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Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

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Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#171

Post by Permit »

ubernostrum wrote: post #166
geon wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the units don't matter. What matters is picking a system and sticking to it That is exactly the problem with the imperial system. You have multiple units for the same thing, and when they are multiples of each other, it is in base 12. You could settle on feet and have kilofeet and millifeet, and you'd have a sensible system (apart from being incompatible with the rest of the world).

It's easy to get dismissive about having multiple units, until you run into the contexts where they really are useful. Following up the example in one of my other comments: adopt the meter and the kilometer, or the foot and the kilofoot, and it won't matter to navigators, because they'll still use the nautical mile unless you literally put a gun to their heads, and if you do put a gun to their heads they'll show you…

>they'll show you why it's a much more practical unit for what they do.

Why? Why is it more practical? How is it better other than being more familiar? It blows me away that people can make the argument as it being "better".

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#172

Post by DanBC »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #14

Before we start with the standard junk about "imperial measures are better because they are easier to understand / better suited to human scale / etc." can I say nope . The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.

You think there are no advantages to easy divisibility?

16 is divisible by 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16.

24 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24

10 just has 1, 2, 5, 10

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#173

Post by VolatileVoid »

ndonnellan wrote: post #164
krschultz wrote: post #145

Most of the comments in this thread are talking about the units for personal height, weight, local road signs or for the weather forecast. Those are by far the least important things to be worried about. All of those things are local and there is no carrying cost for them. There would be a cost to change all those signs and forecasts - for no real gain. However, dimensions of physical goods are a constant recurring c…

I agree the examples are irrelevant. A better example (from my experience) would be the oil/gas/chemical industry where you have millions of miles, oops kilometers, of pipes, uncountable valves, fittings, sensors, vessels, etc. What's the counterpart to a 6", sch 60 pipe? You definitely do not just convert to metric! My favorite nonsensical (not-quite-non-dimensional unit)? Heat rate: MMBtu per MWh

Another nonsensical conversion? MMCF to MMBtu or, worse, 10^3m^3 to MMBtu.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#174

Post by HCIdivision17 »

stdbrouw wrote: post #78

I moved from Belgium to the US last year, and one of the things that surprised me was that metric measures actually see a fair amount of use in the States. It makes a convoluted system even more weird, but it's also just plain fascinating. 2L bottles of coke and 9mm bullets, miles except when people suddenly switch to kilometers, 50 meter pools and 5K jogging runs but a 120 yard football field, 2 oz shaving cream but…

At my last job, we measured product thickness in mm; area in square feet; throughput in meters per minute; coating thickness in nm, angstroms, or fraction multiples of 550nm; weight in tons (imperial) but some input materials in grams and kilograms; and pressure in hPa, atmospheres, psi, and torr (occasionally in the same sentence and graphed logarithmically in some cases).

Basically, we use units like any tool. Use whatever tick marks line up to the problem conveniently. You can always covert later if you need to.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#175

Post by venus »

robmcm wrote: post #52
flaie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only because you're british and because of the way you learned how to measure things when you were young. I'm totally unable to represent in my head how really tall "about five foot" is whereas 1,50m is totally understandable for me, easy to visualize.

I was educated during the conversion in the UK and commonly switch between the two. Speed and distances for travel in miles, shorter distances in meters. Height in feet for people, meters for building etc. Weight of people in stone, otherwise normally grams, liquids in pints for some things, liters for others. It's confusing, but makes sense in the long run.

> It's confusing, but makes sense in the long run.

You're perceiving things like this because it's what you were brought up with. None of the examples in which you claim it's "natural" to use imperial units make any sense to me at all. I don't think in miles, don't know how much a "stone" is, and pints are just pure confusion - which pint? there's about 4 types isn't there?

It's what you grew up with, nothing more.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#176

Post by curiousdannii »

jeza wrote: post #162
OriginalSyn wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hazard a guess that we're roughly the same age because I grew up with the same mixture of units but I think it's less to do with growing up in a rural area than the fact that your parents and grandparents were educated on imperial units and even though metric was standard by the time you were born, the imperial system was still ingrained in your elders and some of that nomenclature was passed on to you. When…

I grew up in Australia with metric, with parents and grandparents who grew up with imperial units. Though it seems things happened differently in Australia as my parents (and possibly grandparents too) converted to thinking in metric at least most of the time. That said, it's still reasonably common to hear people quoting their personal height in feet and inches. Even then, most people born post-metrification don't r…

Person heights and baby weights are the only things I ever hear in imperial in Australia, end even then only half the time.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#177

Post by danneu »

tych0 wrote: post #150
veidr wrote: post #114

It's obviously a great idea, and obviously (to Americans) unlikely to happen in the lifetime of anybody reading this forum. Does anybody else from America remember being taught the metric system in public elementary school, and being told that we'd be switching to it over the next few years? I was taught this around second grade (1981), I think based on the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

Sorry, but how is that picture evidence that the US system sucks? I don't disagree that we have a poor system, but "everyone else is doing it" has never been a justification to do anything!

Every time one of the red countries does business with the grey countries, there's conversion deadweight.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#178

Post by smackfu »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #104

There's a couple of things you'd want to consider converting to metric: long distances, short distances/dimensions, volumes, weights, and temperature come to mind. Long distances: swap out a bunch of highway signs, consider that 60mph (a mile a minute) ~= 100km/h, not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to change. Feasible. Volumes: people are used enough to 2-liter bottles of soda, expect the 3.78 liter mi…

>not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to change. Feasible.

Very expensive though. Signs normally have a 20 years expected lifetime. Now you need to replace them all at once. Plus a lot of the sign locations need to be changed, unless you want all those "Exit 29 1 mile" signs to now say "Exit 29 1.6 km".

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#179

Post by smackfu »

veidr wrote: post #114

It's obviously a great idea, and obviously (to Americans) unlikely to happen in the lifetime of anybody reading this forum. Does anybody else from America remember being taught the metric system in public elementary school, and being told that we'd be switching to it over the next few years? I was taught this around second grade (1981), I think based on the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

Amusing visual evidence that speaking English sucks: http://cnrsociety.org/images/English-Official_Map-s.png

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#180

Post by curiousdannii »

brudgers wrote: post #74
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #14

Before we start with the standard junk about "imperial measures are better because they are easier to understand / better suited to human scale / etc." can I say nope . The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.

"Familiar" is a bit off target because it implies that use is a matter of individual choice. The system is embedded in standards, such as SAE. It is embedded in industries such as construction. It is embedded into statutes, regulations, and deeds for real property. Yes, the system is familiar, but wiping the slate clean and starting anew is not a feature of stable democracies.

Yes, the system is familiar, but wiping the slate clean and starting anew is not a feature of stable democracies.

What about those that already went through the metric conversion?

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