10 ms·

It's time for the US to use the metric system

113 points by djug 12y ago

FreakyT 12y ago
No one wants to carry the political risk of trying to replace the ALL-AMERICAN measurement system, I suppose. I wonder if there are any pro-metric lobbying firms that exist...
- marak830 12y ago
  Not to derail the conversation, what how good can a political system be if their too scared to bring something up for fear of the public when its in their own interests?
  - adventured 12y ago
    Seems like an extremely common political reaction to having to cause your voters hardship or annoyance. To name one easy example, you persistently see this reaction across all the economies of the EU regarding the on going economic crisis, whether it's regarding subsidies or spending cuts or social programs or retirement or immigration. I'd argue there are exceptionally few political systems on the planet that deal with such well.
  - twoodfin 12y ago
    In democratic systems, we generally trust the people to know their own interests, and when they're wrong win them over with debate rather than ignoring them.
    - sheepdestroyer 12y ago
      democracy is not having a referendum for each random decision or new law. It's electing (thus giving your consent) someone to unilaterally make changes for everybody else during a short time. This person has the responsibility to take the hard decisions that individually would not come around. ex, when death penalty was abolished in France, it was in opposition to the majority of french people. A few decades latter virtually everybody now agrees that's the best way of things and that it was a great decision. At the time it was a politically courageous enforcement.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
mistakoala 12y ago
I wonder if a successful TTIP agreement would be the catalyst for this? It's inexplicable that the EU/ EEA would allow for non-metric goods to freely flow into the market.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Should it also be illegal for the UK to teach Imperial units? I find the European attitude that government should ban everything they don't like perplexing.
  - lmm 12y ago
    > Should it also be illegal for the UK to teach Imperial units? Yes. It's a waste of children's time (and there is a massive market failure in education, so laws are the only way to make changes).
    - happyscrappy 12y ago
      The only thing the EU would accomplish by making it illegal to teach Imperial in the UK is guaranteeing they leave the EU.
  - mistakoala 12y ago
    No, it shouldn't. As much as I also dislike the Continental love of the ban hammer, I'm not sure what it has to with this.
- hoggle 12y ago
  I'm all for going fully metric but a failed TTIP agreement would actually be something worth losing some space probes over.
- smackfu 12y ago
  What's a non-metric good? Isn't it the labelling that makes something metric or not?
  - 12y ago
k-mcgrady 12y ago
In US schools are children taught metric or imperial? For example when measuring a liquid for a science experiment are measurements made in millilitres?
- brianlweiner 12y ago
  In general you're taught both. All my science classes (physics, chemistry, etc) required using SI units for calculations so grams/mL/etc.
- biggerfisch 12y ago
  It depends on the class, but most are taught both. At my school, almost everything in the science classes was done in metric, though we were of course very familiar with imperial.
- bane 12y ago
  When we're young we're taught the imperial method since it's the customary system. Once we start getting into science classes it's all metric. Still, outside of science classes (and the military) we don't use it at all. Which means we don't have a good working model in our heads of what a kg feels like or how warm a 30 degC day is...that sort of thing. I think most Americans have a pretty good feel for what a liter is since lots of drinks sell in that volume (and it's almost the same as a quart). But I think it'll be a cold day in hell before we cook in metric...customary units are pretty handy with home-style cooking since they line up pretty well with the size of stuff that's already in your kitchen (a cup, a teaspoon) and all our measuring and cooking equipment is in imperial. Actually, converting imperial measurements is a rotten mess, but using them in practice is pretty convenient. The sizes of most things just sort of intuitively makes sense on a human labor sort of scale (a pound of food turns out to be a nice filling meal, you can estimate inches with your thumb and feet with your forearm, 0 degF is colder than frozen water and just at the edge of tolerable, while 100 degF is just at the edge of tolerable on the other end of the scale even if water it nowhere near boiling, a pint is a good size for a beer, a yard is about a man's reach, an acre is about the size of a field a person can work in a day, etc.) -- there's some sense to them. The military uses metric for most things however (due to constant international collaboration) and you'll find military people have a better grasp of the feel for most metric units, especially distance. It's a bit like in England though where metric is taught, but people still colloquially refer to people in stones or distance in miles and beer in pints. Actually lots of countries still use their customary measurements [1] in certain niches, Koreans still use the pyeong 평 [2] when dealing with real estate for example. I've been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit to metric using countries and have developed enough sense to quickly convert in my head. I know what a good room temperature is (22-24 degC), but I have no idea if I should bring a jacket when the weather is 15 deg C or not and the difference of 30 - 40 deg C always catches me by surprise. I have good feel for ml, cl and liters (lots of wine drinking), an okay one for kph, meters and km (driving and walking most places). But g and kg continue to stupify me since I can't seem to find a useful frame of reference for those measures. I just end up mentally doubling all kg to pounds where it makes sense. I mean, what common thing weighs a kg? Everything at 1 kg just seems to be too heavy and to make use of it you end up sectioning it into grams, the liter is the same, too much liquid for anything useful, except I can usually split 1000 ml of wine with my wife over a long relaxing dinner and that's my reference point. And I guess that's the problem, I end up using fractions in decimal countries like I'd use them in the U.S. (most imperial units have handy fractions: 1/3, 1/4, 1/2, 1/12, but metric countries work better with decimals. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_units_of_measure#Historical_systems_of_measurement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_units_of_measure#His... 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyeong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyeong
Shorel 12y ago
Good luck trying to change something that's part of a cultural identity. Irish are catholic not because religion is actually something positive, but because it's a contrast with the British church, and part of their cultural identity.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- oneandoneis2 12y ago
  You realize every country that uses metric today used a different system before? The US is not a special snowflake: The entire rest of the world managed to switch just fine.
  - Shorel 12y ago
    I'm not defending the US imperial system. They can switch if they want. But it's the only place in the world they actively try not to.
- dmoo 12y ago
  Ireland moved from miles to kilometers for all road signs recently, no big deal; changed currency, no big deal. People adapt.
  - Shorel 12y ago
    I'm very glad to learn that.
- alphadevx 12y ago
  > Irish are catholic not because religion is actually something positive, but because it's a contrast with the British church, and part of their cultural identity. Hmmm, I think you'll find that Catholicism is older than the Church of England (not that this relates to the metric system in any way). The English changed from being Catholic to Church of England during Henry VIII's reign. The Irish largely remained Catholic.
zimbatm 12y ago
It's hard to "make people think" in the different unit system. I'm in the UK and people talk about sizes in feet and miles all the time even though the society is supposed to have switched to the metric system. There are places like on product labels where both units should be mandatory. Hopefully in a few generations people will gradually switch over.
- arethuza 12y ago
  I think most people in the UK use a pretty mixed up set of measures. I think of beer in pints, wine in ml, driving distance in miles, walking distance in km, height in feet and inches, but weight in kg. Lengths are in m/cm/mm as are weights and volumes for cooking. Mountains in Scotland in feet and mountains in the Alps in metres... Oddly, my teenage son uses m/cm for height and stones/pounds for weight...
  - rlpb 12y ago
    > I think most people in the UK use a pretty mixed up set of measures. I agree. But for science and engineering (where metric is really useful), I believe that everything is metric here now. The measures for which we still use Imperial units are ones that generally are just directly and subjectively compared by humans, rather than any real engineering work. Another way of making my claim is that nobody really has to input Imperial measures into a calculator any more, or make any conversions [involving non-metric units] for engineering purposes. I suppose there are some exceptions (eg. BMI), but these calculations are generally isolated and have no wider unit-incompatibility impact.
