7 ms·

Now let's just cross fingers and hope the US will adopt the metric system

bogomipz 10y ago
Yeah there is no good reason why the US hasn't. Common usage shows that Americans have no issues adopting the metric system, just very selectively. Americans currently enjoy: 1 Liter and 2 Liter bottles of Coke Muscle cars with engines that are specified in liters 5K and 10K races drug prescriptions in which doses are specified in milligrams 750 ML bottles of booze Monthly power bills that are specified in Killowatt hours
- gumby 10y ago
  > Common usage shows that Americans have no issues adopting the metric system, just very selectively. Americans currently enjoy:... > Monthly power bills that are specified in Killowatt hours Kilowatt-hours are not SI, the metrics unit is the Joule (or MJ in the case of your power bill). However the US joined the Metric convention in 1878 and has used the internationally standardized metric inch of precisely 2.54 mm since 1959 (except, I believe, for surveying) Plenty of so-called "metric" countries continue to use customary units such as miles (UK) though those are based on the metric inch. I still hear people talk about their weight in stone. Germany uses a metricised pound (Pfund) of 500 g. Japan still commonly uses the tsubo (坪) for land. India also uses a variety of official land measurements, and also doesn't break its numbers symmetrically into blocks of 10^3 (preferring lakhs and crores). etc etc I am not a fan of the metric system in daily use (though I use Celsius). For work I have used the official systems MKS and (US) Imperial, but have also used cgs and imperial imperial. For building a staircase, making the riser a convenient 2/3 of a foot is physiologically ideal. If there is a god it was cruel for giving us five digits on each hand. Far better would have been one fewer or, even better, a thumb on the other side.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    Well feet is used almost exclusively in commercial aviation to specify altitude. This is true around the globe, the only exception to this being Russia and China.
  - Symbiote 10y ago
    A "metric pound" of 500g is an argument in favour of metrication. Pfund is just a special name for 500g. It's not very common anyway, probably following a reduction in people buying food by weight from markets. 2/3 foot is 203mm. You wouldn't notice any difference with stairs of 200mm.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  So lets see I presented 6 real-life humorous observations and was downvoted? Did someone interpret this as anti-American? This was meant meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Please look at the items in the list - it's drugs, booze, sports cars and junk food! Why is there so little for a sense of humor on HN? Must everything be so serious? The main discussion is about a country changing its calendar Gregorian in the year 2017 after all, jeez.
- planteen 10y ago
  Were power bills at some point sent in units of horsepower hours?
blakeyrat 10y ago
The US has adopted the metric system just as completely as, say, the UK has. (Watch UK television and look for how many times the script will say "miles" or "pints" or "pounds" for weight or even better, "stone"!) The UK in daily use has as many imperial measurements left as the US does. Americans are just more honest with ourselves about it.
- to3m 10y ago
  Whereabouts in the UK do you live? This isn't at all my experience... Old people might still commonly use Imperial gallons, Imperial pints, pounds, Fahrenheit, inches, and so on, but the cutoff age for this is rising. I'm 39 and I don't routinely use these. I use some context-specific Imperial units: feet (people), stone (people), Imperial pints (beer), miles per Imperial gallon (car fuel economy). Miles are pervasive, and will probably never disappear. (Miles per Imperial gallon is obviously stupid - but it will probably become outmoded before it's changed.) I bet there are young people that don't use feet or stone. If you don't drink beer, you won't encounter pints very often. (Family-sized milk containers come measures in litres.)
  - JdeBP 10y ago
    Isn't your point that there are now old people that don't use feet or stone? (-:
- jeffwass 10y ago
  Stone is the big one where the UK 'beats' the USA. Never heard that one used in America. Though our pints are different sizes too.
- UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
  > The US has adopted the metric system just as completely as, say, the UK has. I've lived in both, that's inaccurate. The UK is mostly metric with exceptions (MpH, pints, pounds & stone for "people weight") but in all other ways it is metric, cooking is in metric (grams, liters/milliliters), parts are in metric, temperature is in metric (centigrade), and most measurements are metric (metres, cm, mm, etc). It is a metric country with a few leftovers. The US conversely is imperial with exceptions. Meaning most "day to day" activities are in imperial units with certain industries (like science) and activities (?) being metric. But if you go buy a cookbook in a US bookstore then good luck finding a metric one unless it is an international cookbook (it will be in "spoons" "cups" "ounces" and so on). You buy a new cookbook in the UK and it is almost certainly metric unless it is from a used book store. So, no, the UK has adopted metric much more thoroughly than the US. To use made up percentages, the UK is 65% metric, the US is 20% metric. Again, I've lived in both for a decent chunk of my life.
devy 10y ago
It's astonishing to me that I discovered the other day that Fahrenheit is only used by United States, its territories and associated states (all served by the U.S. National Weather Service), and 3 other small Caribbean countries. All other countries in the world are using Celsius scale from metric systems.[1] Can someone shed some lights why is that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#Usage
- wayn3 10y ago
  Because water is arguably the most important substance to mankind. In the celsius system (and at standard pressure and bhawawa please point out technicalities) - water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C. That's pretty simple to remember and makes actual sense. In fahrenheit, body temperature was supposed to be 100°F but its not because when the guy measured his temperature, he had a fever. Congrats dude. First strike. It freezes at around 30°F but not quite. The scale just doesn't make sense for any intuitive application. If you think that body temperature should determine the scale of temperature measurements, think about how often you need to know your body temperature vs. how often you need to know how hot it is outside. "is it tornado season? nah, its only about 0.7 body temperatures outside". Besides, to anchor a scale, you need 2 reference points. Not just one. Fahrenheit is just a turd. On top of that, Celsius scales just like Kelvin. 0 Kelvin is the point of absolute zero. The point of "No temperature" - to keep things simple. 0°C is 273.15K and 100°C is 373.15K - which means that Celsius is essentially Kelvin (the unit that makes scientific sense) adjusted to a level that makes sense for common man applications. That explains why everyone is using Celsius. Nobody can tell you why the US does not. Its clearly because they are some very special snowflake. Same reason they use retarded units like inches, feet, yards, miles, ounces and pounds. Metric systems be damned.
  - stan_rogers 10y ago
    The body temperature the Fahrenheit scale was made to work at was axillary (armpit) temperature, at 96°. That's a multiple of 32°, and both are evenly divisible by 16, 8, 4, and 2, making marking of the scale easy. Both are common temperatures that a person would be likely to experience (whereas 100°C is something you'd hope not to experience, but rather to observe). That leaves zero as "frikkin' cold" by most European standards. It's a perfectly reasonable scale if you're not obsessed with base-10 values.

