Should the USA go metric?

[mrfox]

A lot of the old imperial units were done in base 12 for easy division in to 2s, 3s, and 4s. Good enough for a pre-industrial civilization where things just don't happen on large scales. As soon as you move beyond that it gets into trouble quick.

[kurja]

Quick, which weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?

Quick, does 14 gauge wire fit through a 1/13" opening?

Some time ago I was using metal wires to do something in my free time and damn nearly threw a tantrum over those wire size measures! Hint - answer to the above depends on if you're English or American

[musicpenguin]

I will never let the communists take my freedom measurement.

[Camacha]

I will never let the communists take my freedom measurement.

Do not forget Muslims, they are mostly metric too.

[Nibb31]

The meter was originally based on one ten-millionth of the length of the earth's meridian along a quadrant.

The great

The rest of the metric derives from the meter, which makes conversions easy:

- A metric ton is the weight on one cubic meter of water.

- A liter is the volume of one kilogram of water.

- 0 to 100°C is the scale of water freezing to water boiling.

- Newtons, pascals, joules, sieverts, etc... are all derived from those basic physical measurement.

The strength of the metric system isn't so much in the conversion between grams and kilograms and meters and kilometers. It's also so much easier to convert weights into liquid volumes (which is actually damn useful for cooking or baking cakes) or to convert newtons into joules or to calculate pressures, speeds or other values.

And yes, people from outside America can eyeball meters as easily as an American can eyeball yards or feet. As a person used to the metric system, I personally can't make any sense of a person's heights expressed in feet and inches or temperatures in fahrenheit. I can more easily visualize a hectare as a square of 100x100 meters (or as 100 10x10 meter squares) than an acre in feet or yards or miles.

Edited June 10, 2015 by Nibb31

[Pipcard]

Orbiter (the simulator) helped me to get used to metric measurements of distance.

[kerbiloid]

Brief result of the poll: the space simulator forum has six times more fanpersons of science fiction than fanpersons of medieval fantasy.

[steve_v]

Quick, does 14 gauge wire fit through a 1/13" opening?

In my day job, I find this kind of irrationality especially infuriating. I mean, cool, wire cross-section has its own unit of measurement... But as it is a cross section why not use the same units as everything else? You know, so basic math can answer that question without converting any specialised units, or trying to figure out where the equipment was made.

While imperial units can be convenient - I often use feet and inches in common discussion - for science, engineering, finance, etc. it's more efficient to use a common base and standardised units.

So yeah, go metric. Be nice if we could all decide on common voltages and colour codes too, but that'll never happen.

[Dunbaratu]

Weeelllll, the whole "cups" thing is actually something where I can see the sense in the American system. The logic behind it is that the recipe will essentially give you a ratio, instead of an absolute measurement. So long as you use the same cup to measure your flour, sugar, milk, etc, the ratio is preserved, and the recipe should stay the same. Of course, eggs complicate this, and they go and ruin the whole thing by measuring butter in "sticks" instead of by volume, but the basic principle is reasonably sound, especially as I believe it was developed before kitchen scales were particularly widespread or easy to use.

This is false. A cup is not a generic measure of "whatever cup size you feel like as long as you're consistent". It's exactly 1/4 of a quart, or 1/2 of a pint, or 1/16 of a gallon.

[Commander Jebidiah]

@Shpaget

The US imperial system of measurement is a lot less arbitrary than you think. Yes, it is a mess of strange units and odd conversion factors, but there's unique units of measurement for everything from crops to liquor. Even an absolute temperature scale (Rankine). In my opinion, imperial units make far prettier and easier to understand numbers than metric.

Also, just because most of the world measures their roads in km doesn't mean they've fully embraced the metric system. For example, aircraft the world over (except China AFAIK) measure speed and altitude in knots and feet.

Really?

1 kilometer = 1,000 meters

1 mile = 1,609 meters

Which one is easier?

Exqmple question;

1) You need to travel 50 km, how many meters do you need to travel?

2) You need to travel 50 miles, how many meters do you need to travel?

Which one did you find out fastest.

[Albert VDS]

The only reason not to is the time and money that needs to put into converting a country with a population of 317+ million people.

[Shpaget]

The only reason not to is the time and money that needs to put into converting a country with a population of 317+ million people.

India did it.

[HafCoJoe]

I vote yes, but the reality is that no one has the money to replace every single mile marker, speed limit pole, road sign, ruler, instruction booklet, Ikea product (worth it's own category), and all the other things in America that use Imperial.

*shudders*

[Shpaget]

It doesn't have to come overnight. Pass the legislation that new products need to have metric designation and over the next few months every product will be labeled in metric. You can allow manufacturers to use up their existing stock of imperial packaging. The cost is insignificant.

Same with road signs. When they get worn out and are replaced, have them in dual system. In a few years all will be in dual markings. Next time they get worn out you can reduce the size of imperial print and increase the metric. In ten years, they will again need replacement. You can now have metric only. There is a very marginal cost difference.

[Albert VDS]

India did it.

Oh, I'm not saying that America shouldn't go metric, but that that's the only reason that could hold them back.

There are enough reasons why they should do it.

[prophet_01]

Who says that the metric system has to replace anything? In germany we still use equivalent measurements to a cup and so on. Most don't have any idea how much this might be in ml or g and nobody cares, it's just easyer to bake a cake like that. I've also seen that units like 'morgen' or 'hektar' are still used when it comes to agriculture and the metric system has been used here for a rly long time. If a unit rly works better for certain things it will be used no matter what the goverment says.

