Vox:
The metric system is far superior to the bizarre system of feet, miles, pounds, and gallons used in the United States. The whole rest of the world seems to get this. So why aren’t we doing it, too?
The reasons to go metric are stronger than ever, and it’s time to revive the effort. In our increasingly global economy, America’s bizarre measurement system puts the country at a disadvantage. Popular opinion on the matter seems to be quite positive, and there are some hints of change on the horizon.
I lived in the US for many years and grew up in Canada during the switch from Imperial to Metric so I get both systems. There’s no doubt metric is much easier to do calculations with but, even here in Canada, there is still a lot of confusion due to the mashup of the two systems.
Not just the US, but the UK as well. I grew up in the US, lived in France for nearly three decades, then recently moved to the UK. They have a mix of metric (for milk and foods), and imperial (the gallon is different from the US gallon). Then there are stones, that they use to weigh people… It’s all very confusing. I easily adopted the metric system when living in France, and it’s so much more logical than inches, feet and the rest. Especially when you get to fractions: it’s a lot easier to have, say, .04mm instead of 1/64 in. (And I notice that OS X’s unit converter for Dashboard won’t let you enter fractions.)
When I lived in Canada, from ’78 through ’83, there were many people who thought the metric system was a communist plot to destroy the West. There is no limit to stupid. You just have to keep trying to change, and eventually, the stupid will lose.
I believe I’d have little trouble adapting to metric; I prefer to think in picas or pixels for design work anyway.
Worldwide standardization would be good. Manufacturers will put up a fuss about having to modify machinery and tools… and then perhaps find they have a larger international market to sell to.
The car will measure speed and distance in miles, and yet the roads have Km signs. (Puerto Rico, US Territory)
In Western Canada most people thought it was a French-Canadian plot.
Oh, really?
Almost all scientific research and production in the USA is done with the metric system. It’s used where it needs to be used for a global economy. If Americans at the consumer level still want to buy milk by the gallon or drive in miles, it really isn’t affecting anyone outside the US.
Good point. Because no one ever visits the United States and the United States never ships products outside its borders.
The US ships lots of products outside its borders.
And they’re usually in metric units.
(Cars, say? They’ve all had metric fasteners for decades.
Imperial unit fasteners are used by … small operations selling on the domestic market, mostly.
And frankly tourists are going to come even if signs are in miles and fuel is sold in gallons; “please change the way the largest economy in the world measures for tourists!” doesn’t sell.
Tourists adapt, just like I adapt when I’m in Canada.
The world survived before the damnable French* innovation of metric, and it’ll survive the US not doing What The Same Boring People Have Been Demanding My Entire Life.
Sigivald rebuffed most of your comments, and I’ll add that I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about tourists not liking gas sold by the gallon. I don’t demand Europe accommodate me when I visit.
No one is demanding anything. And my point was regarding you saying it doesn’t affect anyone outside the US. Obviously, it does in any number of ways.
I don’t disagree with anything you mention. Not sure why you even needed to mention it. I was pointing out to Niles that his comment of “it doesn’t affect anyone outside the US” is factually incorrect.
US customary units do have some advantages over metric. Since they don’t have to relate to each other, the units are generally easier to use in every day life. Centimeters vs inches are pretty much a wash, but I don’t hear a lot of Europeans measuring stuff in decimeters, where we use feet quite often. Yards on the other hand are pretty rare. I’ve never heard anyone give their height in yards. I won’t even discuss celsius vs fahrenheit, fahrenheit is superior, hands down. 0F to 100F are the approximate temperatures in which humans live, 0F is really cold, 100F is really hot. Basing your temperature system on the phase transition points of water at sea level is just silly, even in scientific applications. 0C is kinda cold, 100C is dead.
Yes the unit conversions are way easier, but metric isn’t an automatic win. For mass and volume, I’d say metric is the clear winner, length I think the unit conversions give metric a slight edge, for temperature, the rest of the world should switch to fahrenheit, and Kelvin should be converted.
I wouldn’t expect our incoming Republican-controlled Congress making the slightest effort in this regard, unless it’s to pass legislation mandating that the metric system NEVER be used in the USA.
I would walk a mile not to go metric! Just kidding.
Countries that use imperial:
http://www.joeydevilla.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/map_of_countries_that_dont_use_metric_system.jpg
The U.S. does use the metric system, but it’s not entirely metricated. Neither is Canada, the U.K., or any other country that was formally part of the British Empire. There’s one road block to total metrication in the United States:
The U.S. government does not dictate in any manner what measurement system the people use.
