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The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

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Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#91

Post by svara »

modo_mario wrote: post #81
threemux wrote: post #62

I'd part with cups and teaspoons/tablespoons and the like, but you'll pry inches/feet/yards and fahrenheit from my cold, dead hands. They're both more convenient for daily use. I think I'd prefer to keep miles as well but I don't have a good reason for that one. Fahrenheit has more precision without using decimals for the thing 99% of people are using temperature measurements for: air temp. Where I live, we generally…

>Everything packed into this tight range. AS someone that grew up with metric that feels fairly natural and not tight at all? >Inches/feet being base 12 divides better into thirds and fourths, which is very useful in construction. I used ruler tapes with both metric and imperial on either side and i always wondered how one could use the inches since they're so big and didn't always have the same minute subdivisions.…

> (...) grew up with (...) feels fairly natural (...)

Really all there is to that discussion.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#92

Post by threemux »

modo_mario wrote: post #81
threemux wrote: post #62

I'd part with cups and teaspoons/tablespoons and the like, but you'll pry inches/feet/yards and fahrenheit from my cold, dead hands. They're both more convenient for daily use. I think I'd prefer to keep miles as well but I don't have a good reason for that one. Fahrenheit has more precision without using decimals for the thing 99% of people are using temperature measurements for: air temp. Where I live, we generally…

>Everything packed into this tight range. AS someone that grew up with metric that feels fairly natural and not tight at all? >Inches/feet being base 12 divides better into thirds and fourths, which is very useful in construction. I used ruler tapes with both metric and imperial on either side and i always wondered how one could use the inches since they're so big and didn't always have the same minute subdivisions.…

I mean it's mathematically a tighter range. I think part of this comes down to the more mild and less variable European climate. There is just less emphasis on air temperature so you don't see the drawbacks.

Your tape measure didn't have 1/3, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, and 1/32 subdivisions? Sounds like a bad tape measure (or really just one where US Customary was an afterthought).

As for science, well, most people don't do it. Those that do can use different things in different contexts, it's not that hard.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#93

Post by ljf »

veltas wrote: post #65
ljf wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been a long time since fuel was sold here in the UK in gallons, but most cars still are spoken of in terms of MPG (miles driven per gallon of fuel). There are steps to move this to L per 100km - but most people here still use MPG. We also use Pints in pubs, which are a different size to US pints.

It's worth pointing out the convenient imperial units are the ones that are hardest to get rid of. The "pints" in pubs is because a pint is about how much a drink should be, in fact I've often found drinking 500ml to be just slightly too little to drink, probably because I'm used to the pint, but "1 unit" is also just a lot easier to keep than "500 units" or "50 units".

I would have agreed with you for a long time (especially when I was very aware of how many pints I could drink and still work well the next day), but since homebrewing and having my own beer taps, I now drink any amount I want. I have a few half pint jugs I use, but often I'll pour myself a drink that would be less than this, as that is what I actually fancy drinking at that time.

That said, I exclusively drink pints in pubs.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#94

Post by bluebarbet »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #46
sarchertech wrote: post #38

The problem is that Fahrenheit is a bit more convenient for describing the weather. Inches and feet are a bit more convenient for measuring human scale things and for being easily divisible by more numbers. And we’re used to the rest of it. Unless someone comes along and forces it on you, for the average person, there’s not enough incentive to switch.

Oddly enough as a person born in a metric country, now living in Canada which is metric, and always educated in metric, I agree with you on the feet and inches. "A couple of inches" doesn't imply nearly the precision that "5 centimeters" (using the US spelling on purpose) implies. Similarly my own height of 5'10 is much more "human scale" than the 178cm that it says on my passport. Not for engineering though!!! Being…

And I would come the opposite conclusion to you.

On Fahrenheit, the Americans are surely right. For describing the weather, a system where the usual range is 30-100 is clearly more useful than one where it's 0-37, because you can say "high 70s" instead of the weirdly specific "about 27", and "low 40s" instead of the awkward "around 5 to 7".