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
  > It's hard to "make people think" in the different unit system It is, but it can be done in just one generation. The generation that is raised metric finds it even harder to think in imperial measurements, since the imperial measuring system is significantly more complex. Source: I grew up in a fully metric country. I just looked it up, apparently the conversion to metric happened around the time that I was born. I had no idea, I thought that it was a decade or two before that. i.e. if the USA had tried a bit harder in 1975, they would be done now. Also, the UK is not "fully metric". If it was, there would not be road signs showing numbers in miles and miles per hour. You can't stop people from buying beer by the 568ml, but if the UK was serious about metric, official communications and education would be all in metric.
grahamel 12y ago
The UK is supposedly metric most people still think and talk in imperial - most shops give both measurements. I think the EU gave up enforcing it. edit: sorry, by most people I mean people I know who grew up before metric was introduced.
- kjjw 12y ago
  Really does not paint a true picture. Living in the UK I use metric for everything except driving distances, driving speed and measures of beer (pints). And what measurements are still signed / represented in some way in imperial measurements in the UK? Road signs, speedometers and beer at a bar in a pub. Everything else is presented in metric and everybody I know uses metric for everything else.
  - grahamel 12y ago
    Ah but your different opinion/use of measurement does highlight how gradual these kinds of change can be - similar to changes to word meanings over time. I didn't say everyone does. Milk is still sold multiples of pints, with the litre value listed. Laptop screens are measured in inches.
- room271 12y ago
  As a member of the younger generation, I rarely think in imperial and I think the same is true for most of my social group at least. For example: - I struggle to visualise feet or inches, we always used metric units at school so metres and cms are what I understand - kilograms for weight is much more natural to me than stones or ounces (really, I have no idea how much an ounce is, although I kind of know a pound is a small bag of sugar-ish) - miles are probably the only imperial unit I'd use, but even still, I find km much easier to reason about, perhaps because I have lived in Europe in the past. - oh, and the trusty pint of course!
- soneil 12y ago
  I don't think it's anywhere near that bad. It's a gradual transition and it's working (imho). In my mind, miles for roads is really the only standout left. I don't think of pint as a measure, but the name of a particular type of glass. Outside of that I've just never found a practical use for the imperial system. It's bad enough trying to translate things to american and back, let alone trying to keep track of a US gallon being 4/5ths of an imperial gallon ..
chiph 12y ago
The last road sign I've seen in metric was one on I-95 northbound, just north of the I-26 interchange. Sadly, SC DOT changed it out a few years ago and now it just reads in miles. I understand there's a road in Arizona that is still signed in metric.
- matthewmcg 12y ago
  There are still quite a few out there, mostly in states that share borders with Canada and Mexico. See http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/signs/ http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/signs/
  - pge 12y ago
    Also in Tennessee in the area around Oak Ridge.
shasta 12y ago
Cool. Let's get everyone over to the English langauge, too. Think of the productivity gains we're going to have in a generation or two!
- thisjepisje 12y ago
  English is not a superior language. The metric system is superior.
  - sigzero 12y ago
    And just about as likely to happen...
    - happyscrappy 12y ago
      To a certain extent both have already happened. Worldwide all science is done in metric and all programming is done in English.
  - shasta 12y ago
    Esperanto then?
    - nbouscal 12y ago
      Esperanto isn't in use by the vast majority of the rest of the world. What's with the false equivalences?
  - polshaw 12y ago
    The benefits-- which would be far greater than the metric system (more difficult too)-- would come from having a universal language, regardless of what it was. And English is surely the best placed; being the world's second language, where not the first.
faster 12y ago
I was in high school when the US planned to switch to the metric system, then suddenly the deal was off. I never learned why, and I was too busy playing D&D to care. The article is right, though; metric measures are easier to work with. I will vote in favor of changing.
the_unknown 12y ago
Hearing Fahrenheit in Toronto does surprise me on the few occasions that it happens (usually either retirement-age seniors or American visitors). Recently I noticed the medical profession has come on board with cm/kilos for measurement which is pretty surprising since hearing inches/pounds is still fairly common. Having grown up in the 70s and 80s I still find I float between the two fairly easily but I sure did find Scotland confusing last time I visited - as a metric country they sure do a lot of things non-metricy.
- alphadevx 12y ago
  Scotland (as part of Britain) is not metric as far as I know. The imperial measurement system was created by the British after all. The rest of the EU is metric, but not Britain.
  - g_lined 12y ago
    Britain, including Scotland, is Metric. The fact that metrication happened in the 60s means people of a certain age describe the weather in both F or C, depending on the situation. The UK is certainly unique in the EU for its exceptions which include the use of miles per hour for speeds, miles for distances and, for example, 'pints' for beer. But much EU legislation on the sale of goods has been enshrined in UK law and means that most items have to be sold in metric units of weight/volume etc.
    - alphadevx 12y ago
      > The UK is certainly unique in the EU for its exceptions which include the use of miles per hour for speeds, miles for distances and, for example, 'pints' for beer. Given that all official road signs for distances and speed limits in Britain are still in miles, I can't accept that it is a metric country.
  - benpanter 12y ago
    We (Scotland / UK) are metric for almost everything - science/engineering, medicine, quantities of food etc. There are a few exceptions in more human measurements - beer is measured in pints, burgers and steaks in ounces, distances on roads in miles and personal dimensions in feet and inches, barleycorns and stones.
trothamel 12y ago
The strange thing about articles like this is that they seem to assume that converting between units is something that happens all the time, such that doing so is a huge drain on the economy and engineering time. I don't know if my experience is the common one - but with a few exceptions (inches/feet, oz/pounds) such conversions seem kind of rare. Instead, you pick an appropriately sized unit to begin with, and stick with it. It's interesting to note that all of the examples the article gives are caused by metrication - which forces conversions - rather than by problems using the customary units. I don't see the point of a half-assed metrication, where everything remains the same size but is measured in centimeters. (Such that lumber is sold in lengths of 243.82 cm rather than 8 feet.) The US is already half-assed metric in a lot of places, with both customary and metric units printed on packaging when appropriate. I guess the question is - what are the benefits of metrication that justify the massive expense required to convert?
- privong 12y ago
  > (Such that lumber is sold in lengths of 243.82 cm rather than 8 feet.) It's interesting that you pick that example. In many cases, the "measurements" for lumber don't actually correspond to the true dimensions of the product purchased. For example, a "2x4" has dimensions of 1 1⁄2 inches x 3 1⁄2 inches[0], rather than 2 inches by 4 inches. So, at least for the example you give, it's not clear to me that converting to metric is a bad idea, since the specifications are already somewhat nonsensical. Granted, a "2x4" does have a standard size. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumber#North_American_softwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumber#North_American_softwood...
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    It is not nonsensical, 2x4 is the rough sawn size. Edit: Since I can't reply because of HN's helpful 'You're submitting too fast' notice, I will reply here. You can still buy rough sawn for working on existing structures and for aesthetics when exposed.
    - privong 12y ago
thehme 12y ago
Metric measurements just make sense. I never understood why the US does not adapt and use this system. I was glad my engineering education used it, so that once again, I felt back at home using the metric system. Ask any US born engineer and they will likely tell you that if they had been using the metric system all their lives, they wouldn't have had to waste all that time trying to learn it in college for physics, etc..
