I was thinking that the US will never “get” the metric system.
Not that I mind a whole lot. Metric measures are fine and all, but they don’t come in sizes all that useful for everyday use.
So, I was thinking we could rearrange Imperial measurements for better scientific usage. Then everyone could be happy. There’d be some confusion about the switchover, but a quick “AS” (after switch) printed on an item or something would go a long way towards making to easier to use. The best part is that the bsic measurements stay close to the same.
Basic unit is the Inch -> 10 inches per foot -> 10 feet per furlong -> 10 furlongs per XXXX
You get the idea.
Common measures such as yards (three feet) are useful for some things, so we don’t need to get rid of them. Miles will be 5000 feet, more or less what they are now. Its no difficulty to teach young people a few new words - they’ll already know “inches and pounds” so a few stable extensions will be no annoyance.
[hijack my own thread]Of course, it would be a uniquely American system, so we wouldnt’ be using the same system as those bastards in France.[/hijack my own thread]
Yes, I know, everyone’s going to chime in and say its a truly boneheaded idea, but I wanted to vote for it anyway.
People “get” the metric system. It just isn’t convenient to retool every machine and measuring device, repaint every street sign, and resize every packaging container.
Your idea is boneheaded because instead of switching to a system that everyone else uses, you want to switch us from one system that only we use to another system that only we use.
Beside, my car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that’s how I likes it.
Your premise is flawed. You assert that metric sizes are not useful for everyday use. Having resided in a few countries that actually use the metric system, I found no problems whatsoever, nor did the general populace there, with using the metric system every day. None of us had any problem with using that system for cooking, for buying fuel, for sending mail, or any other everyday activity. What you are doing, IMHO, is confusing your unfamiliarity with the system with impracticality. They are not the same thing.
Lemme see if I got it right. I never really figured out the Imperial system so I might be wrong all over, but if we try to compare the magnitudes of the units:
~= does not mean “equals”, it means “is in the order of” !!!
Lemme see if I got it right. I never really figured out the Imperial system so I might be wrong all over, but if we try to compare the magnitudes of the units:
~= does not mean “equals”, it means “is in the order of” !!!
inch ~= cm
foot ~= m
yard ~= m
mile ~= km
pound ~= kg
quart ~= liter
Where is the problem?
House-Daddy’s house: 1000km
House-Work: 2 km
Length of my Bed: 2.2m
Let me see what could be in the order of cms …
Ah yes, of course, 15cm - 2cm depending whether it’s cold or not
Space between two figures on my article: 2mm
Laser wavelength for Lithography: 193 nm
And that is just lengths. I don’t buy this “Imperial is more natural” argument …
What gets me is that so many times I go to a supermarket here in USA and the deli counter doesn’t understand the Imperial measurememnts.
1/4 pound they understand, but ask for 2 ounces and they are flummoxed.
UK has managed the change in retail, though to be honest it wasn’t completely smoothe. It does help that 1kg is near enought to 2# to make little difference. It takes a little mental meth to do 1/4 pound = 1/8 kg “Can I have 125 grams of Cheddar Cheese please”
The next generation will not have this problem anymore since they do not think in pounds. So they will not order 125 grams of cheddar cheese but 100g or 200g.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had awhile back with my mother, who is not one to try new fangled things. Trying to convince her that metric as easier to use, she asked “What if I go to the fabric store and want to buy yard of material?”. I told her she could just order a meter, since a meter was only about 3" more than a yard. “But I only want a yard.” After that, I gave up.
Smiling Bandit, if you were any other man I would kill you where you stand. I can’t remember the last time I heard such a foolish proposal. So, we go through the cost and confusion of throwing out every scale, every textbook, every map, every set of tools, every chart…and we STILL aren’t compatible with the rest of the world? Our Mars Landers would STILL blow up?
The whole point of the metric system is universality. Decimalization is great. But the main benefit is that everyone everywhere uses the same measurement system. And besides, your proposal would only preserve ONE measurement unit! If we keep inches as our base unit of length, then we’d have to throw out feet, yards, miles, everything. People wouldn’t be just as confused when a “mile” isn’t 63,360 inches anymore as they would be that a kilometer is ~0.6 miles.
Why of all things are the metric units “unuseful for everyday usage”? What’s your problem with 2-liter soda bottles? Instead of a gallon of milk you’ll be buying 4 liters of it (the difference is negligible). A pound is about 0.5 kilogram - again, the difference is negligible.
You could make a new system based decifoot, foot, kilofoot, etc… which would allow easy conversion (which is the point.) but not get the old feet? new feet? problem.
You might want to redefine a foot to be 30cm (or 1/3 m) and other units similarly to allow easy conversion.
From the evidence of how the metric system is actually used in Great Britain nowaways, it appears that they would be more likely to order “1/8 kilogram of cheddar cheese”.
John Mace,
Well if your mother wanted a yard of material in the hypothetical metric fabric strore, just tell her to order .9144 meters. Of course, she should make sure they are measuring it to the nearest tenth of a milimeter. Otherwise she would not be getting a “real” yard of fabric.
The SI system is not the same as the metric system. centimetres, kilometres, grams, . are NOT SI units. The whole SI system is designed for scientists so that they never have to bother to convert the units.
As someone who knows both the Imperial and metric system well, I have to say metric is better.
Actually, Smiling Bandit, I believe Thomas Jefferson and his compartriots came up with a system very similar to what you had in mind (foot = 10 inches, and so on). However it was put aside, and eventually the ‘French’ defined metric system (which, for a time in the early 1800s, was out of favor in France itself) won out.
I had links at one time, but I am mostly quoting from a book I recently read…
I suppose we could always go back to the way it was in the Good Old Days[TM], and measure length in Cubits, volume in Baths, and temperature in that funny system Lavoisier used in which water boils at 80 degrees.
