4 inches.
• If cubits were good enough for God and Noah, then they're good enough for me.
• Originally, a 2x4 was the size of the raw plank as sawn right from the log (minus a weensy bit to account for the width of the saw blade). After drying, it would shrink, and after planing to make it smooth enough to handle, it would be a smidge smaller yet. So different 2x4's would be different sizes when you went to use them. The modern standard specifies a size (1 1/2 by 3 1/2) for the finished product instead. I'd guess they still call it a 2x4 because it's functionally the same board.
• 0: You need a heavy coat 10: You need a jacket 20: Comfortable spring day (also room temperature) 30: Moderately hot summer day 40: Too hot Everything in between, you just interpolate. Ooooh! This is helpful, rocket88!
• I could switch over to metric cold turkey if I had to, but I'm so used to eyeballing things and coming to a fairly accurate measure of size or volume. I just wonder why there was such a push for the metric system when I was in grade school, but by high school the impetus had all but disappeared. Then that gets me wondering: could someone actually have a vested interest in how the US measures things? I believe I would weigh less in kilos than pounds. Who could argue with that?
• I'm still in high school, and we only use the metric system in our chemistry class. At my elementary school we also only learned the metric system. Another useful aspect of the metric system is that water at room temperature has an easy-to-remember pressure of one gram per milliliter... easy. awkward silence
• The same would be true if the rest of the world adopted the American system. Why the hell would the rest of the world adopt the American system?
• I was on a plane that had one of those readouts for the passengers that tells you altitude, speed, distance to destination, etc. Speaking of which, I think it's probably worth pointing out that doing celestial navigation in kilometers is basically impossible. We use nautical miles, being defined as one arc-minute of the great circle, specifically because it's possible to use basic geometry and a watch to locate your position on the surface of the earth with a pretty darned good degree of precision. Another useful aspect of the metric system is that water at room temperature has an easy-to-remember pressure of one gram per milliliter... easy. Oh, thank God for that.
• Conveniently enough, the nautical mile is the metric standard unit for distance in navigation. And yes, it's very, very useful. Imagine, though, if -every- unit of measurement system fitted that conviently to its task! That's the beauty of a measuring system that was invented to be convenient for modern people rather than evolving haphazardly from what farmers neaded in the pre-industrial past.
• Oh, thank God for that. Yes, it means a litre of water weighs a kilogram.
• I think metric is better.
• If I ever had the wonderful luck to one day venture into space, I will be praying with every bone in my body that the engineers who made the tin can that is the only thing keeping me from the cold black vaccuum used metric.
• Still hear of people reckoning their weight in stone, and horses' heights are traditionally given in hands. Dry measure quarts of oats still used to feed livestock in North America. Pharmacists still occaisionally have to wrestle with drams, grains, minims, etc. Race tracks for thoroughbreds still usr furlongs. Depths at sea sometimes given in fathoms, speeds of vessels in knots. Do surveyors still use chains or rods?
• Why the hell would the rest of the world adopt the American system? They wouldn't. It would be dumb for them to do so. But the whole Mars fiasco happened because there were two different measurement schemes that got mixed, not because of anything inherent to the American system. As I noted, the same thing could have happened if different working groups were just using different flavors of metric (cgs vs SI), but it would have been more obvious. If everyone used the same system -- whether it was cgs metric, SI, the traditional American system, cubits, or a small furry measurement system from Alpha Centauri, that wouldn't have happened. Which is one reason why Standards Are Good.