I say this as a European who has never used Fahrenheit.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#96

Post by jeppester »

threemux wrote: post #62

I'd part with cups and teaspoons/tablespoons and the like, but you'll pry inches/feet/yards and fahrenheit from my cold, dead hands. They're both more convenient for daily use. I think I'd prefer to keep miles as well but I don't have a good reason for that one. Fahrenheit has more precision without using decimals for the thing 99% of people are using temperature measurements for: air temp. Where I live, we generally…

I like this!

I wonder if there's a place on the internet where I can find more of this sort of seemingly strong and well-thought out arguments for something that is so clearly subjective (if not just inferior).

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#97

Post by amelius »

mcntsh wrote: post #85
sarchertech wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying that a system where the majority of air temperatures in the vast majority of the country fall between 0 and 100 is slightly more convenient than one in which they fall between -17 and 37. 0 is really cold it doesn’t frequently get colder than that in most of the country. 100 is really hot, in most places it doesn’t get hotter than that. Feet are slightly more convent for…

You're just saying this because you're American and accustomed to it. To you, a 0-100 scale makes sense but to me it doesn't because 0f (-17c) is way rarer of a temp than 100f (38c). Anyway, from the metric perspective, most people look at it like... 0 is coat and boots weather, + 10 degrees is jacket weather, + 10 degrees is t-shirt weather, and + 10 degrees is hot. IMO, using "freezing" as the reference kinda makes…

1 foot is the distance light travels in one nanosecond.

And 1/10 of an inch is a very common distance in electronics (PCBs)

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#98

Post by vinc »

sarchertech wrote: post #56
plaguna wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fahrenheit is a bit more convenient for describing the weather" - you might need to show us an example here that is not biased. Because to me, Celsius is a bit more convenient for describing the weather.

On the Fahrenheit scale, the majority of daily temperatures in the vast majority of the US fall between 0 and 100, which is -17 and 37 Celsius, and it’s more granular without introducing a decimal point.

I enjoyed reading this exchange, it's really a matter of perspective.

For someone like me living in a country with the metric system there's no issues with negative values for the temperature. It just mean it's below freezing, which is cold, the more below freezing it is, the colder it is. And inversely the more above freezing it is, the hotter it is. For me 20C feels good, 30C is too hot, 40C is at the point where I can't work anymore, and anything above that doesn't exist around here. 100C is where water is boiling at sea level. Easy.

Another thing that's interesting to me is that going from 300m to 0.3km is automatic, it maps to exactly the same concept to me in my mind, I don't feel like I'm doing any conversion at all and one is not harder to use than the other.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#99

Post by master_crab »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #77

"Back when I was a Catholic-school kid in northern Wisconsin, my school lessons briefly focused on the metric system. This was in the late 1970s." Man, the progressive school (Comanche Elementary in Overland Park, Kansas!) must have had a huge impact on my life. In addition to open classrooms (I was in Unit 5, not 4th Grade), team teaching, a focus on experimental science, a circular layout to the school with a sunke…

It was there again in the 90s after the wall fell. Fukuyama was boldly proclaiming the “end of history.” Newt started to kick at the edges with his combative policies but the inertia continued until the dotcom crash and 9/11 came along, and fully ended with the Great Recession.*

* (From my viewpoint as a millennial. Gen Z might think the golden years were during Obama, or just pre-COVID. To some extent every generation has a point in time that they see with rose tinted lenses.)

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#100

Post by shoxidizer »

t-3 wrote: post #59
yurishimo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who wants to collaborate internationally is already doing it. Science in the US is entirely metric. Construction and domestic measurements are the two biggest holdouts and honestly they’re both negligible. Given the proliferation of global manufacturing, most businesses are converting at the end before retail for US customers. If the government was competent, they could rip off the bandaid and everyone would…

Honestly, I don't think anyone would raise much of a fuss over changing distance measurements to metric. Both centimeters and inches are easy enough to eyeball or rule-of-thumb, meters and yards are basically the same, and larger units are only relevant for speed limits and travel planning. Metric lacks a good "foot", but I guess people would get used to eyeballing things in ~50cm increments instead. Weights are even…

> Metric lacks a good "foot", but I guess people would get used to eyeballing things in ~50cm increments instead.

Perhaps as a compromise we could adopt the meter but divide it by halves, quarters, and so on. Binary fractions are so much more universal than arbitrary base ten ;)

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