I prefer to use the American Standard:
Posted on 11/05/2012 2:14:59 PM PST by null and void
Back in grade school, we were told that the Imperial System was a thing of the past, that eventually we’d be living the Metric System life, with all it’s base-10 logic built right in. We’d be just like the rest of the world. But those predictions have proven about as accurate as the flying cars and moon colonies that we all imagined we’d be enjoying in the year 2012.
Occasionally, the issue bubbles up and people argue back and forth about why we haven’t gone Metric, but I think it’s all about inertia. There would be a huge intellectual cost in moving to a new system—training ourselves to think of temperatures in Celsius when we’re leaving home and trying to decide on whether to grab a jacket. Straining to remember what kilometers per liter really comes down to, when we’re used to a lifetime of miles per gallon. Attempting to determine whether you’re losing enough weight, as you stare at the scale showing a strange number of kilograms.
While there are economic costs—heck, just think of the signage issues on our roads—they should be lower today than they would have been a generation ago. Many consumer products in this digital age already allow us to toggle between Imperial and Metric units. And the prevalence of smartphones means that no one has an excuse not to have a conversion app (or at least a calculator) on them at virtually all times.
What this issue comes down to is, as I said, inertia. It’s laziness. No one wants to be the generation that has to juggle two systems in their heads all the time. If we switched today, my kids would grow up pretty much thinking in Metric and would have no problem. But I feel like I’d forever be doing that calculation in my head. Even if I knew 28° C was a nice warm summer day, I think I’d always be converting it back to 82° F just to make sure I knew exactly how warm it was, based on my past experiences. We don’t want to be the ones straddling the two worlds, dealing with parts in both sizes or wondering how to deal with machinery that still had Imperial components that were no longer allowed to be manufactured.
Besides, who has the guts to push an idea like this forward in the country today? If Republicans championed the cause, Democrats would rail against it. And vice versa. And unfortunately, engineers, scientists and the like don’t have the kind of lobby that would be needed to get politicians interested. Even a public relations disaster like losing the Mars Climate Orbiter (due to a conversion mishap) didn’t move the needle on fully switching to Metric. So I guess I’ll just wait with you for that long-off day when we get the first flying car—and wonder what kind of miles per gallon that thing will get.
I prefer to use the American Standard:
I would not pin it on that at all. Domestic taxation/regulation, as well as leftist/globalist-influenced trade “agreements”, is what is to blame. Metric has been around since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; the USA’s big rise as a manufacturing power came about independent of the metric system.
Ah yes, I recall the classes in metric measures in elementary school in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
I'd agree and that goes for kilograms as well. The units are larger so the distinctions are lost. Kilometers are smaller units than miles, though, and we're probably not going to adopt them any time soon.
Metric was only promoted in this country so that tool companies would sell everyone a second set of sockets, deep sockets, box end, open end, and allen wrenches and bigger tool chests to have to hold them all in.
The Red Green show also made light of Metric as does Top Gear (James May often couples metric measurements with some sort of joke about the French).
I started elementary school the same year as you (1973.). While I don’t remember the NBC program, I do remember an A/V cart wheeled into our classroom on a weekly basis. The reception wasn’t the best, but we’d watch PBS for what was kind of like The Electric Company devoted solely to the metric system. It had a catchy theme song- I think it just repeated “It’s the metric system!” We were told how, Under President Carter, the entire USA would make the switch. And then, we never spoke of it again...
Not to mention that for cooking our way is much more logical.
A cup is 8 oz which converts down into a half (4oz) quarter (2oz) eighth (1 oz) which is two tablespoons and the tablespoon which is three teaspoons.
And then you go up to a pint which is two cups, a quart which is two pints or a gallon which is four quarts
Up or down things move in mostly even numbers which makes it easy to expand or shrink the recipe mentally.
And if you are doing emergency cooking without measuring cups and spoons then the standard teacup and spoon works very well.
Now with the liter you have have a half of a liter (500 gm) the quarter of a liter (250gm) and the eighth of a liter (125gm) but at that point any smaller you began to get into fractions.
Nothing divides evenly anymore.
And what do you do without a scale or a measuring cup? Can you "eyeball" 512 grams of flour? Yes, but it is much harder then when it is 4 cups.
Battery volts?
There is one part of American cars which have always been metric.
Does anyone know what it is?
Yes anyone knows allot cars, but his neighbor who doesn’t know anything except 1st base. Everybody knows that nobody perfect. Nobody being perfect must know or he wouldn’t be perfect.
I would go with San Diego.
I would argue the metric system is part an parcel of NASA
No they don't. The only metric they use is litres for engine size. Every thing else: miles, gallons, feet, pounds, horsepowers, torques, is Imperial.
The wife recently converted to the metric system .. her concealed went from a .380 to a 9mm.
Oh Lord, please don’t bring the clusterf-ck of caliber designations into this. Now you’re going to have to explain to everyone how the bullets in a .380 ACP are actually .355” in diameter (same as all 9mm cartridges. or are there some 9’s that don’t use .355 that I’m unaware of), whereas the bullets in a .38 Special are actually .357” in diameter. ;-)
The only woman I care about just went the opposite way - from a 9mm to a .45ACP.
At least now, we can trade ammo.
I can tell you with some (second-hand) authority WHY we didn’t make the switch fully to metric.
10 years ago, I met a gent on a cruise ship who had been big at NASA during the 60s. He was appointed to the commission to address this question. The stumbling block that killed metric was that the union auto mechanics didn’t want to have to buy new tools.
That’s it.
(Also, he said that he heard the challenger audio tape after the explosion, and it was not pleasant).
The teacher tried to show us how much easier the metric system was than the "Old English System." Funny, we spent way more time going over problems in metric.......trying to achieve the desired outcome?
While I scored a perfect on both tests, I did contemplate intentionally failing the metric test.
*redneck switch on -
I'm proud to say I don't measure nuthin' in commie-meters
/redneck
Not quite. The .380 ACP (Automatic COLT Pistol) pistol cartridge was developed by firearms designer John Browning. It was introduced in 1908 by Colt.
Euros renamed this American cartridge 9mm kurtz. But it’s ours, and was in inches first.
Ok I was just kidding, it is volume of the horn.
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