The metric system vs. the US

[campbellcj]

I have no idea why this question popped into my head, but after all, this is the OT board.

Has the US completely given up on ever converting to the "international" measurement system, or what?

Discuss, or not, I don't actually care that much but since a large portion of my job is related to tracking of measurements, I am mildly curious

[Don 944 LA]

no, we are " special "

we will continue to follow the world ( one of these days )

I prefer the metric ..

1 chicken = 2 pigs - 2 rabbits ( only on thursday )

how many Oz in a rabbit again ??

[masraum]

Don't forget, we aren't the only ones. England uses miles and pounds too. Some guy in England got fined a large amount because he was still selling fruit by the pound, but since England is in the EU they are supposed to sell by the kg. (if I remember the story correctly)

Yep, I don't think we are going to change anytime soon. Most people are just barely smart enough to get the measurements that we already have without having to learn a new system even though it's actually easier.

[Hugh R]

Try doing chemistry without the metric system. Its probably just about impossible. Lets see, what's the molecular weight of water in ounces?

[FrayAdjacent911]

I think the Metric system has great merits, but tradition is a powerful force. I'm sure most of us could get used to the idea of kilometers instead of miles, but we'd still be doing the conversions in our head!

[hardflex]

quick, how many times does a 30cm tire rotate per KM.

now, how many times does a 22inch diamter tire rotate per mile.....

[alf]

Metric is so much easier to use and makes a lot more sense than imperial measurements.

I grew up in a metric country and could figure out most conversions in my head when i was in the second grade. When i worked in a grocery store after moving the the US, i was frequently asked to help convert oz/quart/gallon etc for folks that obviously grew up in the US.



alf

[Cdnone1]

Who here doesn't own a complete set of tools in both?
steve

[Rob Channell]

Yeah, just this week we were using feet, meters, degrees, radians, feet per second, knots, meters per second, and miles per hour ............... Some people don't want to change. I am OK either way, but would prefer to pick a reference and stay with it.

Several years back we wrote a document we thought nobody would ever read for some Spacelab data acquisition software. We added FPF to the acronyms list just for fun. Nobody noticed it.

It stood for Furlongs per Fortnight, a measurement of distance over time (speed).

[imcarthur]

As for conversion time for a population:

Canada went metric in the early 70s. Adults my age + or - were schooled non-metric but we shop with it, drive it & feel it (temps). We still convert, but are getting better at actually using it. It depends what you need all of the time.

Our children are metric. When we mention miles or Fahrenheit now, they look at us blankly & start talking about dinosaurs.

Ian

[Dantilla]

Jimmy Carter formed a department of metric something or other to convert the U S to the metric system.

A few years later (After seeing no progress), Ronald Reagan said thank you very much for your effort, but you're no longer needed.

[pwd72s]

Other than having to buy 2 sets of tools, I don't much care one way or the other...metric should be easier, since everything divides by 10...but hey, 3/4" and 19mm are close enough for those wrenches to swap.

[FrayAdjacent911]

Rob, I bet not many people even know what a fortnight is.

But how long is a furlong? hehehe

[Rob Channell]

Well, since you asked......... I had to look it up because I had forgotten myself. Just don't use it very often. I wonder how hard it would be to get a speedometer recalibrated for this. Top speed would be close to 400,000 for me. Woohoo. I have gotten pretty good at kph to mph conversions with my Euro speedometer so I guess I'd get used to it eventually.

Cut my pizza in 6 pieces. I'm not hungry enough for 8. Man, I'm such a geek.

Wikipedia is great.
"An absurd unit of speed often misquoted is the furlong per fortnight, which converts to:

0.0001663095 metre per second (in SI units)
0.0005456349 feet per second (in Imperial units)
Thus:
a car travelling at 60 km/h (37 mph) is travelling at a speed of 100,214.7 furlongs per fortnight;
a Boeing 737 cruising at 420 knots or 216.2 m/s (i.e. typical 0.8 Mach cruise) is travelling at 1,300,013.7 furlongs per fortnight;
one furlong per fortnight is 0.166 millimetres per second, which would be barely noticeable to the naked eye.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furlong""


Furlong - equivalent to 660 feet, 220 yards, 1/8 mile, or 201.168 meters

Fortnight - 2 weeks or 14 days. Funny enough the wikipedia entry says that the Vax VMS operating system actually had some parameter specified in microfortnights (one millionth of a fortnight, or approximately 1.2096 seconds).

[FrayAdjacent911]

Yeah, I googled 'furlong' and found it to be a horseracing term for 220 yards.

[Robert Coats]

I understand there is still a very small part of the Federal Government tasked with the conversion (2 people) and they both gave blank stares when asked by a reporter, "How tall are you....in centimeters?"

[coloradoporsche]

In times of global warming, the metric system works much better, since the temperature rarely climbs over 40 degrees.

On the other hand, the 7/16 wrench really comes in handy when you can't find an 11.

[imcarthur]

Millimeters are a real pain in the butt. They're so friggin' small when you're trying to measure something. Sure you can use centimeters or .something meters or whatever. You just need good glasses I guess.

Of course, the: is that a 32nd line or a 16th . . . oh, it's the 3/4 . . . no, it's the 5/8s . . .

Ian

[Don 944 LA]

here's one for ya :

There are 10 people in the world, those that know binary and those that don't

[oldE]

Don 944: That should read: " There are 10 kinds of people..."

About the UK. They travel in mph, pay for things in pounds and weigh things in grams and kilograms, except for people. If someone asks your weight, you give it to them in stone. I weigh about 14 stone. My wife likes England. She weighs 8!
Les