tjmc 12y ago
It'll be -40 in hell before that happens
- simonblack 12y ago
  Was that -40 F. or -40 C. ? <grin> Now -40 K., I'd like to see that!
otikik 12y ago
Yes. Please stop measuring things like hobbits.
sophacles 12y ago
Some thoughts on a conversion that I don't generally see brought up: * From an economic standpoint, the US is a big enough market that it is profitable to make things in weird US units, you have 350M people to sell to, most of whom are pretty well off by world standards. It makes sense to make a line catering to them. If businesses can start making a true or good economic argument it will happen more. * Tooling that exists in standard units seems to be a bit of a red herring: I dislike having to own wrenches in both standard and metric units - a transition to one set would actually be nice. At a larger scale, i.e. manufacturing, it would make sense to start replacing things with metric on regular maintenance cycles. With very long cycle things just having a label change. * Paper would be a nightmare for a while - A4 and 8.5x11 are just dissimilar enough for it to be weird, and paper has a very long lifetime, dual storage systems are a pain. * A lot of very low level infrastructure has built in assumptions about standard measure that would take a long time to convert, and some would never convert. For example, a lot of cities put roads so that $X blocks is a mile. The midwest from the air looks like a quilt - thats because all the fields are partitioned by roads which are (generally speaking) a mile apart. Land ownership for rural areas is by the fraction of a section, and by acres - it's built in to how everything is laid out. These aren't impediments but it does create a weirdness. I navigate the backroads and a lot of parts of cities by knowing how far it is and just counting how far over and how far up i need to go subconsciously, and it is an issue. * Now is a better time than ever for doing this in terms of accessibility to the public. Everyone has a smartphone - apps to do conversion in lots of intuitive ways can ease people's discomfort. * Car, motorcycle and other mechanical equipment manufacturers should be the people to start the transition. They can all agree to just stop using standard things for the 20XX line of equipment. Or be legislated to do so. Similarly gas stations can be required to change on $DATE, and car manufacturers can just send everyone stickers to put near the gas-hole of cars to say "your tank is $X litres". I think this would help tons. No dual labeling, just bam - it's in litres now. * Housing things are another weird infrastructure thing: they last for a very long time. Codes are all in inches -- doors must be 36" wide, switches must be placed at 48" and so on. The sudden appearance of a second width and height for new stuff would be bizarre, or building it at 91.44 and 121.92 cm respectively would also be annoying. I still think it's a good idea, but some thought needs to go into these weird cases that are surprisingly common before a transition would be acceptable. But like I said - everyone carries a computer or two these days, so there is probably a lot of work that could be done to simplify the transition via good apps.
PythonicAlpha 12y ago
In the EU, when we had to change from national currencies to Euro, the outcry was big -- because everybody was only able to "measure" money in the old currency. That even exactly this currency changed over the past decades very much, seemed to be not in the minds. I guess, there are still people out there, which recalculate into Francs or Marks, or whatsoever -- but I think most Europeans have adapted. So, when "old Europe" can change -- why not "modern USA"?
williwu 12y ago
While you are at can you change the date format as well? DD/MM/YYYY instead of MM/DD/YYYY (US). It should go from small to big. The other way around makes my head hurts every time.
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  YYYY-MM-DD is a much better choice. It sorts like a number, and it's unambiguous in standard usage.
  - Havoc 12y ago
    >YYYY-MM-DD is a much better choice. It sorts like a number Not sure I disagree. Sure the sorting by numbers is of interest to the HN crowd but has little value to anyone outside of IT. In most cases I'm most interested in the "day" part so its convenient if thats first (which it is in 90% of the world).
    - talideon 12y ago
      It's the standard in Japan at least.
    - marcosdumay 12y ago
      The best part of YYYY-MM-DD is that almost nobody uses it, so it'll be easier to get everybody to support. I don't think we can standardize in either DD-MM-YYYY or MM-DD-YYYY.
- kourt 12y ago
  NO! ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD). Just like all other numbers, the "ones" place is on the right. The week dates are even more awesome, really: I use them whenever I can.
IgorPartola 12y ago
I challenge you all to make two changes today with regard to this. First, switch your phone to give you the weather in Celsius. It gets super simple fast: 0 and below - Freezing. Wear a warm jacket and closed toe shoes or boots. 1 - 10 - Cold. Wear an overcoat (a light one if you are used to colder weather) 10-15 - Early spring time. Long sleeves are probably in order, maybe even a sweater. 15-20 - Late spring. Wear short sleeves. 20+ - Warm to hot. Wear short sleeves. If it gets to be 24+ shorts are appropriate. I am deliberately not giving conversions to Fahrenheit here because I think that's how you just go back to using it. Try to internalize the metric system here. The second challenge is to switch your clocks/watches to the 24 hour mode. Not strictly metric system related, but you will not have to worry about AM vs PM again. For the advanced users: switch your car to show your speed in km/h instead of m/h. For the super-advanced users: try to figure out how many liters per 100 km does your car consume :). Edit: if you cook (and you really should), use a scale set to grams instead of measuring cups for any recipes you are making. Almost all foods list both oz's and grams on them. You will get much more accurate measurements this way and will learn to gauge what 150 grams of cheese looks like, etc.
- sjwright 12y ago
  > I am deliberately not giving conversions to Fahrenheit But I spent all that effort learning what temperature water boils at in Fahrenheit. Who the hell is going to remember what that temperature is in Celsius??
  - blencdr 12y ago
    100°C , that should be simple enough :)
    - gcb0 12y ago
      I think you missed the joke there...
    - astrobe_ 12y ago
      Nope. It depends on atmospheric pressure. Do your own units for that too? ;-)
bcohen5055 12y ago
All I know is don't walk into a Canadian Subway and ask why they still sell sandwiches by the 6" and foot. I made that mistake once and offended everyone in the place
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
krschultz 12y ago
These articles are always missing the subtly of the issue. I'm going to ignore MPH signs & mile markers, because they really don't matter much for international interoperability. The important things are focused around dimensions on parts, packaging, engineering drawings, etc. Sure, we all know that lots of areas in the US already use the metric system. I have personally used metric in the biomedical & consumer electronic industries, but had to use imperial in the defense industry. Generally the more advanced or international the industry the more metric it is. (That's why construction may simply never switch). What people generally don't realize is that other countries are still using the imperial system because the US drives the market. Lots of imperial system parts are made in Mexico, China, etc to feed into US supply chains. Complete wild ass guess, but I bet more imperial system bolts are made in China than in the US. It's not like there is a ban on making non-metric parts in the 'metric countries'. They'll do it, and often times non-metric parts are cheaper even coming from metric countries because of the volumes. It really seems like an industry by industry fight, and by and large it is a ratchet turning in only one direction. Even the defense industry is started to use metric for some parts. I think 50 years from now it will be a moot point.
- pge 12y ago
  your comment about having to use imperial in defense industry reminded me of working for the US Navy in the early 90s, where a standard unit of measure is a "kiloyard" (1000 yards) when measuring the range of sonars. Apparently a lot of the early testing had been done using yards as a unit. Since people often round to the nearest whole unit, they thought converting those historical measures to meters would introduce inaccuracy, so they continue to measure in yards, which yields big numbers with modern gear. Rather than use miles (1760 yards) as the ranges got long, they use kiloyards to record all data (presumably because dividing by 1000 is easier than dividing by 1760). Only in America...
- gcb0 12y ago
  What's your point? I also try to only use metric in the us, and a m3 Tap and bolts is cheaper than whatever silly fraction equivalent even buying from.consumer stores here. So, yeah, the economics of all this is crazy.. But i think the point is to improve it even more by removing the odd ones entirely.
