7 ms·

Why is the US still using imperal units?

12 points by jrwoodruff 17y ago

jacquesm 17y ago
Lawyers. edit: hey downmodders, seriously, the answer is lawyers. The legal mess that would ensue from having to switch the land measurements to metric is one of the biggest stumbling blocks, the lawyers would have endless causes to bicker over the exact location of property boundaries. Never mind that the inch is defined as 0.0254 meters.
- wglb 17y ago
  the answer is lawyers. Not really. My uncle was a farmer, which in these days involves mostly machinery, which all have bolts. Back then, there was talk of converting to the metric system, and he said that he hoped that he would be able to retire before that came into being. But then he bought a New Holland combine, which was all metric. At that time, I think there was a proposal to allow mechanics to get a tax deduction for replacing all there tools with metric tools, but this was denied. Similarly the cost of conversion is huge for NASA and many other industries. Property boundaries are, except for Texas, I hear, are all based off of reference points that are precisely described. So I don't think the answer is lawyers.
jrwoodruff 17y ago
I know this is an old-ish article, but this is a topic that severely annoys me. I was taught both systems of measurement, beginning in grade school. But I still have to calculate feet and inches. I have to buy twice as many tools for my garage, because that bolt could be 3/4" or 17mm. NASA can't even manage to build the space shuttle replacement using the metric standard? wtf?
- byoung2 17y ago
  I find it hard to believe that it would cost $350 million to convert the drawings and diagrams to metric. I would do it for half that price!
  - jrwoodruff 17y ago
    Even if it did cost that much, did they learn nothing from the mars orbiter disaster? Pick a standard unit and stick to it. And make damn sure all your contractors use the same unit. Seems like the unit that every single country in the world is on would be a good one to choose.
    - yannis 17y ago
      If my memory is correct something very similar happened also during the testing of the first 'Star Wars' missiles. The given cost is pure bull. Autocad has a facility where one can convert from metric to imperial dimensions. It would not cost that much to re-design the software to carry out the conversions automatically, including re-selection of standard components. (Except if NASA is still using rotring pens and tracing paper). One issue that would crop up though is some very odd looking sizes. Assume a rod of 1". This will translate to 25.4 mm, no sane Engineer in the rest of the world would specify a size like this, but would go for 25.0 mm. Having studied both systems I can assure you that the Imperial System adds easily 6 months to an Engineer's training.
  - silvestrov 17y ago
    It's only half a Shuttle launch. There has been ~100 launches. So this would add 0.5% to the budget. They lost $125 million alone on the Mars Orbitor. Add the other crashes, and I think NASA has already lost more than it would cost to convert to metric.
btilly 17y ago
The metric system is simpler and better than the imperial system in every way but one. And that one is that there are more 12s or multiples of 12 in the imperial system, and so it is easier to split imperial measurements of every day measurements into thirds and quarters. And that is frequently very convenient. (The champion of divisibility is the acre, which is 22233511*11 square feet.)
- eru 17y ago
  When you have a numbering system based on 12, you have a few more factors to treat in a special way. Why stop there? We can go to a numbering system based on 60 or 72 or ... Believe me, this is the wrong way. We should strive to avoid special cases, and not create new ones. Thus - for the sake of consistency - we should build our number system (and measurement units) on base 11. This way all (non-trivial) factors will be treated the same way. Since you have to deal with repeating fractions anyway, you might as well make it the only case. I rest my case.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
JCThoughtscream 17y ago
Sheer bloodyminded cultural momentum has a lot to answer for. Thankfully, excepting the occasional conversion flub from NASA and structural engineers, Americans that need to use the metric system usually know how to use the metric system. So don't dismiss quite all of us as backwards wankers quite yet...
Kaizyn 17y ago
About 15 years ago now, I remember watching a PBS news show where this question came up. One of the guests said that we would never leave the Imperial system because all the land in the US was surveyed and alotted in Imperial. The switching costs away from that were deemed too high.
- jrwoodruff 17y ago