• it means a litre of water weighs a kilogram And a pint's a pound the world around. (In other words, 16 ounces of water by volume weighs one pound. Just as easy, and it rhymes. Top that.) Do surveyors still use chains or rods? Yes, definitely. That's why we measure land area in acres. One acre is ten square chains. (A chain, for those of you with the base-ten fixation, is 4 rods, and rod is 5-1/2 yards.) Why is an acre ten square chains? Because the term was originally used to describe an area ten chains long and one chain wide. Ten chains is a furlong, and a furlong is the distance that a farmer can drive a team of oxen without resting them. It is, in other words, the longest furrow that can be practically created using an ox-driven plow. Which is why plowed fields are one furlong — or ten chains — long. See? You've got to love a system of measurement that's steeped in tradition. The English system has character. It's a connection to the traditions of the recent past. The metric system is based on the distance light travels in an amount of time that looks like one divided by the international telephone number for Qantas reservations. Bleah. No heart. No soul. Which is one reason why Standards Are Good. Oh, that's so completely wrong. Standards are not inherently good. It's wrong to assert that they are. There are circumstances in which it's necessary to convert from one system of units to another. That's obvious to everybody. However, outside those circumstances, it doesn't matter one tinker's dam whether I describe volume in terms of pints or bushels or cubic micrometers. This "my way is better than your way, and you'd better change because Standards Are Good" stuff is for the birds. I happen to like using pints and pounds and feet, and the fact that you — a person I've never met and almost certainly never will — don't like them persuades me not one bit. I'm sorry if you suffer from practical innumeracy and find it frustrating to do any arithmetical operation more complex than shifting a decimal point around. I empathize, I really do. But I'm not going to adopt an entirely arbitrary system of measurement just because you wag your finger at me and assert, as if speaking ex cathedra, that Standards Are Good.
• Of course, you never know when the person you are talking to has a learning disability, and is not actually capable of doing the complex arithmetical operations necessary to deal with fractions. Trust me, I've cooked with Dreadnought - you do not want him trying to divide thirds if you plan on eating that day. (Though he makes lovely pizza dough with a good metric recipe and an accurate electronic scale.) One standard is good, and since the rest of the world has decided metric is more convenient (because it is), it's just being unnecessarily stubborn to want to stay with imperial. Or perhaps just chauvinist - god forbid the U.S. goes along with someone else's game for once. If the world were a schoolyard, the U.S. would be that pushy rich girl who insists on playing house her way all the time. As well, people who push against the U.S. going metric are just making more work for all of their students in science - I learned metric in grade 3, my roommate had to learn imperial, then relearn all her measurements in highschool. This is practical, how? Or maybe the U.S. doesn't like science. This might explain why most of the phycisists at the American university I attend are not American. Wait, this might be a good thing .... The U.S. should definitely stick with imperial - all this metric stuff is just bull crap. You just leave all that hard thinking stuff to the rest of the world.
• bees: surveyor still use the chain, but AFAIK only because of the 3-chains rule for rivers. Standards are awfully useful, esp. if you're an international operation, like car companies. House builders can afford to keep the system they use, because it's by definition a local market. Anyway, most Amercicans use some parts of metric: Amperes, volts, Watts, anyone? Cars still have horsepower, but their engines are rated in litres. Around here (Quebec, Canada), we have the strange phenomenon that outside temperature is in Celcius (-35 tonight), but pool water is in Farenheight. And although I was born after Canada converted to metric, I'm still 5'6" and 125 lbs.
• Amercicans, right.
• And a pint's a pound the world around. (In other words, 16 ounces of water by volume weighs one pound. Just as easy, and it rhymes. Top that.) Er, does it work here in the UK where a pint is different? Anyway, Metrification is only good if it's actually carried out properly. I'm 24 so I think in metric (I haven't a clue about Farenheit, and I only understand an ounce as roughly 25g) but you frequently see things on the shelf as containing some random number of millilitres which stumps you until you realise it's just a pint. Our law's really strange on metrics- A pint is only still allowed to be sold at the pub or in a milkbottle that's delivered to the door- one from a shop is in litres...
• The metric system is based on the distance light travels in an amount of time that looks like one divided by the international telephone number for Qantas reservations. Actually, the metre was originally defined as one ten-millionth of the length of the earth's meridian along a quadrant (one-fourth the polar circumference of the earth).