petethepig 12y ago
This reminds me of a joke I heard in New Zealand: A bank officer recently heard the following explanation for a farmer's financial trouble: It all started back in 1966 when they changed from pounds to dollars. My bloody overdraft doubled. Then they brought in kilograms instead of pounds, my bloody wool clip dropped by half. Then they changed rain to millimetres and we haven't had an inch of rain since. They bring in celsius and it never gets over 40 degrees. No wonder my bloody wheat won't grow. Then they change acres to hectares and I end up with half the bloody land I had. By this time I'd had it and decided to sell out. I just get the place in the agent's hands when they changed from miles to kilometres. Now I'm too bloody far out of town for anyone to buy the bloody place.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
lkrubner 12y ago
I would like to see the USA switch to the metric system. However, I will point out, just because a "new" (the metric system was developed during the French Revolution) measuring system is more rational, does not mean that it will catch on. I'll offer a hypothetical example of another change that would be rational: We currently divide the day based on time a system of time developed by the Babylonians roughly 4,000 years ago. Because the Babylonians had a math system that was base-60, it was rational for them to divide the day into sections that fit easily into a base-60 system. Ideally, they would have been consistent and gone with 60/60/60, but for some reason they went with 24/60/60. We have 24 hours, then 60 minutes, then 60 seconds. There are 86,400 seconds in the day, which may have made sense to them, but it makes no sense to us, in the modern world, since nowadays the whole world uses base-10 math. If we wanted to modernize the time system, we would switch to a base-10 system: 10/10/10/10. That would mean our smallest unit of measure would be a 100,000th of day, which would certainly be easier to work with, and reason about, than the crazy 86,400ths we have to deal with. 86,400ths are an artifact from the dawn of civilization, and should be gotten rid of. Will we ever have a clean and rational 10/10/10/10 system for dividing up the day? Probably not. From the Babylonians we get the 24 hour day, the 7 day week, and the crazy idea that a circle should be divided by 360 degrees. All of these ideas are so deeply embedded in our culture it would be extremely hard to change them. Clean and rational systems do not always win out. I keep hoping that the USA will switch to the metric system. On that front, I still have some hope. On other fronts, such as a rational system for dividing the day, I have no real hope at all.
- astrodust 12y ago
  "...does not mean that it will catch on." Said every country, ever, that switched to metric successfully.
smackfu 12y ago
It's funny how Celsius gets grouped in with the metric system, even though it really has no benefits over Fahrenheit. http://www.ericpinder.com/html/celsius.html http://www.ericpinder.com/html/celsius.html
- astrodust 12y ago
  It has benefits, like it works perfectly with Metric, where Fahrenheit is based on arbitrary numbers that have nothing to do with anything else. A 1x1x1 cm cube of water at 20°C weighs 1 gram and has a volume of 1mL. Temperature, weight, and volume are interlinked this way.
  - smackfu 12y ago
    What is that 20°C? Why is that a better number than 68°F? I'm not arguing against metric in general, I'm arguing that the temperature part of it is just kind of thrown in there because they were both used in France.
    - astrodust 12y ago
      It has nothing to do with France. Save your "Freedom Fries" outrage for something more deserving. I think anyone, given a choice, would pick a simple, round number like 20 over something wacky like 68.
  - mlnhd 12y ago
    Celsius is based on arbitrary state change temperatures of an arbitrary chemical, just like Fahrenheit.
    - smackfu 12y ago
      And only at an arbitrary pressure that happens to be based on the sea level of an arbitrary planet at an arbitrary point in time.
PythonicAlpha 12y ago
I think, even, when the US is changing to the metric system, the bigger problem will still linger around (and when I have hope for the the metric system, I don't have any for that): How on earth can we make the British driving on the "right" side of the street.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  The list of jurisdictions that drives on the left hand side is quite a bit longer than 'the British'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic#Jurisdictions_with_left-hand_traffic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic#Ju... Lists 76 jurisdictions and includes Japan, Pakistan, India, Australia and a host of other large countries.
dietlbomb 12y ago
The US already uses the metric system. It is taught to every child in school. Engineers and scientists use it as their default. What the soi-disant pro-metric faction really wants is to stamp out the English system from the culture. Why can't they tolerate people measuring themselves, their recipes, their temperatures, and their vehicle speeds in their preferred units?
- anotherevan 12y ago
  Actually, is more a Roman system than English. http://www.metric.org.uk/myths/imperial#imperial-was-invented-in-britain http://www.metric.org.uk/myths/imperial#imperial-was-invente... I think there has already been significant discussion here about what the advantages (and disadvantages) are. The US rarely uses metric in it's popular culture. Weather reports are in Fahrenheit, movies almost always use miles and pounds. By any measure of cultural output that you export that I've seen (and Australia is a huge consumer of your popular culture) you do not use metric. I've heard the argument that the US already uses the metric system before by people who are resistant to the US using the metric system. It always sounds disingenuous. But I may be wrong. I have not walked one point six one kilometres in your shoes.
tokenadult 12y ago
I don't see any mention at all here that the United States adopted the metric system officially as legal for all purposes in 1866.[1] Because this was by act of Congress, the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution means that all state governments have to fall in line and permit the use of metric measurements--and they do. It is custom alone that has slowed the thoroughgoing adoption of the metric system in the United States. Lots of subsets of private industry have been mostly metric for many years,[2] so we are talking about activities at the margin of international trade and science and other activities in the United States that have long been increasingly metric. I have lived in Taiwan for six years of my adult life (two three-year stays) and I have become used to thinking metric about overland distances in kilometers or my own height in centimeters or temperatures in Celsius degrees. But over there too, customary units survive long after official metrification, although some of those (like the unit of weight 斤, usually translated into English as "catty") have been conformed to the metric system by being defined in metric units (so that now a catty is half a kilogram). This process may go on for a long time in the United States. [1] http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/204 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/204 http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/upload/1136a.pdf http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/upload/1136a.pdf [2] http://www.ebsinstitute.com/OtherActivities/EBS.qs2df2.html http://www.ebsinstitute.com/OtherActivities/EBS.qs2df2.html http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/life-style/2013-04-04/metric-system-use-rise-us http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/life-style/2013-04-04/metr...
lectrick 12y ago
1970's: It's time for the US to use the metric system 1980's: It's time for the US to use the metric system 1990's: It's time for the US to use the metric system 2000's: It's time for the US to use the metric system 2010's: OK, seriously guys, it's time for the US to use the metric system, this is getting ridiculous
chrismcb 12y ago
There is a link in the article to metric interstate highway of Arizona. I-19 from Tucson to Nogales is signed in metric. When you enter the freeway there is a sign that says "This highway signed in metric" Every sign on the freeway is in metric, EXCEPT for the speed limit sign. I realize they did that so people wouldn't be doing 100+ MPH but I always wanted to drive it at 60KPH, and explain to the judge "the sign was in metric"
Gravityloss 12y ago
The article doesn't go far enough in showing the genius of the SI system (known as metric system most of the time). The conversion factor between mechanical values in the SI system is 1. Example: E = F * delta_x = m_1 * a * delta_x = 0.5 * m_2 * v^2 Energy = 1 J = 1 kg * m^2/s^2 = 1 N * 1 m // Force: 1 Newton applied for 1 meter distance = 1 kg * 1 m/s^2 * 1 m // Acceleration: 1 kg accelerated at 1 m/s for a distance of 1 m = 0.5 * 2 kg * (1 m/s)^2 // Velocity: 2 kg accelerated from stand still to 1 m/s velocity So you can see that no magic factors popped up at any point. This is because the SI system describes the real world very well: for example mass and force are rigorously defined units and can not be used interchangeably.