  Funny you mention that - it's actually how I got on this tangent. according to wikipedia: "Twenty-four states have legislated that surveying measures should be based on the U.S. survey foot, eight have legislated that they be made on the basis of the international foot, and eighteen have not specified the conversion factor from metric units" Yea. Survey foot. That's not even the current international standard for the length of a foot. Ridiculous. Glad I'm not an interstate contractor that has to deal with this mess.
ecq 17y ago
the cost of converting outweighs the benefits according to some people.
- varjag 17y ago
  That's until you lose another space probe or two.
tjic 17y ago
"If the question begins, 'Why don't they…?' the answer is money." -- Robert Heinlein
- yannis 17y ago
  Pity! From the Mendehall Order of April 5, 1893 ... such action will also have the great advantage of putting us in direct relation for our weights and measures with all civilized nations, most of which have adopted the metric system for exclusive use. http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP447/app3.pdf http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP447/app3.pdf I am actually convinced that if all costs are properly factored in, it will be more than beneficial in the long term. It is not that bad, I lived through a transition and it was almost uneventful!
axod 17y ago
This annoys the hell out of me. Metric is worse in almost every way for day to day tasks. Not everyone is a scientist doing complex calculations. For science, maths, engineering, sure use metric. Imperial measurements are based on convenience. Why do we buy a dozen rolls from the baker and not 10? So we can divide them between 2,3,4,6 people. Weights are similarly based on what is useful. Look at a recipe for cakes and you might see 1Lb of this, 1/2Lb of this. The metric equivalent? 100g of this, 200g of that. How is that more useful to me? You can easily divide imperial weights by 2,4,8,16 to make smaller batches. Doing the same with metric is a pain. Why do we ask for some 2 by 4 timber? Because it's easier than asking for some 48mm by 96mm timber. If you're doing finer work, measuring things in divisions of an inch makes perfect sense. 16ths of an inch means you can subdivide with ease. Try dividing a cm into 8 equal parts sometime and tell me how you get on. Why do we use shoe size numbers rather than specify the length of our feet in mm? Because shoe sizes are about the right precision. In the UK, we also use stone to measure our weight. I'm 9 stone and a bit. Why is it more useful to be able to say I'm, 60kg. That's more precision than I want to tell someone my weight. I know this is an unpopular view with geeks, but if someone could please explain what problem metric solves, I'm all ears (And please don't trot out the space shuttle imperial vs metric mix up FUD).
- eru 17y ago
  > Why do we ask for some 2 by 4 timber? Because it's easier than asking for some 48mm by 96mm timber. Only, you wouldn't. For the same reason you do not buy 2.11337642 pints [0] of milk. The metric system is convenient enough to work in daily life. (But the historical baggage it contains annoys me. For example the we should get rid of the Kelvin and use a unit of temperature that makes the Boltzmann constant have a numerical value of 1. Also the Mol should make way for a sensible unit of number of atoms, like 1. Oh, and the speed of light should be made some simple number, too.) I guess with the advent of computers the difficulties of calculation with imperial units should not matter any longer. So imperial units are just not inconvenient enough to warrant a change. Like SI units are not inconvenient enough to warrant a change to something even simpler. On the subject of choosing dimensions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number has some interesting things to say. [0] 1 Liter = 2.11337642 Pints
tjic 17y ago
Why do we "still" use binary / hex for computers? The answer is that a decimal system of notation isn't a pure win in every endeavor. As a woodworker, there's a lot that I like about Imperial (I like doing metalworking in metric, though, and I have one metalworking lathe calibrated in each system). In woodworking, an inch is about the width of my thumb pressed flat. I can quickly measure things that way. The foot is a convenient size for the work that I do. Meters are a bit too big. Centimeters are too small. Imperial drill bits are available in sizes related by n/2. I can go from a 1" bit to a 1/2" to 1/4" to 1/8", etc. Or, I can add 50%, going from 1/8" to 3/16". See also ISO preferred numbers (ISO 3:1973) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number http://www.sizes.com/numbers/preferred_numbers.htm http://www.sizes.com/numbers/preferred_numbers.htm
TNO 17y ago
"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and thats the way I likes it!" -- Abraham Simpson
moron4hire 17y ago
The question is, what is the benefit of switching? "It's easier." Yes, technically metric is easier than imperial... but imperial isn't that hard.
moron4hire 17y ago
Here's the thing that I find tragically hilarious about this conversation: you can't get people this riled up about their local school superintendent embezzling money.

