Posted on 05/07/2026 5:51:42 PM PDT by DoodleBob
…Most other nations dutifully adopted SI, changing road signs and packaging and teaching the metric system in schools. Even the United Kingdom, which had lagged for years, mostly embraced the system in an effort to keep pace with other European Union nations. (Since the U.K. left the EU, metric opponents there have argued the nation should stop using metric units, a controversial proposition that has yet to be adopted.)
Despite international adoption and increasing federal policy encouraging the use of metric units, the U.S. continued to drag its feet. Resistance was fueled in part by industrialists who argued the system was too complicated and expensive to implement, legislators suspicious of “foreign” influence, and controversies over whether wide-scale federal adoption might infringe on states’ rights.
The end result was confusion. Though the U.S. officially declared SI the nation’s preferred system through the 1975 Metric Conversion Act, even federal agencies were slow to adopt metric in industry, education, commerce, and daily life. One example is road signs: Though federal officials attempted to turn a new interstate in Arizona into an SI poster child in the wake of the Metric Conversion Act, even giving it kilometer markers instead of mileposts, transportation officials never extended metric-only signage to the remainder of the federal highway system.
…
Nonetheless, Benham still believes voluntary metrification in the U.S. is possible—and encourages individuals to look for the metric measurements that already surround them…
Ultimately, says Benham, a full transition to the metric system won’t be possible until individuals take the plunge and decide to use it in their daily lives. That’s why she focuses on education at her job—and has switched to the metric system in her daily life, setting her smartphone to measure length in kilometers instead of miles and using degrees Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalgeographic.com ...
I was taught physics using the metric system way back in the 1970s. I used a slide rule too.
There is a need to be able to replace 4x8 sheathing and plumbing parts.
The English pipe thread is somewhat different than the National Pipe Thread (NPT) of the US.
This says so much….
The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 Act established the United States Metric Board with representatives from scientific, technical, and educational institutions, as well as state and local governments to plan, coordinate, and educate the U.S. people for the Metrication of the United States.
The Metric Board was abolished in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan, largely on the suggestion of Frank Mankiewicz and Lyn Nofziger.
Executive Order 12770, signed by President George H. W. Bush on July 25, 1991, directed departments and agencies within the executive branch of the United States Government to “take all appropriate measures within their authority” to use the metric system “as the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce” and authorized the Secretary of Commerce “to charter an Interagency Council on Metric Policy (’ICMP’), which will assist the Secretary in coordinating Federal Government-wide implementation of this order.”
Metric is inferior. Between freezing and boiling, we get 176 degrees, a much finer measurement than the 100 degrees Metric morons get.
If I have a dozen eggs, I can divide them equally among 2, 3, 4, or 6 people. Same with a pizza. Base 10 gives you 2 and 5... that’s it.
English is more natural and human.
“I can see for kilometers and kilometers....”, just doesn’t sound right.
“Stay outta da Bushies....”
I learned to love Hexadecimal back in the day.
When I’m told it’s 20 degrees outside, I reach for my coat.
I have a small collection of slide rules.
My own, my Dad’s and my Father-in-Law’s.
Sadly, my circular slide rule has gone missing.
Digital is so slow compared to Analog.
Things line up great at -40....
It is an easy system. We should adopt it.
No. Metric is not superior. The joke math literate people used to tell is there are 10 kinds of people - those who understand binary and those who don’t. Math nerds think base 10 is lame and they are right. Convenient but lame. The real debate is whether or not logarithms in both base 2 and base e should bd allowed.
16 oz. is a pound and 16 oz. is a pint. So an ounce fluid weighs an ounce. Way smarter than 1/1000L is a gram. Half a pint is a cup. Half a cup is 2 oz. Half that is an oz. 2 pints is a quart, 2 quarts is half a gallon - x2 is a gallon. 128 oz. And a gallon is 8 lbs.
Half a foot is 6 inches. A third of a foot is 4 inches. What’s a third of a meter? An infinite decimal? Stupid.
Just because weak minds have to count on fingers and toes doesn’t make metric superior.
Umm.... 180?
Freezing? Boiling? Eggs? When my water pump goes out, screaming, “I need a 15 millimeter socket” is a whole bunch easier than, “ Hey Joe, got one of them 19/32nds wrenches in yer back pocket?” Metric wins every time.
I remember only two mileage marker signs along I-55 that attempted to inform drivers of metric distances.
St Louis 62 miles, 100 km
And
Chicago 62 miles, 100 km
I couldn’t read the article because of the pay wall, but the excerpt has the author suggesting that people start using metric in their daily lives. That is probably a good place to start, but I have always figured daily life was also the place of most resistance to that change because we have a feel for how long a foot is, or how much a pound is, or what a certain temperature is like. We don’t have a feel for metric weights and measures, and learning them for daily use might seem kind of useless for the average person.
One thing I have learned, though, is the reason why many European beers come in 16.9-ounce cans and bottles is that that is a half liter.
The Imperial System is the system in which all Western esoteric knowledge and measurements are based. Loose the Imperial and we loose part of ourselves and our connection to the past.
“The real problem with the metric system is that none of the measurements directly relate to real world object the way say a cup, a foot, and an inch do.”
What are you talking about?
A meter is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the speed of light in vacuum c to be 299 792 458 when expressed in the unit m·s⁻¹, where the second is defined in terms of the caesium frequency ΔνCs.
I can do that in my head, so I don’t need a stinking meter stick.
Had to deal with manufacturing drawings on the last job. Some where metric, some were standard. Ease of use? Metric every time.
A pint is a pound the world around ...
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