113 points by djug 12y ago

No one wants to carry the political risk of trying to replace the ALL-AMERICAN measurement system, I suppose. I wonder if there are any pro-metric lobbying firms that exist...

marak830 12y ago
Not to derail the conversation, what how good can a political system be if their too scared to bring something up for fear of the public when its in their own interests?
- adventured 12y ago
  Seems like an extremely common political reaction to having to cause your voters hardship or annoyance. To name one easy example, you persistently see this reaction across all the economies of the EU regarding the on going economic crisis, whether it's regarding subsidies or spending cuts or social programs or retirement or immigration. I'd argue there are exceptionally few political systems on the planet that deal with such well.
- twoodfin 12y ago
  In democratic systems, we generally trust the people to know their own interests, and when they're wrong win them over with debate rather than ignoring them.
  - sheepdestroyer 12y ago
    democracy is not having a referendum for each random decision or new law. It's electing (thus giving your consent) someone to unilaterally make changes for everybody else during a short time. This person has the responsibility to take the hard decisions that individually would not come around. ex, when death penalty was abolished in France, it was in opposition to the majority of french people. A few decades latter virtually everybody now agrees that's the best way of things and that it was a great decision. At the time it was a politically courageous enforcement.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

mistakoala 12y ago

I wonder if a successful TTIP agreement would be the catalyst for this? It's inexplicable that the EU/ EEA would allow for non-metric goods to freely flow into the market.

happyscrappy 12y ago
Should it also be illegal for the UK to teach Imperial units? I find the European attitude that government should ban everything they don't like perplexing.
- lmm 12y ago
  > Should it also be illegal for the UK to teach Imperial units? Yes. It's a waste of children's time (and there is a massive market failure in education, so laws are the only way to make changes).
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    The only thing the EU would accomplish by making it illegal to teach Imperial in the UK is guaranteeing they leave the EU.
- mistakoala 12y ago
  No, it shouldn't. As much as I also dislike the Continental love of the ban hammer, I'm not sure what it has to with this.
hoggle 12y ago
I'm all for going fully metric but a failed TTIP agreement would actually be something worth losing some space probes over.
smackfu 12y ago
What's a non-metric good? Isn't it the labelling that makes something metric or not?
- 12y ago

k-mcgrady 12y ago

In US schools are children taught metric or imperial? For example when measuring a liquid for a science experiment are measurements made in millilitres?

brianlweiner 12y ago
In general you're taught both. All my science classes (physics, chemistry, etc) required using SI units for calculations so grams/mL/etc.
biggerfisch 12y ago
It depends on the class, but most are taught both. At my school, almost everything in the science classes was done in metric, though we were of course very familiar with imperial.
bane 12y ago
When we're young we're taught the imperial method since it's the customary system. Once we start getting into science classes it's all metric. Still, outside of science classes (and the military) we don't use it at all. Which means we don't have a good working model in our heads of what a kg feels like or how warm a 30 degC day is...that sort of thing. I think most Americans have a pretty good feel for what a liter is since lots of drinks sell in that volume (and it's almost the same as a quart). But I think it'll be a cold day in hell before we cook in metric...customary units are pretty handy with home-style cooking since they line up pretty well with the size of stuff that's already in your kitchen (a cup, a teaspoon) and all our measuring and cooking equipment is in imperial. Actually, converting imperial measurements is a rotten mess, but using them in practice is pretty convenient. The sizes of most things just sort of intuitively makes sense on a human labor sort of scale (a pound of food turns out to be a nice filling meal, you can estimate inches with your thumb and feet with your forearm, 0 degF is colder than frozen water and just at the edge of tolerable, while 100 degF is just at the edge of tolerable on the other end of the scale even if water it nowhere near boiling, a pint is a good size for a beer, a yard is about a man's reach, an acre is about the size of a field a person can work in a day, etc.) -- there's some sense to them. The military uses metric for most things however (due to constant international collaboration) and you'll find military people have a better grasp of the feel for most metric units, especially distance. It's a bit like in England though where metric is taught, but people still colloquially refer to people in stones or distance in miles and beer in pints. Actually lots of countries still use their customary measurements [1] in certain niches, Koreans still use the pyeong 평 [2] when dealing with real estate for example. I've been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit to metric using countries and have developed enough sense to quickly convert in my head. I know what a good room temperature is (22-24 degC), but I have no idea if I should bring a jacket when the weather is 15 deg C or not and the difference of 30 - 40 deg C always catches me by surprise. I have good feel for ml, cl and liters (lots of wine drinking), an okay one for kph, meters and km (driving and walking most places). But g and kg continue to stupify me since I can't seem to find a useful frame of reference for those measures. I just end up mentally doubling all kg to pounds where it makes sense. I mean, what common thing weighs a kg? Everything at 1 kg just seems to be too heavy and to make use of it you end up sectioning it into grams, the liter is the same, too much liquid for anything useful, except I can usually split 1000 ml of wine with my wife over a long relaxing dinner and that's my reference point. And I guess that's the problem, I end up using fractions in decimal countries like I'd use them in the U.S. (most imperial units have handy fractions: 1/3, 1/4, 1/2, 1/12, but metric countries work better with decimals. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_units_of_measure#Historical_systems_of_measurement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_units_of_measure#His... 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyeong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyeong

Shorel 12y ago

Good luck trying to change something that's part of a cultural identity. Irish are catholic not because religion is actually something positive, but because it's a contrast with the British church, and part of their cultural identity.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
oneandoneis2 12y ago
You realize every country that uses metric today used a different system before? The US is not a special snowflake: The entire rest of the world managed to switch just fine.
- Shorel 12y ago
  I'm not defending the US imperial system. They can switch if they want. But it's the only place in the world they actively try not to.
dmoo 12y ago
Ireland moved from miles to kilometers for all road signs recently, no big deal; changed currency, no big deal. People adapt.
- Shorel 12y ago
  I'm very glad to learn that.
alphadevx 12y ago
> Irish are catholic not because religion is actually something positive, but because it's a contrast with the British church, and part of their cultural identity. Hmmm, I think you'll find that Catholicism is older than the Church of England (not that this relates to the metric system in any way). The English changed from being Catholic to Church of England during Henry VIII's reign. The Irish largely remained Catholic.

zimbatm 12y ago

It's hard to "make people think" in the different unit system. I'm in the UK and people talk about sizes in feet and miles all the time even though the society is supposed to have switched to the metric system. There are places like on product labels where both units should be mandatory. Hopefully in a few generations people will gradually switch over.

arethuza 12y ago
I think most people in the UK use a pretty mixed up set of measures. I think of beer in pints, wine in ml, driving distance in miles, walking distance in km, height in feet and inches, but weight in kg. Lengths are in m/cm/mm as are weights and volumes for cooking. Mountains in Scotland in feet and mountains in the Alps in metres... Oddly, my teenage son uses m/cm for height and stones/pounds for weight...
- rlpb 12y ago
  > I think most people in the UK use a pretty mixed up set of measures. I agree. But for science and engineering (where metric is really useful), I believe that everything is metric here now. The measures for which we still use Imperial units are ones that generally are just directly and subjectively compared by humans, rather than any real engineering work. Another way of making my claim is that nobody really has to input Imperial measures into a calculator any more, or make any conversions [involving non-metric units] for engineering purposes. I suppose there are some exceptions (eg. BMI), but these calculations are generally isolated and have no wider unit-incompatibility impact.
SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
> It's hard to "make people think" in the different unit system It is, but it can be done in just one generation. The generation that is raised metric finds it even harder to think in imperial measurements, since the imperial measuring system is significantly more complex. Source: I grew up in a fully metric country. I just looked it up, apparently the conversion to metric happened around the time that I was born. I had no idea, I thought that it was a decade or two before that. i.e. if the USA had tried a bit harder in 1975, they would be done now. Also, the UK is not "fully metric". If it was, there would not be road signs showing numbers in miles and miles per hour. You can't stop people from buying beer by the 568ml, but if the UK was serious about metric, official communications and education would be all in metric.

