Hmmmmmmm

[Alex Franke]

I like the imperial units because it's more intuitive to me, but I hope that metric will be just as intuitive to the kids. I always through base 60 measurement systems were cool, actually -- but that's almost completely gone except for in angles and maybe clocks.

So if three men go into a pizza restaurant in a metric country and order a large, and the pizza is round how will the metric system help you divide the pizza evenly? In the USA each gets a third which can simply be written as the fraction1/3 which also just so happens to be the most exact answer.

So it's the pizza lobby that keeps us from going metric... (For kicks I used to request pizzas cut into 5 or 7 slices instead of the standard 6 or 8. The person taking the order would usually just write it down without even thinking. Once it was actually done -- almost perfectly, and still on time!)

[Mr__Bill]

But the real question is, in a proper British Pub do you still order a pint?

You sure do! See here.

Ray

So if I'm not very thirsty I can still get gill of Whisky and a wee drop of water?


Bill

[leehljp]

I was ready for metric long before I came to Japan - or at least thought I was. Now, I can go either way and like the benefits of both - with one exception.

Loring:

L/km is a rate of consumption rather than mileage, so lower is better as opposed to our mileage, where larger is better.

It didn't take me long to adjust to that kilometers/liter because I immediately started noting my liter consumption at gas stations and tracked kilometers since last fill up. Within a year of moving here, I was comfortable with it. However, in my mind (and on paper) I calculated it as KM/L.


The one area of metric that drives me nuts is "wind speed". I can fathom KPH but "meters per second" (MPS) is hard to grasp in a relational scale. IF I were an engineer in "projectile speed" it would probably make sense. The problem with the MetersPS (and sometimes I hear or see CM per second) is it gives the perception of short distances such as projectiles, while "wind" is not generally a short distance phenomena. This is one area in which I believe metric scientists made a poor choice in deciding the terminology/expression in that field.

[JimD]

The primary disadvantage of the U. S. being mixed (we really are not all one way or the other) is for foreign companies wanting to sell things here. I work for a multi-national and we make drawings in both dimensions and use the ones favored by the hourly workers that will make the product. I think the biggest whiners are the companies that want to sell in the U. S. but do not want to deal with our preference for diminsions in inches and feet and volume measurements in pints, quarts, and gallons. I don't see why they cannot do what we do, have both based upon the preference of the consumer.

The biggest pain for switching to metric is some for businesses and some for everybody in the generation where the change occurs. I can understand mils and fractional inches, and inches, and feet, and yards. I have no intuitive sense of metric dimensions. Same way with volume measurements. There is no advantage to me of learning metrics. I can do fractions just fine. Switching to metric so you don't have to learn fractions is silly. You need to know fractions anyway.

I don't really care what the rest of the world uses. I don't see why the U. S. should disadvantage ourselves to make things easier for metric dimension users. Our balance of trade is plenty bad enough already. I buy cars with metric dimensions and I don't care what sort of fasteners are in consumer electronics I buy. But I want my 4x8 sheets and my penny sized nails and my gasoline and milk by the gallon. I want bolts in fractions of an inch if I'm building something. I don't mind having two sets of wrenches and sockets, I already have them. And in a pinch the difference is not so huge you can't mix.

Jim

[herb fellows]

I think we, the US, missed the perfect opportunity to switch to metric when gas went over a dollar a gallon . That was the time to start selling gas by the liter. All those old pumps that could not go over 99.9 could have sold by the liter and everyone and everything else would have fallen in place.

Want to have some fun with people, just use metric measurements, when asked for what kind of mileage you car gets, give it in KPL, or better yet do kilos of gas per hour. Ask at the deli for half a kilo of lunch meat...

But the real question is, in a proper British Pub do you still order a pint?

Bill
over here in the sunshine, waiting for the tsunami

Yes, you do, but it's an Imperial pint which is 20 ozs, not 16. (It's like gettin' 4 ozs of beer for free:-))

[Stytooner]

I do metric okay as well. Not all that difficult to switch to one way or another. Would still need more than a generation to go totally one way or the other for most though.
In the US now, a lot of vehicles come with both metric and SAE bolts and screws. Even some stuff you buy from HF has bolt. Some metric and some SAE.
This means that we have tool sets readily available that include both systems.

It ultimately means that we are prepared to tear anything apart.

"Be Prepared!"

[Richard in Smithville]

At work, our main R&D is in the US. All of our formulas are set in imperial. We package to Canadian standards. Therefore, we mix batches by measurings in pounds, but we package and ship the same material in kilogroms.