12 points by jrwoodruff 17y ago

Lawyers. edit: hey downmodders, seriously, the answer is lawyers. The legal mess that would ensue from having to switch the land measurements to metric is one of the biggest stumbling blocks, the lawyers would have endless causes to bicker over the exact location of property boundaries. Never mind that the inch is defined as 0.0254 meters.

wglb 17y ago
the answer is lawyers. Not really. My uncle was a farmer, which in these days involves mostly machinery, which all have bolts. Back then, there was talk of converting to the metric system, and he said that he hoped that he would be able to retire before that came into being. But then he bought a New Holland combine, which was all metric. At that time, I think there was a proposal to allow mechanics to get a tax deduction for replacing all there tools with metric tools, but this was denied. Similarly the cost of conversion is huge for NASA and many other industries. Property boundaries are, except for Texas, I hear, are all based off of reference points that are precisely described. So I don't think the answer is lawyers.

jrwoodruff 17y ago

I know this is an old-ish article, but this is a topic that severely annoys me. I was taught both systems of measurement, beginning in grade school. But I still have to calculate feet and inches. I have to buy twice as many tools for my garage, because that bolt could be 3/4" or 17mm. NASA can't even manage to build the space shuttle replacement using the metric standard? wtf?

byoung2 17y ago
I find it hard to believe that it would cost $350 million to convert the drawings and diagrams to metric. I would do it for half that price!
- jrwoodruff 17y ago
  Even if it did cost that much, did they learn nothing from the mars orbiter disaster? Pick a standard unit and stick to it. And make damn sure all your contractors use the same unit. Seems like the unit that every single country in the world is on would be a good one to choose.
  - yannis 17y ago
    If my memory is correct something very similar happened also during the testing of the first 'Star Wars' missiles. The given cost is pure bull. Autocad has a facility where one can convert from metric to imperial dimensions. It would not cost that much to re-design the software to carry out the conversions automatically, including re-selection of standard components. (Except if NASA is still using rotring pens and tracing paper). One issue that would crop up though is some very odd looking sizes. Assume a rod of 1". This will translate to 25.4 mm, no sane Engineer in the rest of the world would specify a size like this, but would go for 25.0 mm. Having studied both systems I can assure you that the Imperial System adds easily 6 months to an Engineer's training.
- silvestrov 17y ago
  It's only half a Shuttle launch. There has been ~100 launches. So this would add 0.5% to the budget. They lost $125 million alone on the Mars Orbitor. Add the other crashes, and I think NASA has already lost more than it would cost to convert to metric.

btilly 17y ago

The metric system is simpler and better than the imperial system in every way but one. And that one is that there are more 12s or multiples of 12 in the imperial system, and so it is easier to split imperial measurements of every day measurements into thirds and quarters. And that is frequently very convenient. (The champion of divisibility is the acre, which is 22233511*11 square feet.)

eru 17y ago
When you have a numbering system based on 12, you have a few more factors to treat in a special way. Why stop there? We can go to a numbering system based on 60 or 72 or ... Believe me, this is the wrong way. We should strive to avoid special cases, and not create new ones. Thus - for the sake of consistency - we should build our number system (and measurement units) on base 11. This way all (non-trivial) factors will be treated the same way. Since you have to deal with repeating fractions anyway, you might as well make it the only case. I rest my case.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

JCThoughtscream 17y ago

Sheer bloodyminded cultural momentum has a lot to answer for. Thankfully, excepting the occasional conversion flub from NASA and structural engineers, Americans that need to use the metric system usually know how to use the metric system. So don't dismiss quite all of us as backwards wankers quite yet...