grahamel 12y ago

The UK is supposedly metric most people still think and talk in imperial - most shops give both measurements. I think the EU gave up enforcing it. edit: sorry, by most people I mean people I know who grew up before metric was introduced.

kjjw 12y ago
Really does not paint a true picture. Living in the UK I use metric for everything except driving distances, driving speed and measures of beer (pints). And what measurements are still signed / represented in some way in imperial measurements in the UK? Road signs, speedometers and beer at a bar in a pub. Everything else is presented in metric and everybody I know uses metric for everything else.
- grahamel 12y ago
  Ah but your different opinion/use of measurement does highlight how gradual these kinds of change can be - similar to changes to word meanings over time. I didn't say everyone does. Milk is still sold multiples of pints, with the litre value listed. Laptop screens are measured in inches.
room271 12y ago
As a member of the younger generation, I rarely think in imperial and I think the same is true for most of my social group at least. For example: - I struggle to visualise feet or inches, we always used metric units at school so metres and cms are what I understand - kilograms for weight is much more natural to me than stones or ounces (really, I have no idea how much an ounce is, although I kind of know a pound is a small bag of sugar-ish) - miles are probably the only imperial unit I'd use, but even still, I find km much easier to reason about, perhaps because I have lived in Europe in the past. - oh, and the trusty pint of course!
soneil 12y ago
I don't think it's anywhere near that bad. It's a gradual transition and it's working (imho). In my mind, miles for roads is really the only standout left. I don't think of pint as a measure, but the name of a particular type of glass. Outside of that I've just never found a practical use for the imperial system. It's bad enough trying to translate things to american and back, let alone trying to keep track of a US gallon being 4/5ths of an imperial gallon ..

chiph 12y ago

The last road sign I've seen in metric was one on I-95 northbound, just north of the I-26 interchange. Sadly, SC DOT changed it out a few years ago and now it just reads in miles. I understand there's a road in Arizona that is still signed in metric.

matthewmcg 12y ago
There are still quite a few out there, mostly in states that share borders with Canada and Mexico. See http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/signs/ http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/signs/
- pge 12y ago
  Also in Tennessee in the area around Oak Ridge.

shasta 12y ago

Cool. Let's get everyone over to the English langauge, too. Think of the productivity gains we're going to have in a generation or two!

thisjepisje 12y ago
English is not a superior language. The metric system is superior.
- sigzero 12y ago
  And just about as likely to happen...
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    To a certain extent both have already happened. Worldwide all science is done in metric and all programming is done in English.
- shasta 12y ago
  Esperanto then?
  - nbouscal 12y ago
    Esperanto isn't in use by the vast majority of the rest of the world. What's with the false equivalences?
- polshaw 12y ago
  The benefits-- which would be far greater than the metric system (more difficult too)-- would come from having a universal language, regardless of what it was. And English is surely the best placed; being the world's second language, where not the first.

faster 12y ago

I was in high school when the US planned to switch to the metric system, then suddenly the deal was off. I never learned why, and I was too busy playing D&D to care. The article is right, though; metric measures are easier to work with. I will vote in favor of changing.

the_unknown 12y ago

Hearing Fahrenheit in Toronto does surprise me on the few occasions that it happens (usually either retirement-age seniors or American visitors). Recently I noticed the medical profession has come on board with cm/kilos for measurement which is pretty surprising since hearing inches/pounds is still fairly common. Having grown up in the 70s and 80s I still find I float between the two fairly easily but I sure did find Scotland confusing last time I visited - as a metric country they sure do a lot of things non-metricy.

alphadevx 12y ago
Scotland (as part of Britain) is not metric as far as I know. The imperial measurement system was created by the British after all. The rest of the EU is metric, but not Britain.
- g_lined 12y ago
  Britain, including Scotland, is Metric. The fact that metrication happened in the 60s means people of a certain age describe the weather in both F or C, depending on the situation. The UK is certainly unique in the EU for its exceptions which include the use of miles per hour for speeds, miles for distances and, for example, 'pints' for beer. But much EU legislation on the sale of goods has been enshrined in UK law and means that most items have to be sold in metric units of weight/volume etc.
  - alphadevx 12y ago
    > The UK is certainly unique in the EU for its exceptions which include the use of miles per hour for speeds, miles for distances and, for example, 'pints' for beer. Given that all official road signs for distances and speed limits in Britain are still in miles, I can't accept that it is a metric country.
- benpanter 12y ago
  We (Scotland / UK) are metric for almost everything - science/engineering, medicine, quantities of food etc. There are a few exceptions in more human measurements - beer is measured in pints, burgers and steaks in ounces, distances on roads in miles and personal dimensions in feet and inches, barleycorns and stones.

trothamel 12y ago

The strange thing about articles like this is that they seem to assume that converting between units is something that happens all the time, such that doing so is a huge drain on the economy and engineering time. I don't know if my experience is the common one - but with a few exceptions (inches/feet, oz/pounds) such conversions seem kind of rare. Instead, you pick an appropriately sized unit to begin with, and stick with it. It's interesting to note that all of the examples the article gives are caused by metrication - which forces conversions - rather than by problems using the customary units. I don't see the point of a half-assed metrication, where everything remains the same size but is measured in centimeters. (Such that lumber is sold in lengths of 243.82 cm rather than 8 feet.) The US is already half-assed metric in a lot of places, with both customary and metric units printed on packaging when appropriate. I guess the question is - what are the benefits of metrication that justify the massive expense required to convert?

privong 12y ago
> (Such that lumber is sold in lengths of 243.82 cm rather than 8 feet.) It's interesting that you pick that example. In many cases, the "measurements" for lumber don't actually correspond to the true dimensions of the product purchased. For example, a "2x4" has dimensions of 1 1⁄2 inches x 3 1⁄2 inches[0], rather than 2 inches by 4 inches. So, at least for the example you give, it's not clear to me that converting to metric is a bad idea, since the specifications are already somewhat nonsensical. Granted, a "2x4" does have a standard size. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumber#North_American_softwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumber#North_American_softwood...
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  It is not nonsensical, 2x4 is the rough sawn size. Edit: Since I can't reply because of HN's helpful 'You're submitting too fast' notice, I will reply here. You can still buy rough sawn for working on existing structures and for aesthetics when exposed.
  - privong 12y ago

thehme 12y ago

Metric measurements just make sense. I never understood why the US does not adapt and use this system. I was glad my engineering education used it, so that once again, I felt back at home using the metric system. Ask any US born engineer and they will likely tell you that if they had been using the metric system all their lives, they wouldn't have had to waste all that time trying to learn it in college for physics, etc..

tjmc 12y ago

It'll be -40 in hell before that happens

simonblack 12y ago
Was that -40 F. or -40 C. ? <grin> Now -40 K., I'd like to see that!

otikik 12y ago

Yes. Please stop measuring things like hobbits.

