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It's time for the US to use the metric system

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Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#111

Post by gambiting »

hfsktr wrote: post #96
IgorPartola wrote: post #65

I challenge you all to make two changes today with regard to this. First, switch your phone to give you the weather in Celsius. It gets super simple fast: 0 and below - Freezing. Wear a warm jacket and closed toe shoes or boots. 1 - 10 - Cold. Wear an overcoat (a light one if you are used to colder weather) 10-15 - Early spring time. Long sleeves are probably in order, maybe even a sweater. 15-20 - Late spring. Wear…

Does most of this apply to newer things (cars, clocks)? My car has a clock but I have no method of changing anything but the hour/min. The speedometer is analog...I guess I could try to read the small print that displays in km...my alarm clock doesn't even have options for 24h. With the cooking one (assuming you meant recipes from books); all the cookbooks I've seen have nothing in metric so I have to do another step…

I have a car imported from US here in the EU and while driving it I just look at the smaller print in km/h, I honestly don't even notice the larger letters in miles now, it just became natural to look at the smaller print.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#112

Post by smackfu »

IgorPartola wrote: post #65

I challenge you all to make two changes today with regard to this. First, switch your phone to give you the weather in Celsius. It gets super simple fast: 0 and below - Freezing. Wear a warm jacket and closed toe shoes or boots. 1 - 10 - Cold. Wear an overcoat (a light one if you are used to colder weather) 10-15 - Early spring time. Long sleeves are probably in order, maybe even a sweater. 15-20 - Late spring. Wear…

It would make a lot more sense if we used a system where 0 was the coldest it normally got, and 100 was the highest it normally got. Way more integer data points, and a lot less use of negative numbers.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#114

Post by maxerickson »

sophacles wrote: post #53

Some thoughts on a conversion that I don't generally see brought up: * From an economic standpoint, the US is a big enough market that it is profitable to make things in weird US units, you have 350M people to sell to, most of whom are pretty well off by world standards. It makes sense to make a line catering to them. If businesses can start making a true or good economic argument it will happen more. * Tooling that…

Those mile roads often have odd names like "18 Mile Road" or "12 Mile Road", so even after a transition it wouldn't be especially hard to track (I'm guessing you are subconsciously tracking the numbers, not measuring on your odometer...).

The survey system is a bigger thing to deal with, but it isn't something people confront day to day either. I've seen deeds using geographic coordinates to describe plots, so there is also a relatively straightforward path to not dealing with it.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#115

Post by sjwright »

blencdr wrote: post #93
sjwright wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am deliberately not giving conversions to Fahrenheit But I spent all that effort learning what temperature water boils at in Fahrenheit. Who the hell is going to remember what that temperature is in Celsius??

100°C , that should be simple enough :)

Okay, so boiling water happens to be a convenient number. But my point surely stands for the temperature where water freezes?! Metric makes no sense.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#116

Post by gcb0 »

krschultz wrote: post #73

These articles are always missing the subtly of the issue. I'm going to ignore MPH signs & mile markers, because they really don't matter much for international interoperability. The important things are focused around dimensions on parts, packaging, engineering drawings, etc. Sure, we all know that lots of areas in the US already use the metric system. I have personally used metric in the biomedical & consumer elect…

What's your point? I also try to only use metric in the us, and a m3 Tap and bolts is cheaper than whatever silly fraction equivalent even buying from.consumer stores here. So, yeah, the economics of all this is crazy.. But i think the point is to improve it even more by removing the odd ones entirely.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#117

Post by pmontra »

bane wrote: post #56
k-mcgrady wrote: post #5

In US schools are children taught metric or imperial? For example when measuring a liquid for a science experiment are measurements made in millilitres?