But for international trade 2 systems of measurement are a problem. The imperial system is too late to the party to become the reference at this point. I doubt that the US will keep it forever. It's just a matter of time till the majority will see the disadvantages that 2 seperate systems have in a global world. Free trade agreements are likely to speed things up as anyone involved will go metric sooner or later anyway. It's not even that the imperial units are that bad, it's that there is a benefit in using a single system.

Edited June 10, 2015 by prophet_01

[Nibb31]

I vote yes, but the reality is that no one has the money to replace every single mile marker, speed limit pole, road sign, ruler, instruction booklet, Ikea product (worth it's own category), and all the other things in America that use Imperial.

*shudders*

Ikea (and pretty much every company in the world) probably spends millions to convert their catalog to imperial just for the US market. The current situation of using special units for a single country probably costs more over a decade than an overnight conversion would.

The entire Euro zone (300 million people) converted from their local currencies to the Euro. Several countries converted from left-hand driving to right-hand driving overnight without too much trouble. Canada and Australia converted to metric in the 70s with no huge adverse effects. It really isn't that hard.

[peadar1987]

This is false. A cup is not a generic measure of "whatever cup size you feel like as long as you're consistent". It's exactly 1/4 of a quart, or 1/2 of a pint, or 1/16 of a gallon.

Which is not the rationale behind the system, it's something that has been applied to it later (which is stupid, because as soon as you start doing that, you're infinitely better off just using metric)

[Albert VDS]

Who says that the metric system has to replace anything? In germany we still use equivalent measurements to a cup and so on. Most don't have any idea how much this might be in ml or g and nobody cares, it's just easyer to bake a cake like that. I've also seen that units like 'morgen' or 'hektar' are still used when it comes to agriculture and the metric system has been used here for a rly long time. If a unit rly works better for certain things it will be used no matter what the goverment says.

A "hektar", or hectare in English, is a metric unit of 100m x 100m.

About the cup thing: Cooking is not a precise thing.

Sure some recipes call for it to be precise, but sometimes you need a bit more water to get to the right consistency in your dough.

You can use the same measurement for, let's say, your car. "Just fill 'r up with 30 cups of gasoline" just doesn't work.

Because every ones cup is different. Now if you want it to be the same cup you define it by it's capacity, either in cubic meters or liters.

[JoCRaM]

This is false. A cup is not a generic measure of "whatever cup size you feel like as long as you're consistent". It's exactly 1/4 of a quart, or 1/2 of a pint, or 1/16 of a gallon.

The cup currently used in the United States for nutrition labelling is defined in United States law as 240 ml.

1 U.S. "legal" cup = 240 millilitres

= 16 international tablespoons

= 12 Australian tablespoons

≈ 8.12 U.S. customary fluid ounces

≈ 8.45 imperial fluid ounces

To add to the confusion, as I'm British, there are 2.4 American cups to my pint, and 2.27 European.

[DestinyPlayer]

Personally, I would be very happy if all the units of measurement were standardised across the world. Not even because of the metric/imperial system, mostly because of all the different currencies with all the different sizes. As in, 1 dollar is 54,26 roubles, 0,89 euros and 0,65 pounds, it changes all the time, and even then it's not constant transferring from one to the other, so you either have to look out for the worldly changes continuously, or depend on calculators.

Yes, I know, it's pretty much impossible to standardise currency, but a person can dream of a fictional time when you won't have to google exactly how much is that in that to correctly buy a plank from outside of your country and not get screwed over...

Edited June 10, 2015 by DestinyPlayer

[prophet_01]

Oh look at that^^ I looked it up and it rly matches with hectre. Eitherway it's also a unit that is usually used in the same system as 'Morgen', 'Tagewerk' (0,333 hectre) and 'Joch' (varies a lot, but roughly 0,5 hectre). It's rly messi tbh and those all vary a lot in different regions...

Of course you don't use it for gasoline or anything else than cooking. That's the point I was trying to make. You don't need to adapt an entire systen to the needs of cooking. You don't even need numbers for that.

[magnemoe]

Quick, does 14 gauge wire fit through a 1/13" opening?

Some time ago I was using metal wires to do something in my free time and damn nearly threw a tantrum over those wire size measures! Hint - answer to the above depends on if you're English or American

Just looked it up, pretty insane, 0 gauge is around 12 mm, 1 is the same wire sent trough the draw plate 1, 10 is 10 times.

And I thought shotgun calibers was bizarre, if I remember correctly its based on how many round bullets you could make of one pound of lead. Caliber 16 is smaller than 12.

Now this does not matter much for shells or other type of ammunition as caliber 12 shotgun shells has a lot of other requirements like length how the lip on the back is shaped but also stuff like maximum camber pressure.

[PakledHostage]

Now this does not matter much for shells or other type of ammunition as caliber 12 shotgun shells has a lot of other requirements like length how the lip on the back is shaped but also stuff like maximum camber pressure.

But I can eyeball a shotgun shell and know if it is right for my gun, so clearly it is a natural unit... I don't need no hippies or commies tellin' me I should use a different unit.

[Virtualgenius]

Same could be said for left and right hand drive cars one system would be far better