• Strictly speaking, it is not correct to say a litre of water weighs 1 kilogram. Weight is the force due to gravitational attraction, and the SI unit of force is the Newton. It is more correct to say that the mass of a litre of water is 1 kilogram. /pedant
• One standard is good Not intrinsically, no. There are contexts in which people have to work together, and in those contexts it's good for those people to agree to use one set of units. But there is absolutely no intrinsic value to making everybody, everywhere do it the same way. Unless you're a control freak, I mean. In that case, rock on. Or maybe the U.S. doesn't like science. Oh, yes. By all means. Let's turn it into an anti-American rant. I haven't seen one of those on this site for upwards of 15 minutes now. Er, does it work here in the UK where a pint is different? Dunno. They can make their own rhymes. ;-) Actually, the metre was originally defined as … But it's not any more. Now it's defined by something even more precise and even more obscure. My preference is for the English system. I'm not going to argue that the English system is better or that everybody should adopt it, because all systems of measurement that are useful and complete are equivalent, as far as I'm concerned. But I prefer the English system because the units of measure are useful. A gallon is the amount of water you need to carry per person on a two-day camping trip. A tablespoon is the amount of salt necessary to make one gallon of water taste like sea water, and coincidentally is the amount of salt that you can comfortably hold in your hand. A cup of rice or oatmeal makes enough for two, and a pound of meat is enough for four. And a ten-gallon hat makes you look like a cowboy. A 37.9-liter hat just makes you look like a pansy.
• "My preference is for the English system. I'm not going to argue that the English system is better or that everybody should adopt it, because all systems of measurement that are useful and complete are equivalent, as far as I'm concerned.... posted by Jeff Harrell at 05:44PM UTC on January 21 Just stumbled by accident on this site and find it quite interesting. Being an American site, I was astonished to find so many pro metric posts. What a pity it fizzled out. Maybe it can be resurrected? Here are my 2 pennies worth of observation on Jeff Harrell’s post. Preferences are fine as long as they are only preferences. Once you start to justify your preferences you should be able to back them with solid and convincing evidence. Where I do differ is when you state "that all systems of measurement that are useful and complete are equivalent, as far as I'm concerned"....... -------------------------------------------------- US customary is, if I am correct, neither complete nor a system. It is an amalgam of body bit lengths and trade measurements that have no relation to each other. It is cumbersome to use in almost everything slightly more complicated than weighing potatoes, hopeless in science and even more so in medicine. This made scientists and Drs. switch to the metric system. That and other factors force US children to learn 2 measurement languages in a world that speaks practically only one. Does anyone find that fair? No other nation burdens children with that unnecessary and time-consuming task. As to convenience of unit measure, every metric person will tell you the same about metric units. It is as simple as this. Everything you are used to makes sense compared to something you cannot relate to.
• Being an American site Drongo -- it isn't.
• Wolof: I'm sure Drongo thought it was an American site because we Americans are so LOUD!
• we Americans are so LOUD! I can take it, all Australians are descended from criminals. Deaf albino criminals, which is why we all have pink eyes.
• And speech impediments, which is why everything has too many 'e's. Ah, poking fun at Aussies, what a way to spend Friday night.
• Kiwis are tart and furry fruits. 'Tis why I adore them so.
• Great, crappy nationalist humour! I was very surprised to be stopped at Australian customs and asked if I had a criminal record... 'I didn't know you still needed one', I replied.
• The Canadians feel left out ...like always.
• I see you've played "knifey-spoony" before.
• With these answers, I am almost as left out, as Canadians. Loud Americans, surely not the thinking ones.
• That deafening response to metrication shows how little people really care what measurements they use. It is only a vociferous and probably very patrioc minority, that deters frightened politicians from implementing change to modern measurements. What a shame! In thelong run it would make school children's and everybody else's life so much easier.