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Attributing the success of US economy during the 19th century to the Imperial system is obviously absurd. Standardization needed as a bedrock for progress to be
by toxik 7y ago
Attributing the success of US economy during the 19th century to the Imperial system is obviously absurd. Standardization needed as a bedrock for progress to be made -- the US simply inherited the British system while European scientists finally converged on a more logical system.
The truth is that you likely have to deal with metric units in your machine shop every now and then, just as we deal with imperial units in some places (in my country, pipes and fittings are often in inches even in new residences.)
Furthermore, the lathe has been around since at least Egyptian times, and the modern industrial lathe is thought to have been invented in France or the UK.
- prometheus76 7y agoYou're right. Americans are just too stupid to recognize the brilliance of the metric system. There could be no other explanation.
- prometheus76 7y agoI also want to mention that I didn't attribute the success of the US economy during the 19th century to the US Customary system (which is different than the Imperial System, btw). I said that the standard that was in place in America when the Industrial Revolution began was the US Customary system because the metric system was still in its infancy at the time and not widespread. By the time the metric system was established, widespread milling, machining, and lathing in the United States was all built around the US Customary system. There was already too much infrastructure to throw out over a marginal improvement. It's a simple economic problem. Does the cost of throwing out all the old machinery, equipment, fasteners, drawings, and tools justify the marginal benefits of switching to a decimal-based measurement system? So far, the market's answer has been no.