There was a petition to the White House not long ago that was answered because it got enough signatures that pretty much stated this in more detail. The U.S. has passed three laws so far that were intended for metrication. The first was within the late 1960’s education reforms that made it mandatory to teach the metric system to students. All kids in the U.S. from then onwards was taught it. That doesn’t mean they’ve retained any of it, though. Most don’t understand most of the “standard” system (The U.S. calls its system “standard” because many measurements aren’t identical to the Imperial system devised by the British) either.
The second involved road signage, and that bill is actually the impetus for Canada to pass its own metrication law. It happened in the mid-1970’s, and it made it to where all road signs that contain distances were to be posted with both miles and kilometers. It was even allowed to go into effect, and the process began in a few places where new signs put up contained both. The oil embargo and the recession happened after that. The bill was defunded and later scrapped. Canada instead continued on with its metrication efforts. The cost of replacing the signs on the — by a very large margin — world’s largest road system is gargantuan.
The third involved product labeling, and it passed. Today every single product label must contain metric units. There’s not much else to say on this because anyone in the U.S. can pick up a product and see what it is in metric units.
The U.S. military standardized on the metric system long ago. All scientific work in the U.S. is metric. All medical work in the U.S. is metric. Many products sold in the U.S. are entirely metric, especially liquids. Most cars are entirely metric. So, what can be done to make the people of the U.S. themselves switch over? We can attempt to replace road signs again, start selling fuel in liters, and so many people outside the U.S. can stop griping by god sell milk in liters too because that’s just a travesty to buy it by the gallon.
Personally, I’m for switching except for using celsius in public weather reports because the ranges of 10 in Fahrenheit make far more sense when dealing with human perception of temperature. But, it’s easy! We just have to get 315 million people to just simply agree to tossing the “standard” system without being forced to by the government.
Not to mention in the day and age of conservative governments and fiscal challenges (artificially created or otherwise) the cost of re-signing highways, reprogramming information systems, and devising new logistics systems doesn’t seem like something that is going to happen anyway.
No, it’s not a communist plot. It’s an evil conspiracy funded by the street/road sign cartel, which stands to make a metric f*ck-ton of money (to borrow an old Angry Mac Bastards phrase) selling new speed limit signs and “mile markers”.
The sweet irony is that so many conservative Americans wish to stay with an Imperial measure brought to them by the British, who themselves are metricising.
Here in Australia, a former British colony, the change began in 1966 when the dollar was introduced (over the pound), and metricisation was in full swing during the 1970s onwards, being completed in 1988, in time for the bicentary of the first fleet of British soldiers and their prisoners arriving in what is now Sydney (actually Botany Bay) to begin British colonization.
Those measures people struggled with the most were fuel, distance, height and weight, and temperature. Manufacturing was slow to catch on, esp motoring but the transition has been complete and successfully so. No looking back, other than for historians.
The USA has to make sure, esp in aviation which still uses its own historical measures, e.g., knots, not to confuse kg with lb, and deliver us another “Gimli Glider”, should it convert.
Obviously? Can you provide specific examples of how the US is causing problems? Please enlighten us with a list of the egregious problems that are caused when I buy my milk or gas by the gallon.
People will use it if it suits their needs. Conversion for the sake of conversion alone is pointless.
Forcing the issue is a fools errand, as many people, won’
I don’t think it has much to do with which one is superior. But rather which one is being used more around the world.
You can argue that the English language is the same – its a horrible language to learn and pick up due to its weird rules and exceptions. Its very expressive but i would argue there are better language out there. So why do everyone insist on using it? Because pretty much half the globe uses it or thinks everyone uses it. Its the language of business and science – not to mention the most common language used in the internet.
Now – unfortunately for you imperial metric people…. the imperial metric is not that widely known outside of the US’ spehere of influence. You talk to most people in Asia for instance and you might as well use cubits and koku.
doh i meant Imperial Units*
Flip it around: what advantage is there for the US to be using a system that’s different from the one used by the rest of the world? I can’t think of any. The only reason we do it is tradition (or pigheadedness, to put it another way), and a tendency for certain segments of the population to mistrust other countries.
Changing to the other system would be a temporary inconvenience for the current generation, but then it would be done. That said, I have zero confidence that it will ever happen.
Some people don’t want to be bothered with change, regardless of whether it might be good for business.
Since they don’t have to relate to each other, the units are generally easier to use in every day life.
That makes no sense whatsoever. The fact that the metric is interconnected makes it significantly easier to use in everyday life. To wit: “In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade—which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point.”
If you have a centimetre ruler, you automatically have the basic ability to make a container that for a precise amount of fluid and the basis for a system of weights. There is nothing like that interoperability any where in the Imperial system.
I won’t even discuss celsius vs fahrenheit, fahrenheit is superior, hands down. 0F to 100F are the approximate temperatures in which humans live, 0F is really cold, 100F is really hot.