sophacles 12y ago

Some thoughts on a conversion that I don't generally see brought up: * From an economic standpoint, the US is a big enough market that it is profitable to make things in weird US units, you have 350M people to sell to, most of whom are pretty well off by world standards. It makes sense to make a line catering to them. If businesses can start making a true or good economic argument it will happen more. * Tooling that exists in standard units seems to be a bit of a red herring: I dislike having to own wrenches in both standard and metric units - a transition to one set would actually be nice. At a larger scale, i.e. manufacturing, it would make sense to start replacing things with metric on regular maintenance cycles. With very long cycle things just having a label change. * Paper would be a nightmare for a while - A4 and 8.5x11 are just dissimilar enough for it to be weird, and paper has a very long lifetime, dual storage systems are a pain. * A lot of very low level infrastructure has built in assumptions about standard measure that would take a long time to convert, and some would never convert. For example, a lot of cities put roads so that $X blocks is a mile. The midwest from the air looks like a quilt - thats because all the fields are partitioned by roads which are (generally speaking) a mile apart. Land ownership for rural areas is by the fraction of a section, and by acres - it's built in to how everything is laid out. These aren't impediments but it does create a weirdness. I navigate the backroads and a lot of parts of cities by knowing how far it is and just counting how far over and how far up i need to go subconsciously, and it is an issue. * Now is a better time than ever for doing this in terms of accessibility to the public. Everyone has a smartphone - apps to do conversion in lots of intuitive ways can ease people's discomfort. * Car, motorcycle and other mechanical equipment manufacturers should be the people to start the transition. They can all agree to just stop using standard things for the 20XX line of equipment. Or be legislated to do so. Similarly gas stations can be required to change on $DATE, and car manufacturers can just send everyone stickers to put near the gas-hole of cars to say "your tank is $X litres". I think this would help tons. No dual labeling, just bam - it's in litres now. * Housing things are another weird infrastructure thing: they last for a very long time. Codes are all in inches -- doors must be 36" wide, switches must be placed at 48" and so on. The sudden appearance of a second width and height for new stuff would be bizarre, or building it at 91.44 and 121.92 cm respectively would also be annoying. I still think it's a good idea, but some thought needs to go into these weird cases that are surprisingly common before a transition would be acceptable. But like I said - everyone carries a computer or two these days, so there is probably a lot of work that could be done to simplify the transition via good apps.

PythonicAlpha 12y ago

In the EU, when we had to change from national currencies to Euro, the outcry was big -- because everybody was only able to "measure" money in the old currency. That even exactly this currency changed over the past decades very much, seemed to be not in the minds. I guess, there are still people out there, which recalculate into Francs or Marks, or whatsoever -- but I think most Europeans have adapted. So, when "old Europe" can change -- why not "modern USA"?

williwu 12y ago

While you are at can you change the date format as well? DD/MM/YYYY instead of MM/DD/YYYY (US). It should go from small to big. The other way around makes my head hurts every time.

bryanlarsen 12y ago
YYYY-MM-DD is a much better choice. It sorts like a number, and it's unambiguous in standard usage.
- Havoc 12y ago
  >YYYY-MM-DD is a much better choice. It sorts like a number Not sure I disagree. Sure the sorting by numbers is of interest to the HN crowd but has little value to anyone outside of IT. In most cases I'm most interested in the "day" part so its convenient if thats first (which it is in 90% of the world).
  - talideon 12y ago
    It's the standard in Japan at least.
  - marcosdumay 12y ago
    The best part of YYYY-MM-DD is that almost nobody uses it, so it'll be easier to get everybody to support. I don't think we can standardize in either DD-MM-YYYY or MM-DD-YYYY.
kourt 12y ago
NO! ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD). Just like all other numbers, the "ones" place is on the right. The week dates are even more awesome, really: I use them whenever I can.

IgorPartola 12y ago

I challenge you all to make two changes today with regard to this. First, switch your phone to give you the weather in Celsius. It gets super simple fast: 0 and below - Freezing. Wear a warm jacket and closed toe shoes or boots. 1 - 10 - Cold. Wear an overcoat (a light one if you are used to colder weather) 10-15 - Early spring time. Long sleeves are probably in order, maybe even a sweater. 15-20 - Late spring. Wear short sleeves. 20+ - Warm to hot. Wear short sleeves. If it gets to be 24+ shorts are appropriate. I am deliberately not giving conversions to Fahrenheit here because I think that's how you just go back to using it. Try to internalize the metric system here. The second challenge is to switch your clocks/watches to the 24 hour mode. Not strictly metric system related, but you will not have to worry about AM vs PM again. For the advanced users: switch your car to show your speed in km/h instead of m/h. For the super-advanced users: try to figure out how many liters per 100 km does your car consume :). Edit: if you cook (and you really should), use a scale set to grams instead of measuring cups for any recipes you are making. Almost all foods list both oz's and grams on them. You will get much more accurate measurements this way and will learn to gauge what 150 grams of cheese looks like, etc.

sjwright 12y ago
> I am deliberately not giving conversions to Fahrenheit But I spent all that effort learning what temperature water boils at in Fahrenheit. Who the hell is going to remember what that temperature is in Celsius??
- blencdr 12y ago
  100°C , that should be simple enough :)
  - gcb0 12y ago
    I think you missed the joke there...
  - astrobe_ 12y ago
    Nope. It depends on atmospheric pressure. Do your own units for that too? ;-)

bcohen5055 12y ago

All I know is don't walk into a Canadian Subway and ask why they still sell sandwiches by the 6" and foot. I made that mistake once and offended everyone in the place

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

krschultz 12y ago

These articles are always missing the subtly of the issue. I'm going to ignore MPH signs & mile markers, because they really don't matter much for international interoperability. The important things are focused around dimensions on parts, packaging, engineering drawings, etc. Sure, we all know that lots of areas in the US already use the metric system. I have personally used metric in the biomedical & consumer electronic industries, but had to use imperial in the defense industry. Generally the more advanced or international the industry the more metric it is. (That's why construction may simply never switch). What people generally don't realize is that other countries are still using the imperial system because the US drives the market. Lots of imperial system parts are made in Mexico, China, etc to feed into US supply chains. Complete wild ass guess, but I bet more imperial system bolts are made in China than in the US. It's not like there is a ban on making non-metric parts in the 'metric countries'. They'll do it, and often times non-metric parts are cheaper even coming from metric countries because of the volumes. It really seems like an industry by industry fight, and by and large it is a ratchet turning in only one direction. Even the defense industry is started to use metric for some parts. I think 50 years from now it will be a moot point.

pge 12y ago
your comment about having to use imperial in defense industry reminded me of working for the US Navy in the early 90s, where a standard unit of measure is a "kiloyard" (1000 yards) when measuring the range of sonars. Apparently a lot of the early testing had been done using yards as a unit. Since people often round to the nearest whole unit, they thought converting those historical measures to meters would introduce inaccuracy, so they continue to measure in yards, which yields big numbers with modern gear. Rather than use miles (1760 yards) as the ranges got long, they use kiloyards to record all data (presumably because dividing by 1000 is easier than dividing by 1760). Only in America...
gcb0 12y ago
What's your point? I also try to only use metric in the us, and a m3 Tap and bolts is cheaper than whatever silly fraction equivalent even buying from.consumer stores here. So, yeah, the economics of all this is crazy.. But i think the point is to improve it even more by removing the odd ones entirely.