I grew up during the time when Canada went metric. I can jump back and forth between systems with no problem. The nice thing about metric is that everything is based on 10. The hardest part is just remembering the names like centi, mili, deci, deca, giga, etc. Also most of these are interchangable whether you are measuring distance, volume, or weight( ie: milimeters, mililiters, or miligrams).

[gjat]

I was thinking about this the other day. A dozen or so years ago, the Dept of Transportation tried to go Metric and gave up after 5 or 6 years. I got used to it and don't really have a problem. One of the advantages we have in roadway construction is most everything is measured in tenths, whether it's scaled plans or mile marker. We use Engineer scales that are 10', 20', 30', 40', or 50' per inch. I was thinking of buying a couple of yardsticks and tapemeasures measured in tenths and using them in the shop. I have a 12" scale and one of the folding rulers that have tenths of inches on the back but a tape measure would be the bomb.

[jackellis]

I don't have a good feel for metric measures either, but metric math is simpler. If I have to think metric for whatever reason, I usually have rules of thumb for distance, speed and weight. A cubic meter, for example, is around 30 cubic feet, and a meter is about 1.1 yards. My airplane weighs about 1400 kilos (3100 pounds). The airplane holds about 380 liters of fuel (89 gallons usable). Some of the energy measurements (joules) are another matter. Still don't have those figured out.

Going metric won't have much impact on our balance of trade. Foreign firms already make many products in imperial units specifically for the US market, while US firms make products in metric units for foreign markets.

We'll eventually make the conversion, though probably not until after I start making fertilizer.

[gjat]

We'll eventually make the conversion, though probably not until after I start making fertilizer.

Well I've heard of people thinking their poop doesn't stink, but I think your self esteem is WAY out of line!

[LCHIEN]

why metrification failed or has it?

There was once a big push to go metric in the US.
Reasons were to become competitive in increasingly global markets and to standardize with the rest of the world.

there was a lot of teaching of metrics but mostly to the younger generations in school. Mostly the older people were comfortable with a pound of potatoes and wanted nothing to do with metric.

But now we buy cars with metric engines and metric fasteners, and a lot of imported appliances really aren't all that servicable all come with metric fasteners.

Odometers and food packages and a host of other things are marked with dual markings. We all read the one we want to.

medicine, electronics, chemistry, physics and mechanical engineering are mostly all done in metric systems. THe civil engineering and architectures are mixed. Not sure about aerospace but wouldn't be surprised if Boeing planes were done in Metric, too.

The households can't afford and don't need to change over all at once so
it has stalled and will gradually come about as products become more metric. Industry already has become metrified, esp. those with international markets. Todays homeowners are the kids that got metric schooling... so they're more familiar with it than the ones 20 years ago, less resistance.

I suspect road signs will be one of the last vestiages of imperial units. I think in Canada and some places, miles are still adorning and will continue to adorn road signs for another generation or two...

[pelligrini]

I have a 12" scale and one of the folding rulers that have tenths of inches on the back but a tape measure would be the bomb.

Yes and no, When I worked for a surveyor some time ago we had a few combination tapes. Quite often, somebody would be reading numbers off the wrong side and we'd have to pull tape over everything again.

[Stytooner]

Well, I am 6'5" tall in US and only 1.97 meters in metric. To me I sound a little taller in US measurements.

[LCHIEN]

my big education in metric came early in my freshman year in college physics.
We made some lab measurement where we launched a ball from a ramp and tried to calculate the dynamic and kinetic energy of the system.
We (me and my hotshot lab partner) carefully measured the travel of the ball and the metric scale said like 86 cm, so we marked it down repeatedly on the multiple measurements we took. We blew out of the lab early that day thinking what a piece of cake this college physics was.

All the data turned out to be crap, nothing matched up. so we wrote up the lab best we could and concluded physics didn't work.

The professor gave us a D- or something and made a notation that our "meter" stick was really two meters long and the 86 marking on the second meter meant 186 centimeters total. Kinda like looking on your shop tape measure and seeing 9" but it was really 2'9". So I don't know how many other people made the same mistake but it sure took some cockiness off me quickly.

That's where i got a notion that i should really have a feel for what a meter or 100 cm looked like - not that I didn't already know that a meter was just over 3 ft, but it dodn't occur to me to do a sanity check and think about what the numbers meant at the time. Also it was pounded into me head at the time that I should really try and do at least some of the calcs before i leave an experimental setup... never to be repeated (at least for me).

[crokett]

I'd love to be able to divide inches and feet into 10ths. For instance, this room I am building is 168" wide ~ 426CM or 4.26M. The CM -> M conversion is much easier than the inch to feet.