Yeah there is no good reason why the US hasn't. Common usage shows that Americans have no issues adopting the metric system, just very selectively. Americans currently enjoy: 1 Liter and 2 Liter bottles of Coke Muscle cars with engines that are specified in liters 5K and 10K races drug prescriptions in which doses are specified in milligrams 750 ML bottles of booze Monthly power bills that are specified in Killowatt hours

gumby 10y ago
> Common usage shows that Americans have no issues adopting the metric system, just very selectively. Americans currently enjoy:... > Monthly power bills that are specified in Killowatt hours Kilowatt-hours are not SI, the metrics unit is the Joule (or MJ in the case of your power bill). However the US joined the Metric convention in 1878 and has used the internationally standardized metric inch of precisely 2.54 mm since 1959 (except, I believe, for surveying) Plenty of so-called "metric" countries continue to use customary units such as miles (UK) though those are based on the metric inch. I still hear people talk about their weight in stone. Germany uses a metricised pound (Pfund) of 500 g. Japan still commonly uses the tsubo (坪) for land. India also uses a variety of official land measurements, and also doesn't break its numbers symmetrically into blocks of 10^3 (preferring lakhs and crores). etc etc I am not a fan of the metric system in daily use (though I use Celsius). For work I have used the official systems MKS and (US) Imperial, but have also used cgs and imperial imperial. For building a staircase, making the riser a convenient 2/3 of a foot is physiologically ideal. If there is a god it was cruel for giving us five digits on each hand. Far better would have been one fewer or, even better, a thumb on the other side.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  Well feet is used almost exclusively in commercial aviation to specify altitude. This is true around the globe, the only exception to this being Russia and China.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  A "metric pound" of 500g is an argument in favour of metrication. Pfund is just a special name for 500g. It's not very common anyway, probably following a reduction in people buying food by weight from markets. 2/3 foot is 203mm. You wouldn't notice any difference with stairs of 200mm.
bogomipz 10y ago
So lets see I presented 6 real-life humorous observations and was downvoted? Did someone interpret this as anti-American? This was meant meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Please look at the items in the list - it's drugs, booze, sports cars and junk food! Why is there so little for a sense of humor on HN? Must everything be so serious? The main discussion is about a country changing its calendar Gregorian in the year 2017 after all, jeez.
planteen 10y ago
Were power bills at some point sent in units of horsepower hours?