Kaizyn 17y ago

About 15 years ago now, I remember watching a PBS news show where this question came up. One of the guests said that we would never leave the Imperial system because all the land in the US was surveyed and alotted in Imperial. The switching costs away from that were deemed too high.

jrwoodruff 17y ago
Funny you mention that - it's actually how I got on this tangent. according to wikipedia: "Twenty-four states have legislated that surveying measures should be based on the U.S. survey foot, eight have legislated that they be made on the basis of the international foot, and eighteen have not specified the conversion factor from metric units" Yea. Survey foot. That's not even the current international standard for the length of a foot. Ridiculous. Glad I'm not an interstate contractor that has to deal with this mess.

ecq 17y ago

the cost of converting outweighs the benefits according to some people.

varjag 17y ago
That's until you lose another space probe or two.

tjic 17y ago

"If the question begins, 'Why don't they…?' the answer is money." -- Robert Heinlein

yannis 17y ago
Pity! From the Mendehall Order of April 5, 1893 ... such action will also have the great advantage of putting us in direct relation for our weights and measures with all civilized nations, most of which have adopted the metric system for exclusive use. http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP447/app3.pdf http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP447/app3.pdf I am actually convinced that if all costs are properly factored in, it will be more than beneficial in the long term. It is not that bad, I lived through a transition and it was almost uneventful!

axod 17y ago

This annoys the hell out of me. Metric is worse in almost every way for day to day tasks. Not everyone is a scientist doing complex calculations. For science, maths, engineering, sure use metric. Imperial measurements are based on convenience. Why do we buy a dozen rolls from the baker and not 10? So we can divide them between 2,3,4,6 people. Weights are similarly based on what is useful. Look at a recipe for cakes and you might see 1Lb of this, 1/2Lb of this. The metric equivalent? 100g of this, 200g of that. How is that more useful to me? You can easily divide imperial weights by 2,4,8,16 to make smaller batches. Doing the same with metric is a pain. Why do we ask for some 2 by 4 timber? Because it's easier than asking for some 48mm by 96mm timber. If you're doing finer work, measuring things in divisions of an inch makes perfect sense. 16ths of an inch means you can subdivide with ease. Try dividing a cm into 8 equal parts sometime and tell me how you get on. Why do we use shoe size numbers rather than specify the length of our feet in mm? Because shoe sizes are about the right precision. In the UK, we also use stone to measure our weight. I'm 9 stone and a bit. Why is it more useful to be able to say I'm, 60kg. That's more precision than I want to tell someone my weight. I know this is an unpopular view with geeks, but if someone could please explain what problem metric solves, I'm all ears (And please don't trot out the space shuttle imperial vs metric mix up FUD).

eru 17y ago
> Why do we ask for some 2 by 4 timber? Because it's easier than asking for some 48mm by 96mm timber. Only, you wouldn't. For the same reason you do not buy 2.11337642 pints [0] of milk. The metric system is convenient enough to work in daily life. (But the historical baggage it contains annoys me. For example the we should get rid of the Kelvin and use a unit of temperature that makes the Boltzmann constant have a numerical value of 1. Also the Mol should make way for a sensible unit of number of atoms, like 1. Oh, and the speed of light should be made some simple number, too.) I guess with the advent of computers the difficulties of calculation with imperial units should not matter any longer. So imperial units are just not inconvenient enough to warrant a change. Like SI units are not inconvenient enough to warrant a change to something even simpler. On the subject of choosing dimensions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number has some interesting things to say. [0] 1 Liter = 2.11337642 Pints

tjic 17y ago

Why do we "still" use binary / hex for computers? The answer is that a decimal system of notation isn't a pure win in every endeavor. As a woodworker, there's a lot that I like about Imperial (I like doing metalworking in metric, though, and I have one metalworking lathe calibrated in each system). In woodworking, an inch is about the width of my thumb pressed flat. I can quickly measure things that way. The foot is a convenient size for the work that I do. Meters are a bit too big. Centimeters are too small. Imperial drill bits are available in sizes related by n/2. I can go from a 1" bit to a 1/2" to 1/4" to 1/8", etc. Or, I can add 50%, going from 1/8" to 3/16". See also ISO preferred numbers (ISO 3:1973) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number http://www.sizes.com/numbers/preferred_numbers.htm http://www.sizes.com/numbers/preferred_numbers.htm

TNO 17y ago

"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and thats the way I likes it!" -- Abraham Simpson

moron4hire 17y ago

The question is, what is the benefit of switching? "It's easier." Yes, technically metric is easier than imperial... but imperial isn't that hard.

moron4hire 17y ago

Here's the thing that I find tragically hilarious about this conversation: you can't get people this riled up about their local school superintendent embezzling money.