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Should the USA go metric?


Do you think the USA should go metric?  

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  1. 1. Do you think the USA should go metric?



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While we are at it, abolishing the imperial system would mean we could go back to measuring a rocket's efficiency as their Vexhaust, and still have an international standard for rocket efficiency, only people wouldn't get weirded out by the rocket equation and Isp half as much.

Rune. We should put the gasoline prices in €/Celemín in Spain just for the American tourists... and the area of rented flats for exchange students, in plain Celemines. That would teach them!

*Celemín is a real spanish traditional unit of masurement. Look it up, it's quite crazy!

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The USA is already legally metric. We just prefer to send our astronauts to the Moon with non-Metric spaceships so you can't copy how awesome we are.

ROFL. Hey all, get on google and type 'Merica! and review the image results for a good laugh.

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The USA is already legally metric. We just prefer to send our astronauts to the Moon with non-Metric spaceships so you can't copy how awesome we are.

That would be funny if it weren't so sad.

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For example, aircraft the world over (except China AFAIK) measure speed and altitude in knots and feet.

Russians use metric system in aviation, only seamen use knots/nautical miles.

Edited by cicatrix
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And now, the Holy Hand Grenade and off topic: What's the deal with the short system where one billion is 1000^3, a trillion is 1000^4, a quadrillion is 1000^5 and so on.

Does it make more sense or as much sense as the long system where a billion is 1,000,000^2, a trillion is 1,000,000^3, a quadrillion is 1,000,000^4 and so on?

(sorry, guys, couldn't help myself :) carry on)

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With the passage of the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 and the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, the U.S. has officially adopted the metric system as it's preferred system of weights and measures. source: http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/upload/1136a.pdf. However, the conversion from the U.S. Imperial system to the metric system is voluntary. So we are not going to see road signs in Kilometers soon.

The problem with the adoption of the metric system is one of conversion, people here want to convert metric to imperial, so math, which a good portion of the population does not understand and therefore "hates". I remember elementary school in the 70's and learning metric conversion, why? It's much easier once you accept that a meter is "this long" and go from there.

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That avatar is your real picture? it will explain a lot.. :)

Is that the best you can do?

And now, the Holy Hand Grenade and off topic: What's the deal with the short system where one billion is 1000^3, a trillion is 1000^4, a quadrillion is 1000^5 and so on.

Does it make more sense or as much sense as the long system where a billion is 1,000,000^2, a trillion is 1,000,000^3, a quadrillion is 1,000,000^4 and so on?

(sorry, guys, couldn't help myself :) carry on)

Scientific notation. Science!

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The USA is already legally metric. We just prefer to send our astronauts to the Moon with non-Metric spaceships so you can't copy how awesome we are.

The apollo guidance computer was programmed in metric, and did conversions for the display

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*snip*

Scientific notation. Science!

Thankfully for science, you're right :)

Back on topic: As an "outsider" (Norwegian) looking in, it shouldn't matter which one you use, metric or imperial, in your daily life. In science and technology however, it can become a liability too easy. NASA lost one of their Mars probes because one team used imperial, another team used metric. Several million dollars loss.

I'm wondering: Is converting something they teach early on in schools in the US or is it something most will encounter in higher level edu (post high school) and how would "most" pupils/students rate the difficulty, in lack of a better word, of converting back and forth without sweating it?

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Thankfully for science, you're right :)

Back on topic: As an "outsider" (Norwegian) looking in, it shouldn't matter which one you use, metric or imperial, in your daily life. In science and technology however, it can become a liability too easy. NASA lost one of their Mars probes because one team used imperial, another team used metric. Several million dollars loss.

I'm wondering: Is converting something they teach early on in schools in the US or is it something most will encounter in higher level edu (post high school) and how would "most" pupils/students rate the difficulty, in lack of a better word, of converting back and forth without sweating it?

In my opinion, to answer your question regarding how the students would rate the difficulty of conversion, most students would see it as an easy task, but would of course be concerned with the extra time and opportunity for error emergent in such conversions. I'm not sure if full fledged adoption would affect students more before or after high school. My guess would be before since they may still be struggling to grasp basic concepts in those phases.

Anyway, I went and did some googling about the subject matter. If I am to believe this:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/why-us-not-on-metric-system.htm

then the history of this issue is a lot more complex than I realized. 370 million dollars to convert the space shuttle fully to metric? Wow. And apparently it's a matter of congress mandating it rather than having it just be voluntary. C'mon congress, do yo thang.

Edited by MunGazer
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Russians use metric system in aviation, only seamen use knots/nautical miles.

Aviation, at least in the US, is a disaster of is that statute miles or nautical miles. Many older aircraft, experimental, and some LSA's use statute miles for airspeed. Everyone else uses nautical miles for airspeed and modern electronic flight bag programs like foreflight give distances in nautical miles. Visibility is statute miles though, never understood why.

Beyond that, I might need to explain myself a little better. I have my bachelors in aerospace engineering, and throughout college received the experience of doing the same math with both metric and imperial units on a regular basis. This is because the aerospace industry is split between metric and standard. Metric conversion factors are always a power of 10, but somewhat difficult to remember exactly what. Also, Metric units are almost always too small or large to be truly useful and you end up living the life of scientific notation. Imperial units have wacky conversion factors that while more difficult to learn tend to stand out. For the size of imperial units, odds are someone created a unit that fits the need making numbers that are easily represented without scientific notation.

While I am not against converting to the metric system, I find it highly overrated and not worth the effort.

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Thankfully for science, you're right :)

Back on topic: As an "outsider" (Norwegian) looking in, it shouldn't matter which one you use, metric or imperial, in your daily life. In science and technology however, it can become a liability too easy. NASA lost one of their Mars probes because one team used imperial, another team used metric. Several million dollars loss.

I'm wondering: Is converting something they teach early on in schools in the US or is it something most will encounter in higher level edu (post high school) and how would "most" pupils/students rate the difficulty, in lack of a better word, of converting back and forth without sweating it?

Back in my day in school, you were taught both, and how to convert. Conversions were done by hand/formula, as we didn't have calculators or computers. Today, I'm not sure what they teach... maybe social liberalism and revisionist history - or so it seems.

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It may be worth noting that the u.s. military appeared to be mostly metric as I discovered during my time in the army. At basic training, young soldiers zero their rifles on a 25 meter zero range. Military maps are typically 1:50,000 scale with grid lines that are 1 kilometer apart. Milliradians "mils" are often used for precise measurements of angle in sniping, artillery, and surveillance.

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