Personally I can see a very good reason to go metric: it would perhaps illustrate our deisre to cooperate with the rest of the civilized world. Not that France, for instance, would finally say, “Oh good, the USA got on board, we’ll stop being so contrary now.” But, yes, we have a monster military and a monster economy even when it’s crumbling. (Lately I’ve come to think of the USA’s power to be very much like the Cave Troll in the Fellowship of the Ring film–not the BEST, necessarily, but certainly the BADDEST muthah in the caves (well, not counting the Balrog…but lets not get technical, the Balrag isn’t a native to the caves). We’re strong enough, and hard to hurt and it’s safer to be an ally than an enemy, but even the allies better keep an eye out cuz we’re all unpredictable & stuff…and a bit klutzy.
Metric would probably make our exports more compatible with the rest of the world, and by the same token we could more readily accept foreign manufactured stuff… I have some problem with, “When no one can argue with what you do economically/militarily then you have license to do what you want.” This alienates us further from our internationational buddies in a way that the oceans have ceased to do. And right now we need to hang out with our buddies because we are forgetting them in our Conquest to eradicate fear from the planet. It wasn’t just US Citizens that were greased in the towers, but our government, on our behalf, failed to recognize that on any significant level–what kind of message did THAT send? And we STILL despise metric (I’d rather drink a pint than a liter/litre any day, it doesn’t go flat as fast).
Then again, if we go metric, Boeing, Chrysler, Ford GMC, Mopar, etc would have to retool. You can’t work on a 'Vette with a metric wrench, it’d be…unAmerican.
Do not think that anybody wants you to accept the metric system. We don’t care!!
Seriously, even when I worked as visiting researcher in the US I never touched the Imperial system since science uses the metric system anyway. Did you ever ask yourselves why neither science nor the military use the Imperial system, even in the US?
Honestly, and a little sarcastically: I understand that you cling to your system, but from a european perspective it’s funny to watch people calculating in order to know how many feet are in 12 miles and 15 yards
And there is even an advantage for the rest of the world, if the US sticks with its system: If the engineers at Boeing need more time for the same calculations than the engineers at Airbus, then we don’t object for the time being
:rolleyes: I suppose the idea of actually supplying rulers to students offends you? Or if you do supply them, the fact that they are imperial should offend you, yet strangely doesn’t; or is it that the rulers handed out have no measures what so ever that pisses you off?
Does anyone remember the push in the US back in the 70’s to convert? I was a little kid at the time, but I can remember it was pretty much a miserable failure.
Personally I wish it had succeeded, by now I’d be able to think in meters instead of feet. At least we’d be compatible with everyone else.
When I went to my local Ace Hardware store last year to buy a tape measure, I was surprised to find that only one of the many, many many tape measures they carried was calibrated in both inches and centimeters. All of their other tape measures was calibrated in inches only. I asked the sales guy if they had any other centimeter tape measures, and he said nope, those things are becoming less and less common because everybody is abandoning the metric system. (Of course, by “everybody,” he probably only meant people doing construction work, who are the most common kinds of people that have use for tape measures.)
Sounds like our last attempt to “go metric” left such a bad taste in everybody’s mouths that we’re backsliding. sigh.
For one brief, shining moment several years ago, U.S. gas stations switched over to selling gasoline in cents per liter.
But it wasn’t out of a desire to go metric. It was because, for the first time in U.S. history, gasoline prices crossed the $1.00 per gallon mark. Suddenly, gas stations outfitted with pumps that only has 2 digits for gasoline price (and were thus limited by the mechanical restrictions of their equipment to charging 99 and 9/10 cents per “unit” of gasoline) found themselves in a dificult situation. The way out? Most of those gas pumps were manufactured for international sale. They had a switch that the gas station manager could set internally, which caused them to be calibrated in LITERS instead of U.S. liquid gallons. So instead of charging $1.05 and 9/10 cents per gallon, they charged 27 and 9/10 cents per liter.
Sadly, this wonderful liter-happy economy didn’t last. By the end of the year, all major gas stations had been outfitted with 3-digit gasoline pumps, and resumed selling gasoline in cents (or, now, dollar-and-cents) per gallon. sigh … so close, and yet so far.
I don’t want to completely highjack this thread, but there was a lot more to this than just someone not converting some units correctly. There were failures on both NASA’s and the contractor’s side. For example, the controllers knew the probe was off-course a full six days ahead of time but failed to follow procedures and did nothing. It was decided for political reasons that it would be best for all involved to make the contractor the scapegoat in the whole mess (so NASA would save face, and $$$, with congress). Plus, it was part of NASA’s “faster, better, cheaper” initiative, which only served to prove the adage “faster, better, cheaper: pick any two”.
I still can’t figure out the barnyard measurements we use. It’s all memorization with no logic or mathematical base. In high school chemistry we were only allowed to use metric. Christ! It was so easy and conversions can be done in one’s sleep! Where’s the petition, I’ll sign it in blood.
I would just like to say that as of this morning, I have now set my home’s electronic thermostat to display temperature in degrees Celsius, and have changed my bicycle’s speed/distance computer so that it reads in kilometers.
I’m 21, and as far as I remember, all of my math and science textbooks have been written using the metric system. We also worked with meter sticks and 30cm rulers whenever they were required in class. That didn’t change all the stuff around us though, so we also had to learn how to convert between the two different systems in class.
On my way home last night, I picked up a tape measure calibrated in both inches and centimeters (the hardware store didn’t have any tape measures calibrated in just centimeters), and one of those digital electronic bathroom scales that had a little switch on the bottom that I flipped so that it would display my weight in kilograms. I weighed in at 112.0 kg before I went to bed.