blakeyrat 10y ago

The US has adopted the metric system just as completely as, say, the UK has. (Watch UK television and look for how many times the script will say "miles" or "pints" or "pounds" for weight or even better, "stone"!) The UK in daily use has as many imperial measurements left as the US does. Americans are just more honest with ourselves about it.

to3m 10y ago
Whereabouts in the UK do you live? This isn't at all my experience... Old people might still commonly use Imperial gallons, Imperial pints, pounds, Fahrenheit, inches, and so on, but the cutoff age for this is rising. I'm 39 and I don't routinely use these. I use some context-specific Imperial units: feet (people), stone (people), Imperial pints (beer), miles per Imperial gallon (car fuel economy). Miles are pervasive, and will probably never disappear. (Miles per Imperial gallon is obviously stupid - but it will probably become outmoded before it's changed.) I bet there are young people that don't use feet or stone. If you don't drink beer, you won't encounter pints very often. (Family-sized milk containers come measures in litres.)
- JdeBP 10y ago
  Isn't your point that there are now old people that don't use feet or stone? (-:
jeffwass 10y ago
Stone is the big one where the UK 'beats' the USA. Never heard that one used in America. Though our pints are different sizes too.
UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
> The US has adopted the metric system just as completely as, say, the UK has. I've lived in both, that's inaccurate. The UK is mostly metric with exceptions (MpH, pints, pounds & stone for "people weight") but in all other ways it is metric, cooking is in metric (grams, liters/milliliters), parts are in metric, temperature is in metric (centigrade), and most measurements are metric (metres, cm, mm, etc). It is a metric country with a few leftovers. The US conversely is imperial with exceptions. Meaning most "day to day" activities are in imperial units with certain industries (like science) and activities (?) being metric. But if you go buy a cookbook in a US bookstore then good luck finding a metric one unless it is an international cookbook (it will be in "spoons" "cups" "ounces" and so on). You buy a new cookbook in the UK and it is almost certainly metric unless it is from a used book store. So, no, the UK has adopted metric much more thoroughly than the US. To use made up percentages, the UK is 65% metric, the US is 20% metric. Again, I've lived in both for a decent chunk of my life.

devy 10y ago

It's astonishing to me that I discovered the other day that Fahrenheit is only used by United States, its territories and associated states (all served by the U.S. National Weather Service), and 3 other small Caribbean countries. All other countries in the world are using Celsius scale from metric systems.[1] Can someone shed some lights why is that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#Usage

wayn3 10y ago
Because water is arguably the most important substance to mankind. In the celsius system (and at standard pressure and bhawawa please point out technicalities) - water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C. That's pretty simple to remember and makes actual sense. In fahrenheit, body temperature was supposed to be 100°F but its not because when the guy measured his temperature, he had a fever. Congrats dude. First strike. It freezes at around 30°F but not quite. The scale just doesn't make sense for any intuitive application. If you think that body temperature should determine the scale of temperature measurements, think about how often you need to know your body temperature vs. how often you need to know how hot it is outside. "is it tornado season? nah, its only about 0.7 body temperatures outside". Besides, to anchor a scale, you need 2 reference points. Not just one. Fahrenheit is just a turd. On top of that, Celsius scales just like Kelvin. 0 Kelvin is the point of absolute zero. The point of "No temperature" - to keep things simple. 0°C is 273.15K and 100°C is 373.15K - which means that Celsius is essentially Kelvin (the unit that makes scientific sense) adjusted to a level that makes sense for common man applications. That explains why everyone is using Celsius. Nobody can tell you why the US does not. Its clearly because they are some very special snowflake. Same reason they use retarded units like inches, feet, yards, miles, ounces and pounds. Metric systems be damned.
- stan_rogers 10y ago
  The body temperature the Fahrenheit scale was made to work at was axillary (armpit) temperature, at 96°. That's a multiple of 32°, and both are evenly divisible by 16, 8, 4, and 2, making marking of the scale easy. Both are common temperatures that a person would be likely to experience (whereas 100°C is something you'd hope not to experience, but rather to observe). That leaves zero as "frikkin' cold" by most European standards. It's a perfectly reasonable scale if you're not obsessed with base-10 values.