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 ...
Below zero is "way too effing cold" ... above 100 is "way too effing hot" ... by coincidence, the Fahrenheit 0-100 range neatly covers the temperature range most people can easily tolerate.
The difficult part of the metric system is being able to count to 10... If you can master that, then you can master the entire metric system.
Just to help you out 3 tsp is a tbsp and 16 tbsp is a cup. Trivial to get 1/3rds, 1/2s, and 3 or flr more halvings of each.
In metricland, if i buy 10 bagels, do i get 11?
When I wuz a kid, the country that became Canaduh used to meter [and price] gasoline by the Imperial gallon.
386’s don’t use decimal.
After the war, all those tools became surplus, and could be bought for a song. Hundreds of startup companies, farmers, hobbiests bought this surplus tooling. Decades later, they are still running. When a $20 inch sized bearing wears out you can repair the old stuff, or spend millions for a new imported lathe made of Chineseum. It's cheaper to re-wind a 60 year old electric motor with a 2" shaft and 1/4" key, but that is your call. Those replacement parts are still manufactured on old machines.
Harbor Freight metric sockets come in 1/2", 3/8" and 1/4" drives.
Eventually, when you can't find the Inch parts to fix it, perhaps a random metric system will replace the random SAE inch system.
Most immigrants who come to US are illiterate.
When I was in school in the 70s I was told metric was the future and when I chose German as a foreign language my school counselor told me.that was foolish because in 10 years or so everyone in the US will need to be able to function in Spanish.
I guarantee you will be as spot on as he was.
Before Jimmy Carter's brain farts, it was an actual fifth of a gallon, not quite the same as 750ml ... but close enough that the difference doesn't really matter.
Obviously, you have never been to Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, or Australia. Over 95% of the people in the world are comfortable with the Celsius temperature scale.
Nice.
ust because weak minds have to count on fingers and toes doesn’t make metric superior.Finger counting brings 12 not ten:
So what. 95% of the world thinks rights come from the government. I don’t care what they think.
I always wanted to get one of those yuge classroom slide rules that hung on the blackboard....
Covfefe!!
I’ve been trying to teach my grandkids how to count in binary on their fingers.
neither system is more precise. Precision is dependent on the instrument being considered.
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