When I was a kid in school, I remember hearing from various sources (teachers, the news, etc) that the US was switching over to the metric system. We were even taught the metric system in math classes over a period of several years. I remember seeing some road signs with both miles and kilometers, which I assumed was to get us “used to” the impending metric system.
Well, it’s 20 years later and we are not using the metric system yet. Has it been cancelled? 
Cecil knows all, tells some: Whatever happened to adoption of the metric system in the U.S.?
The Metric System has a long and sordid history in US gummint beaurocracy. Here’s Cecil’s take on it:
You know, dtilque, if I hadn’t actually taken the time to re-read that column before posting the link I would have beaten you. 
In that link, he says:
Last time I checked, we in the UK were still screwing around. :rolleyes:
As I was posting, I wondered if I would be pipped because I took the time to encode the url. But then I figured that the thread had been up for over two hours and had dropped to the lower half of the page with no responses, so it’s unlikely anyone else was going to post to it…
But Cecil doesn’t mention the fact that for several months during the first oil crisis (1974-75), most gas stations in the US sold gas by the liter! However the reason wasn’t that they were trying to get people to convert to metric.
Instead, it had to do with the limitations of the pumps in those days. That was before LCDs had even been invented, and the numbers on the pumps for price, total sale and number of gallons were on rotating wheels. The limitation was that the numbers for the price only went up to 49.9 cents. Why they didn’t go up to 99.9 is a mystery to me, but that’s the way they were.
Anyway, when the price of gas went over a half dollar a gallon because of the crisis, the fix was adjust the pumps so they would measure liters instead of gallons. That way the price was still less than 50 cents. It took several months for most stations to get their pumps modified.
Naturally lots of people were confused by the change and most people figured it was done mainly to hide the frequent price raises. Personally, I’d gotten used to buying by the liter and was sorry when they changed back to gallons.
They had the same problem 5 years later during the second oil crisis when prices went over $1.00/gallon, but I don’t remember them selling it by the liter for that one.
One thing that Cecil does not point out is for how long this has been a matter of discussion. I like to point to Plan for establishing uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States., by Thomas Jefferson, dating from 1790.
It is not the same metric system as (succesfully) put forwards by the French (at about the same time), but it was a bold initiative, which (if it had been effective) probably would have carried the day. If only a decisive action had been taken 213 years ago, the whole world (except maybe the French) would have used the US system, instead of the present situation where the whole world (except maybe the US) use the French idea.
I think the biggest reason we haven’t switched over our daily life to the metric system is that there’s no need. Really. What need is there for it in the public life? We can’t argue about corporate or scientific use, because for the most part those that need/want/should use the SI units (metric) do use them. We likewise can’t argue that it’s confusing the grow up using feet/pounds/gallons and then be expected to use SI units at work; we don’t grow up thinking joules/hertz/mhos but there’s no problem adapting ourselves in industries that use them.
It’s funny hearing the Windsor 7-11’s advertise their 473mL drinks on special when 16oz is a nice round number. But even in “metric” Canada the English system is still in wide, wide use. Roadside stands I’ve seen typically advertise their fruits and vegetables in pounds. The automotive plant safety regulation seminars I had to attend at a Japanese (metric) company taught by a Canada (metric) Hydro employee at a Canadian (metric) plant were all in English units. The radio – even further from the border – often gives both Fahrenheit and Centrigrade measurements.
At work we work fairly effortlessly using both systems with no negative drawbacks. A single system will always use the same types of units, though, so we don’t get Mars lander types of problems.
The convenience of the metric system at work is great, but there’s no advantage to forcing the public to switch to it for reasons that would be purely arbitrary – how would your life really change by going metric?
The medical profession has been on the metric system for a while. Other scientists like chemists also use it. It is much easier but I don’t see a total conversion any time soon.
Plenty of regular folk are also on the metric system. Last time I was at the local grocery store, I got myself a one-liter bottle of water.
Well, we’ve discussed this a bit before, Balthisar, but, there is the the fact that the metric system is BETTER. If you don’t see how, figure out how many feet are in 317 inches, and then figure out how many meters are in 806 centimeters.
Cecil’s article quoted above says:
A decimal systems is more useful than ever now that computers and pocket calculators are used for many calculations. Fractions of an inch, for example, made sense when you were doing calculations in your head, but if a calculator tells you to drill a 0.0467-inch hole do you know which drill bit to reach for? If it calls for a 1.19-mm hole you immediately know that the 1.2-mm bit is the closest.
It also helps consumers if various information and consumer products were interchangeable with foreign ones. Most notable examples are recipes, kitchen measuring devices and food labels. It also helps American manufacturers and publishers because they won’t have to produce two versions of everything. If you try to label everything two ways, you can end up confusing everyone and you can’t provide nice round numbers for everyone.
Isn’t the non-Mertic system called “Imperial”?
Even better, take a box that’s 10 centimeters on a side. Fill it with water. Now tell me what the liquid volume is. And how much it weighs. (Liter, kilogram, IIRC.)
That’s right, boys and girls, the measurements are all interrelated!
Metric is far easier to use in a scientific context. But whichever system you use, make sure it’s consistent…
I also wonder if the drive to metrification hasn’t been slowed by the widespread availability of cheap calculators. The major benefit of the metric system, being based on powers of 10, is much less of an advantage today than it was when we were calculating with slide rule and paper.
The more zealous advocates of metrification have lost a lot of steam since the 1970s. But some of them seemed to think that metric measurements were not only a Good Thing for efficiency and economy, but would cure cancer and make us all better people in the process.
Most Americans today easily switch between measurement systems depending on the application. We use gallons, pounds, and feet comfortably in much of everyday life, but switch to milliliters and milligrams where extreme precision is require, as, for example, in the administration of pharmacuticals.
I understand that many Europeans do the same thing; many of their standard quantities, while described in metric terms, are identical to older units of measure.
The interrelations between the various measurements in the English system are often interesting, if you take the time to figure them out. A mile is 5280 feet, a number which, when you first look at it, makes you go “What?” However, a furlong (mentioned above as being still used in horseracing) is 660 feet, exactly one eighth of a mile.
What is a furlong, aside from the length of a standard furrow? Well, 660 feet is ten chains. What is a chain? A nearly obsole surveyor’s measure, which was originally a 66 foot chain.
Ten square chains (NOT ten chains square) is 43,560 square feet, or one acre. (C’mon, you always wondered where that came from, didn’t you?)
That says nothing about a “metric system”. That only speaks about decimalization. Can you prove, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that it is utterly and inherently impossible to decimalize a foot/pound/second system of measurement?
In any case, the “metric system” no longer exists. It has been replaced by the SI.
To be fair, though, that only works with water.
Dogface: You’re right, I would be happy with another decimalized system. However, there aren’t any that anyone uses, that I’m aware of.
Not in the USA. The “Imperial” system was adopted in the 1800s by the British Empire. The capacity measures are very different between the two. Distance/area is also different, but far less so. Before 1960, the US inch was slightly longer than the Imperial inch.
Wrong. A “liter” of water (actually a deprecated unit that is only permitted due to historical inertia ) does turn out to be roughly a kilogram in mass, but a kilogram is NOT defined as being the mass of a liter of water.
A kilogram is the mass of the SI prototype kilogram:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/current.html
That’s it. It’s essentially an arbitrary unit, divorced from the other units.
I say it’s time to throw out all this arbitrary garbage and go to Planck Units!