I hope you are kidding with tis nonsense. 0C is not “really cold”, it’s the freezing point of water. 100C is the boiling point of water. 20 to 23C is room temperature.
Basing your temperature system on the phase transition points of water at sea level is just silly
Because water is of so little concern to every human being on the planet? Because 32F as the freezing point of water is somehow obvious?
Yes the unit conversions are way easier
“Way” easier? Try infinitely easier, given that in the imperial system there is no useful connection what so ever between liquid volumes, weights and distances.
Again, I hope you are being sarcastic with this, because it’s exactly the kind of embarrassing nonsense rhetoric that routinely gets trotted out by people fearful of change.
The U.S. military standardized on the metric system long ago. All scientific work in the U.S. is metric.
I remember being impressed in a small unit exchange visit in ’91 that the US military had embraced metric for the precise reason that interoperability between allies was significantly eased.
Agreed. What a ridiculous post. Fahrenheit is just as arbitrary and awkward as the rest of the Imperial system.
I didn’t say “caused problems”. Please stop reading aggression into my posts.
There are two kinds of countries in the world. Those who have repeatedly landed men on the moon, and those that use the metric system.
I enjoyed watching those Liberian moon landings.
It was forced on Canadians. So was medicare. Both were good things.
Nitpicking, but 100 C is the temperature at which water boils at sea level. I lived in the French Alps for many years, at about 1100m, and water boiled there around 97 C.
I’d suggest you actually read my post before replying next time. I never claimed 0C was “really cold” I said it was “kinda cold”.
“If you have a centimetre ruler, you automatically have the basic ability to make a container that for a precise amount of fluid and the basis for a system of weights.”
I can count on zero fingers the precise number of times I’ve had any desire to do anything remotely close to this. Not to mention, it’s only true at standard temperature and pressure. Do you know what I do when I need a container for a precise amount of fluid? I go to my kitchen cabinet and grab one.
All of that is completely beside the point, I agree with you that the benefits of metric outweigh the costs (except for temperature). But saying metric is better in all ways is just bullshit. US customary has its benefits too, but the unit conversions are terrible. Temperature has no unit conversions to worry about, and I prefer a system calibrated to the temperatures I experience on an annual basis. I’ll give you that the freezing point of water has some relevance, as it makes a major change in weather, but the boiling point is useless. You might as well base your system around the phase transition points of O2, a molecule which I’d argue is infinitely more important to humans than H2O.
Technically US customary units. Imperial units, as used in Britain are slightly different. An imperial pint is 20 ounces, while a US customary pint is 16 fluid ounces (and imperial ounces and US ounces are slightly different too).
My vote is for dozenal, like decimal, but with twelve parts. That way you get the best of both systems. Everything rounds to zero, yet you can divide dozenal evenly in 4 different ways. Rather then decimal which only allows even divisions in two different ways. If only we were born with 12 fingers instead of 10, we’d be a far more efficient species.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal
Niles did say that “it’s there where it needs to be.” But you mocked him anyway because mockery is more important than careful reading.
If the “affect” doesn’t cause problems, then the “affect” is isn’t worth discussing.
Try re-reading my original post. I said the US uses the metric system where it’s needed. Changing miles and gallons to km and liters internally will not help “business”.
Try re-reading my original post. I said the US uses the metric system where it’s needed.
Nothing to flip around.
Yes! You go wild if you don’t find a McDonalds when you land in Europe to buy your Quarter Pounder Burger and your huge 32 or better 44 fl oz. Diet Coke.
If everything were standardized worldwide electrical plugs, voltages, htz , TV standards, American size tubes, screws, EuropeaN…etc… Are only artificially imposed barrier to free trade… We all, the people, pay the toll in the price due to less efficient manufacturing, more engineering, more processes optimization of components, certifications by different regulating bodies.
The smaller runs, less economies of scale, higher cost. The more complex the processes, the number of models to comply and administrative certifications to comply with local regulations, the higher overhead, support and warranty cost. The lower the global volume of each product (and the impossibility to have a rationalized logistics due to product differences to meet demand shifts, the more slack that has build inefficient and costly inventories. The artificially capped global competition, the lower the supply and fewer providers … And for a given demand a higher price will be asked and less innovation in products, production, processes, design and sales.
And who pays all that shitty business, you, me and everyone else… It’s the hidden tax of proteccionism.
I was hoping they would imply raise the speed limit to “100” or more 😀
In agreement here. US citizens, please sign the petition here and let’s get this above 150, and then more intermediate goals in the future.
WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Lead Congress to pass legislation adopting the metric system, improving trade, science, education and the economy.
http://wh.gov/iYvFW