i bet this has been addressed in the past but i want to put it out just so i can feel better. just had another run in with a co-worker in the company kitchen and ended up trying to explain to her that life would be better if we were to adopt the metric system. she had no better argument than “i just don’t get it”.
i used to work on an oil rig in international waters. this rig had about 25% of its population from countries other than the US. the metric system was used fluently by all (people would have a hoot watching sunday “american” football")
question: so, what is keeping the metric system down? and why?
(i’ve heard that the stonecutters have somthing to do with it)
It is very painful to convert. Although the metric system is much simpler and easier than what the US uses now, it is very hard to convert from what we have now to metric.
I think the metric system is eventual. People my age, who went to college in the '90’s or later, are almost exclusively taught metrics. People at work talk to me about pounds and I reply “what are these pounds of which you speak?” As we grow older and take over the world…err…replace the dinosaurs in charge…umm…I mean…come into positions of leadership, we will bring the metric system with us.
What is bringing it down? The dinosaurs in charge that weigh things in pounds
Why? they don’t know the freedom and liberation of the metric system not having the privelege of access to the superior educational institutions of our time.
It would be extremely expensive to convert. Every sign, every measurement would have to be changed. One of my friends (Noone Special) had a good idea, although I’d never tell him…to make every new sign in metric, and not replace the old ones. But I hate metric. grumble grumble
i understand the resitance to change (fear what you don’t understand) but our science tries to be metric. it just seems odd that we are the world hold-out.
we certainly have more important things to deal with but i feel like a twit trying to explain oz, cup, pint, quart, gallon to anyone not familiar with the american system.
maybe the US will become so powerful that all others in the world will want to emmulate us and do away with their silly base 10 system in favor of our “thingy fur measurin’ stuff”
Britain is getting there without too much hassle, fuel is supplied in litres, goods are sold in kgs, etc., the only things that are imperial are road signs and people still tend to measure themselves in stone and feet/inches but I know lots of people who measure themselves in metric.
Although I embrace the metric system, weight is typically (and erroneously) expressed in kilograms. Wrong! Weight is a force and force should be expressed in Newtons.
The Kilogram is a unit of mass.
Oddly enough, pounds are correctly used in the “old system”; they are units of force.
Even when you go into metric Canada, you see feet and pounds and quarts all over the place. Hell, at a Japanese company (metric) in Ontario (metric) that I used to do business with, all of the measurements were English. Centigrade and kilometers seems to have taken hold, though.
Hell, even here in Mexico, everyone has a vague concept of while a “milla” (mile) is, and purchase their locally produced and bottled milk in gallons (“galones”).
I used the metric system all the time. I’m fluent in both and can use them equally well. About the only thing I hold out on its “miles per gallon” instead of “litres per 100 km” and measurements for recipes. Oh, and acreage. Hectares just don’t do it for me.
Back to Mexico, they use centigrade for temperatures, but most of the recipes are teaspoons, tablespoons, and cups! You get into metric measurements for weights, though.
Okay, as to why we don’t use them in the United States? Well, there’s not really any compelling reason to. Yeah, for some people who want to use English recipes it’d be nice if everything were metric in the USA, but for the most part, why change what works? Don’t come back saying “metric’s easier” or “the English system is hard.” It doesn’t matter. We get by with it as it is, and there’s nothing compelling enough to make people want to change. The most basic reason is there’s no need to. Oh, wait – commercial use, you say? We do that already when we need to. Why should you weigh yourself in kilos at home just so I can use an M6 nut at work?
The US alread uses the metric system to a considerable (and increasing) extent. Most (all?) new automobiles use metric fasteners and for a shop not to have (and use daily) metric tools would be almost unthinkable. Hardware stores will reliably stock metric tools and fasteners.
In aviation weather broadcasts, temperatures are often given in degrees C.
True, but the rest of the world has managed to do it somewhere along the way. It’s just ingrained conservatism that keeps the US imperial. Go on, take the plunge. You know you want to.
It’s a right pain in the arse for us European electronic engineers, as we usually have to lay out our printed circuit board designs on grids measured in thousandths of an inch (thou British English, mil US English) because Americans insist on specifying chip packages in FRIGGING INCHES! All the sensible metric pitches never quite line up.
IIRC, metric/imperial mixups have been responsible for more than one NASA clusterfuck. Wasn’t that also the reason for the slight chamfer on the Apollo rockets near the Command Module? A ‘fudge factor’ section to align two separately built rocket sections that should have been the same diameter, but weren’t?
I was among the last British generation to be taught in both metric and imperial. I remember thinking how ridiculous it was that someone should decide that an inch was two and a half centimetres long! It’s now illegal in the UK so sell foodstuffs in pounds and ounces, it must be metric. But road signs are still in miles, speed limits are in MPH, and junction markers are spaced at 100 yard intervals, not 100 metres. So we’ve still to catch up to Eire and the rest of Europe.
Surely it’s the other way around, and people express their mass using kilograms, and simply mis-title the measurement? (Seriously - after all, nobody claims you actually lose weight in a descending lift)
‘Extremely’ expensive? I don’t see that one. Sure, there’d be some cost and some hassle, but as has been pointed out, Britain has managed to switch to metric measurement for all food with little problem, and half of Europe managed to switch currencies, so such things certainly can be done.
using Metric units:
Weight is measured in Newtons.
Mass is kilograms.
When people talk about their weight they mean “weight” because you will hear conversations about how “On the moon you weigh 1/6 of what you weigh on Earth”. And they would be correct. But a persons mass doesn’t change.
So Joe Metric who has a “mass” of 80 kg weighs 784 Newtons on Earth but weighs 130.6 Newtons on the moon. He still has a mass of 80 kg.
But Jim Imperial who weighs 180 lbs on Earth does indeed weigh 30 lbs on the moon.
After, what, 25 years of the metric system in Canada we are still converting. For example, it not uncommon for us to say “Nice day. The temperature’s going to be 28 degrees. Oh, and I checked the pool. It’s reading 80.”
And we don’t even blink at these kinds of mixed readings. We understand completely. Weird, “eh?”
This is irrelevant. They’re not talking about the same thing as when they talk about working off the excess flab. If they were really talking about weight in this context, then they would genuinely consider living at the top of a mountain to be a way to lose weight. But they don’t, they would say that you weigh the same as at sea level, so they’re really talking about mass.