petethepig 12y ago

This reminds me of a joke I heard in New Zealand: A bank officer recently heard the following explanation for a farmer's financial trouble: It all started back in 1966 when they changed from pounds to dollars. My bloody overdraft doubled. Then they brought in kilograms instead of pounds, my bloody wool clip dropped by half. Then they changed rain to millimetres and we haven't had an inch of rain since. They bring in celsius and it never gets over 40 degrees. No wonder my bloody wheat won't grow. Then they change acres to hectares and I end up with half the bloody land I had. By this time I'd had it and decided to sell out. I just get the place in the agent's hands when they changed from miles to kilometres. Now I'm too bloody far out of town for anyone to buy the bloody place.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

lkrubner 12y ago

I would like to see the USA switch to the metric system. However, I will point out, just because a "new" (the metric system was developed during the French Revolution) measuring system is more rational, does not mean that it will catch on. I'll offer a hypothetical example of another change that would be rational: We currently divide the day based on time a system of time developed by the Babylonians roughly 4,000 years ago. Because the Babylonians had a math system that was base-60, it was rational for them to divide the day into sections that fit easily into a base-60 system. Ideally, they would have been consistent and gone with 60/60/60, but for some reason they went with 24/60/60. We have 24 hours, then 60 minutes, then 60 seconds. There are 86,400 seconds in the day, which may have made sense to them, but it makes no sense to us, in the modern world, since nowadays the whole world uses base-10 math. If we wanted to modernize the time system, we would switch to a base-10 system: 10/10/10/10. That would mean our smallest unit of measure would be a 100,000th of day, which would certainly be easier to work with, and reason about, than the crazy 86,400ths we have to deal with. 86,400ths are an artifact from the dawn of civilization, and should be gotten rid of. Will we ever have a clean and rational 10/10/10/10 system for dividing up the day? Probably not. From the Babylonians we get the 24 hour day, the 7 day week, and the crazy idea that a circle should be divided by 360 degrees. All of these ideas are so deeply embedded in our culture it would be extremely hard to change them. Clean and rational systems do not always win out. I keep hoping that the USA will switch to the metric system. On that front, I still have some hope. On other fronts, such as a rational system for dividing the day, I have no real hope at all.

astrodust 12y ago
"...does not mean that it will catch on." Said every country, ever, that switched to metric successfully.

smackfu 12y ago

It's funny how Celsius gets grouped in with the metric system, even though it really has no benefits over Fahrenheit. http://www.ericpinder.com/html/celsius.html http://www.ericpinder.com/html/celsius.html

astrodust 12y ago
It has benefits, like it works perfectly with Metric, where Fahrenheit is based on arbitrary numbers that have nothing to do with anything else. A 1x1x1 cm cube of water at 20°C weighs 1 gram and has a volume of 1mL. Temperature, weight, and volume are interlinked this way.
- smackfu 12y ago
  What is that 20°C? Why is that a better number than 68°F? I'm not arguing against metric in general, I'm arguing that the temperature part of it is just kind of thrown in there because they were both used in France.
  - astrodust 12y ago
    It has nothing to do with France. Save your "Freedom Fries" outrage for something more deserving. I think anyone, given a choice, would pick a simple, round number like 20 over something wacky like 68.
- mlnhd 12y ago
  Celsius is based on arbitrary state change temperatures of an arbitrary chemical, just like Fahrenheit.
  - smackfu 12y ago
    And only at an arbitrary pressure that happens to be based on the sea level of an arbitrary planet at an arbitrary point in time.

PythonicAlpha 12y ago

I think, even, when the US is changing to the metric system, the bigger problem will still linger around (and when I have hope for the the metric system, I don't have any for that): How on earth can we make the British driving on the "right" side of the street.

jacquesm 12y ago
The list of jurisdictions that drives on the left hand side is quite a bit longer than 'the British'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic#Jurisdictions_with_left-hand_traffic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic#Ju... Lists 76 jurisdictions and includes Japan, Pakistan, India, Australia and a host of other large countries.

dietlbomb 12y ago

The US already uses the metric system. It is taught to every child in school. Engineers and scientists use it as their default. What the soi-disant pro-metric faction really wants is to stamp out the English system from the culture. Why can't they tolerate people measuring themselves, their recipes, their temperatures, and their vehicle speeds in their preferred units?

anotherevan 12y ago
Actually, is more a Roman system than English. http://www.metric.org.uk/myths/imperial#imperial-was-invented-in-britain http://www.metric.org.uk/myths/imperial#imperial-was-invente... I think there has already been significant discussion here about what the advantages (and disadvantages) are. The US rarely uses metric in it's popular culture. Weather reports are in Fahrenheit, movies almost always use miles and pounds. By any measure of cultural output that you export that I've seen (and Australia is a huge consumer of your popular culture) you do not use metric. I've heard the argument that the US already uses the metric system before by people who are resistant to the US using the metric system. It always sounds disingenuous. But I may be wrong. I have not walked one point six one kilometres in your shoes.

tokenadult 12y ago

I don't see any mention at all here that the United States adopted the metric system officially as legal for all purposes in 1866.[1] Because this was by act of Congress, the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution means that all state governments have to fall in line and permit the use of metric measurements--and they do. It is custom alone that has slowed the thoroughgoing adoption of the metric system in the United States. Lots of subsets of private industry have been mostly metric for many years,[2] so we are talking about activities at the margin of international trade and science and other activities in the United States that have long been increasingly metric. I have lived in Taiwan for six years of my adult life (two three-year stays) and I have become used to thinking metric about overland distances in kilometers or my own height in centimeters or temperatures in Celsius degrees. But over there too, customary units survive long after official metrification, although some of those (like the unit of weight 斤, usually translated into English as "catty") have been conformed to the metric system by being defined in metric units (so that now a catty is half a kilogram). This process may go on for a long time in the United States. [1] http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/204 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/204 http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/upload/1136a.pdf http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/upload/1136a.pdf [2] http://www.ebsinstitute.com/OtherActivities/EBS.qs2df2.html http://www.ebsinstitute.com/OtherActivities/EBS.qs2df2.html http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/life-style/2013-04-04/metric-system-use-rise-us http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/life-style/2013-04-04/metr...

lectrick 12y ago

1970's: It's time for the US to use the metric system 1980's: It's time for the US to use the metric system 1990's: It's time for the US to use the metric system 2000's: It's time for the US to use the metric system 2010's: OK, seriously guys, it's time for the US to use the metric system, this is getting ridiculous

chrismcb 12y ago

There is a link in the article to metric interstate highway of Arizona. I-19 from Tucson to Nogales is signed in metric. When you enter the freeway there is a sign that says "This highway signed in metric" Every sign on the freeway is in metric, EXCEPT for the speed limit sign. I realize they did that so people wouldn't be doing 100+ MPH but I always wanted to drive it at 60KPH, and explain to the judge "the sign was in metric"

Gravityloss 12y ago

The article doesn't go far enough in showing the genius of the SI system (known as metric system most of the time). The conversion factor between mechanical values in the SI system is 1. Example: E = F * delta_x = m_1 * a * delta_x = 0.5 * m_2 * v^2 Energy = 1 J = 1 kg * m^2/s^2 = 1 N * 1 m // Force: 1 Newton applied for 1 meter distance = 1 kg * 1 m/s^2 * 1 m // Acceleration: 1 kg accelerated at 1 m/s for a distance of 1 m = 0.5 * 2 kg * (1 m/s)^2 // Velocity: 2 kg accelerated from stand still to 1 m/s velocity So you can see that no magic factors popped up at any point. This is because the SI system describes the real world very well: for example mass and force are rigorously defined units and can not be used interchangeably.