When we're young we're taught the imperial method since it's the customary system. Once we start getting into science classes it's all metric. Still, outside of science classes (and the military) we don't use it at all. Which means we don't have a good working model in our heads of what a kg feels like or how warm a 30 degC day is...that sort of thing. I think most Americans have a pretty good feel for what a liter i…

> what common thing weighs a kg? Everything at 1 kg just seems to be too heavy

I'm back from a mall so... 1 l of water is 1 kg. 1 l of wine too, for any practical purpose. Water is usually sold in 1 l bottles or 500 ml in restaurants and automatic machines. Pasta is usually sold in 500 g or 1k g boxes. Milk, sugar, flour and salt too. Oil and vinegar are usually 1 l. Butter is usually 250 g or even 125 g for smaller doses. Sure not many items seem to weight more than 1 kg but weight your clothes, you'll be surprised how heavy winter clothes are :-)

Basically everything is priced either by the kg or by the liter (vegetables, cheese, meat, beverages, toothpaste, etc). It's required by law so we are able to compare different products of the same kind and different weight and get the better deal, quality aside. Obviously the label has a bigger figure for the price of the item than for the price by the kg.

As you see, whatever the units are they a convenient for everyday use because all the economic and legal system is consistent with them. A transition in a country as large as the USA would be bumpy. I'd like to see it happen before I die but I won't bet anything on it, not until they are surpassed by some other country as the leader of the world. After that there might be some real economic incentive to a switch.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#118

Post by kiiski »

bane wrote: post #56
k-mcgrady wrote: post #5

In US schools are children taught metric or imperial? For example when measuring a liquid for a science experiment are measurements made in millilitres?

When we're young we're taught the imperial method since it's the customary system. Once we start getting into science classes it's all metric. Still, outside of science classes (and the military) we don't use it at all. Which means we don't have a good working model in our heads of what a kg feels like or how warm a 30 degC day is...that sort of thing. I think most Americans have a pretty good feel for what a liter i…

A Macbook Air is about 1 kg. A regular laptop 2-3, and a tablet 0.5-1.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#119

Post by lkrubner »

I would like to see the USA switch to the metric system. However, I will point out, just because a "new" (the metric system was developed during the French Revolution) measuring system is more rational, does not mean that it will catch on. I'll offer a hypothetical example of another change that would be rational:

We currently divide the day based on time a system of time developed by the Babylonians roughly 4,000 years ago. Because the Babylonians had a math system that was base-60, it was rational for them to divide the day into sections that fit easily into a base-60 system. Ideally, they would have been consistent and gone with 60/60/60, but for some reason they went with 24/60/60. We have 24 hours, then 60 minutes, then 60 seconds. There are 86,400 seconds in the day, which may have made sense to them, but it makes no sense to us, in the modern world, since nowadays the whole world uses base-10 math. If we wanted to modernize the time system, we would switch to a base-10 system: 10/10/10/10. That would mean our smallest unit of measure would be a 100,000th of day, which would certainly be easier to work with, and reason about, than the crazy 86,400ths we have to deal with. 86,400ths are an artifact from the dawn of civilization, and should be gotten rid of.

Will we ever have a clean and rational 10/10/10/10 system for dividing up the day? Probably not. From the Babylonians we get the 24 hour day, the 7 day week, and the crazy idea that a circle should be divided by 360 degrees. All of these ideas are so deeply embedded in our culture it would be extremely hard to change them. Clean and rational systems do not always win out.

I keep hoping that the USA will switch to the metric system. On that front, I still have some hope. On other fronts, such as a rational system for dividing the day, I have no real hope at all.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#120

Post by PythonicAlpha »

sophacles wrote: post #68
PythonicAlpha wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure, if the paper sizes (A4, ...) are belonging to the metric system ... but of course, here a standardization would be nice. At least software producers seem to know (most of them) now, that there are also other formats as the "standard US formats".

A0 is a square meter, and everything in the A series has an aspect ratio of sqrt(2) and different sizes are achieved by simply folding (or cutting) in half. It's actually pretty neat... check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_216

Oh, did not know that!

The reason: I don't think, that this fact is essential to the A series. It is neat, yes, but when do you have A0 paper in your bureau? (When you are not in the printing-business).

The thing with cutting in half is more essential to it, than that it is based on square meter. Also, even when it is an square meter, the sides are something "odd" because the ratio is fixed.

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