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We tried it in the 70's. Signage everywhere (well, almost everywhere) used to have both kilometer and mile distances. Speedometers had both dials. Thermometers

We tried it in the 70's. Signage everywhere (well, almost everywhere) used to have both kilometer and mile distances. Speedometers had both dials. Thermometers had two scales. Etc. etc. Then... it just never completely took. Then those changes went away. Part of it was political, surely (Carter spearheaded the metric change; Reagan coming in was super conservative), but I think you underestimate just how hard it is to get 50 halfway-independent states and millions of people to all agree on an entirely new system of measurement (not just of distance, but of volume, temperature etc.) when in millions of people's brains, the number 72 means "comfortable" (in Fahrenheit) and 100 means "hot!" (again, in Fahrenheit... you can't say "temps are in the triple digits!" in Celsius and have it mean anything other than that you're boiling), a tall man is "over 6 feet tall!", the average weight of an adult is 180 pounds, ovens get heated to 375 to bake something usually, shoe sizes (in inches), belt lengths (in inches), heck my baby's perfect bathwater temperature is exactly "100 degrees" (F, measured via infrared thermometer), going "100MPH" is VERY fast, 0 degrees F is VERY cold (-17C), etc. etc. It's still used in some spaces like science, but in places like tooling it's both... I have 2 sets of EVERY TOOL (well, every tool with a fixed size at least, like sockets and allen-head wrenches), the metric version and the imperial version, it's maddening- basically the worst of all options is to get stuck in the middle, and that's precisely what happened with tooling. Lastly, the digital tooling to automatically or easily convert is getting more common (a certain Reddit bot comes to mind which automatically converts any Imperial measurements cited in comments to metric), heck a browser plugin could probably do it for you

silvestrov 4y ago
> just how hard it is Why is this always seen as harder for US states than European contries? At least all the states speak the same language and federal laws whereas EU has to work with however many languages and a more complex system of laws.
- vel0city 4y ago
  Because its not 1800 anymore. Back when a lot of those European countries officially switched to metric the industrial revolution had only just begun. A huge chunk of the population was illiterate. Loads of people didn't deal with precise measurements in their day to day lives. Now days, everyone deals with measures almost daily and just about everyone is literate. And not every European country uses metric everywhere. Ask someone in the UK what their weight is, and if they don't tell you to buzz off they'll quite probably give you an answer in stone.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    > Because its not 1800 anymore I don't think that's it - the Commonwealth countries only really started in the mid 20th century. Yes, the conversion isn't complete or stalled, but it has at least partially occurred.
    - vel0city 4y ago
      > the Commonwealth countries Mostly non-European countries > only really started in the mid 20th century. Yes, the conversion isn't complete or stalled So once again, after the 1800s migrating to purely metric units everywhere became quite a challenge. One could argue the switch to metric at least partially occurred in the US. My Nutrition Facts label here has grams and Calories. The medicine in my medicine cabinet is in grams and milliliters. My car has a 3L engine in it. I buy bottled beverages in 2L bottles. Over half the tools in my tool chest have measurements in millimeters, with most of the bolts and screws on my vehicles in millimeters. My backpack water bladder is 2L in size. My car's speedo does list the speed in km/h as well as mph. I use metric seconds, hertz, watts, amps, volts, etc.
      - anticensor 4y ago
        Imperial units of electricity has never existed in the first place. And time is really traditional units, adopted by the metric system. Megaseconds could have been a good measure to be honest.
  - silvestrov 4y ago
    Then you really don't want to hear about Sweden which in 1967 switched from driving in the left side of the road to the right side of the road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H

silvestrov 4y ago

> just how hard it is Why is this always seen as harder for US states than European contries? At least all the states speak the same language and federal laws whereas EU has to work with however many languages and a more complex system of laws.

vel0city 4y ago
Because its not 1800 anymore. Back when a lot of those European countries officially switched to metric the industrial revolution had only just begun. A huge chunk of the population was illiterate. Loads of people didn't deal with precise measurements in their day to day lives. Now days, everyone deals with measures almost daily and just about everyone is literate. And not every European country uses metric everywhere. Ask someone in the UK what their weight is, and if they don't tell you to buzz off they'll quite probably give you an answer in stone.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  > Because its not 1800 anymore I don't think that's it - the Commonwealth countries only really started in the mid 20th century. Yes, the conversion isn't complete or stalled, but it has at least partially occurred.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    > the Commonwealth countries Mostly non-European countries > only really started in the mid 20th century. Yes, the conversion isn't complete or stalled So once again, after the 1800s migrating to purely metric units everywhere became quite a challenge. One could argue the switch to metric at least partially occurred in the US. My Nutrition Facts label here has grams and Calories. The medicine in my medicine cabinet is in grams and milliliters. My car has a 3L engine in it. I buy bottled beverages in 2L bottles. Over half the tools in my tool chest have measurements in millimeters, with most of the bolts and screws on my vehicles in millimeters. My backpack water bladder is 2L in size. My car's speedo does list the speed in km/h as well as mph. I use metric seconds, hertz, watts, amps, volts, etc.
    - anticensor 4y ago
      Imperial units of electricity has never existed in the first place. And time is really traditional units, adopted by the metric system. Megaseconds could have been a good measure to be honest.
- silvestrov 4y ago
  Then you really don't want to hear about Sweden which in 1967 switched from driving in the left side of the road to the right side of the road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H