Americans occupy a big enough economic sphere that they get to define their standards [Disclosure: US citizen here] While this is true, I don't think it's help

Americans occupy a big enough economic sphere that they get to define their standards [Disclosure: US citizen here] While this is true, I don't think it's helpful to attach American economic/cultural dominance to the metric debate (at least wrt advocacy), because US and Imperial measurements and standards are almost identical. But that "almost" is an important qualifier. The root system they both share derives from the Middle Ages. Here's a helpful explanation of the differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_...