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I'm British, so you don't need to explain using mixed systems, however in any kind of academic, engineering or scientific contexts metric units are used almost
by eterm 8y ago
I'm British, so you don't need to explain using mixed systems, however in any kind of academic, engineering or scientific contexts metric units are used almost exclusively. Yes, people still refer to height in feet and inches a lot, and we'll drink a pint (a real pint! None of your mini-pints!), but that does change over time. For example older people will use stone and pounds for their weight but being younger the doc doesn't bother telling me my weight in anything but kilograms so I don't even know my weight except in Kg.
Even in Britain, in almost all engineering contexts, SI units would be assumed. Your point about Americans assuming imperial units is precisely wwhy it's so dangerous that metrification hasn't happened there.
If the US went metric, then there would no longer be any need to assume anything but metric anywhere, and it would be safer for it.
Yes, there's a long standing tradition, but it only takes a couple of generations to completely change, and that would likely be hastened by being the last large country to do so and having a large cultural footprint on the rest of the world.
If the US did convert to metric, in 3 or 4 generations the whole world would be metric, and there wouldn't be any "wrong assumptions", and it is making bad assumptions that lead to preventable failures.
If China can manage to go metric, the US can too.
- microcolonel 8y ago> however in any kind of academic, engineering or scientific contexts metric units are used almost exclusively This is true in the United States as well, but fueling a commercial airplane is not an academic, scientific, or even an engineering exercise. It is as routine and pedestrian as refueling a bus. > Your point about Americans assuming imperial units is precisely wwhy it's so dangerous that metrification hasn't happened there. Or maybe it's an argument for why "metrification" is itself dangerous. The problem is the transition, not being on either side of the fence. It seems to me that the only safe mode of transition is first to dual readout, and only then to SI-exclusive. Don't get me wrong, I like SI units, I use them every day, and I don't long to spend any time multiplying and dividing by irregular fractions; I just don't like the dismissive "shoulda been metric" rhetoric that floats around everywhere; as though you can just stop selling letter paper and force everyone to use A-series compatible envelopes, and convert the clean (if baroque) markings on the paper products to bizarre decimal fractions of a g/m² without any empathy for the old guard. Some people care about how Britain still drives on the wrong side of the road, but that doesn't mean they should berate you every time a drunk roadtripping Frenchman turns out into oncoming traffic.
- cheerlessbog 8y agoEven in academia doesn't the US use CGS, and most of the rest of the world uses SI/MKS? We can't use the same physics textbooks.
- mypalmike 8y agoI took high-school and college physics in the US around 30 years ago. It was all SI then, and I suspect it still is.
- Symbiote 8y agoA British bus will be refuelled in litres, which I think was the point. > as though you can just stop selling letter paper and force everyone to use A-series compatible envelopes, and convert the clean (if baroque) markings on the paper products to bizarre decimal fractions of a g/m² without any empathy for the old guard. The first part was done in Britain in the 1950s, but with the weights rounded to convenient metric numbers.
- stordoff 8y ago> A British bus will be refuelled in litres, which I think was the point. Refuelled in litres, but with efficiency measured in miles per gallon. It's kind of a mess.
- bostonpete 8y agoMiles per US gallon or miles per imperial gallon?
- magduf 8y agoThe latter, miles per UK gallon. Watch out for that, because if you don't know better, you'll read about some car in the UK and wonder why it has such astounding fuel economy!
- Symbiote 8y ago
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago> If the US went metric, then there would no longer be any need to assume anything but metric That might be a tiny bit optimistic. I'm in my mid 50s, and UK schooling taught me nothing but metric. I vaguely remember some sort of half-hearted campaign and leaflets about it, I think that was before we joined the EU. In 2019, and we are still not there yet. I'm not sure the last popular holdouts are ever likely to change at this point. I'm surprised, but thankful, that the Brexit lunacy hasn't (yet) brought calls to return to Imperial and £sd. :)
- stordoff 8y ago> I'm surprised, but thankful, that the Brexit lunacy hasn't (yet) brought calls to return to Imperial and £sd. :) Unfortunately: Return of pounds and ounces? Britain might allow firms to use imperial measures after Brexit https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/return-pounds-ounces-britain-might-allow-firms-use-imperial/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/return-pounds-ou... EXCLUSIVE: Experts Slam "Bonkers" Proposal To Re-Introduce Imperial Measurements After Brexit, In Letters To Government http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/04/exclusive-experts-slam-bonkers-proposal-to-re-introduce-imperial-measurements-after-brexit-in-letters-to-government/ http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/04/exclusive-experts-slam-bonk... Now that we are to be a sovereign nation again, we must bring back imperial units https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/01/now-sovereign-nation-must-bring-back-imperial-units/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/01/now-sovereign-na...
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoSigh. Thankfully I'd missed that. Not surprised it was Heffer, I think he'd like to send us back to about 1912. Gizmodo piece was fairly entertaining though. :)
- jen20 8y agoFortunately the post-boomer “sanity” generation are not going to accept imperial units other than pint (for beer), regardless of what people pining for a past in which they were relevant may want.