I live in the lovely United States of America. So that means two things: we use feet and fahrenheit.


Feet, yards, miles, inches - they're all really stupid units. 12 inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, 5280 feet in a mile. Why bother? The fact that we still don't use the metric system boggles me. 10 centimeters to a decimeter, 10 decimeters to 1 meter, and so on and so forth. IT MAKES SENSE! It's hard to switch, I know, because we're used to using our units. It's hard to judge and say "Oh, that's 4.5 meters." But all that takes is practice. And, besides, in the metric system, not only would be make sense, but speed limits and penis legnths would sound bigger!

Don't even get me started on fahrenheit. A system based on the bodies temperature being divided into 96 pieces is just stupid. Not only is it entirely random, but bu the body temperature for different people is normal anywhere between 96 and 100 degrees fahrenheit. Celsius! Makes tons more sense. Water freezes at 0, boils at 100. Tons of sense.

Except for a few things. One is that celsius temperatures don't really work for a lot of chemistry. One is the ever popular "joke:" It's 0 degrees out today, and will be twice as warm tomorrow. How hot is that?

USE KELVIN!

Zero is set at absolute zero. What could make more sense? Not only does it work, but you can answer the stupid question. Besides, there are less letters in Kelvin than Degrees.


And so, I rant. Use the metric system. Use Kelvin. Thank you.

I remember when I was in school in the mid 70’s the US attempted to switch to the metric system. It failed miserably. I think the entire country was hopelessly lost.

Originally posted by Amorymeltzer
penis legnths would sound bigger!

I feel really stupid, I don't know nothing about the metric system, I just use the American way. But if it makes penis lengths sound bigger, heck I'll learn it! jk

[edit on 30-6-2005 by Striker122]

I was in elementary school when we changed over to the metric system in Canada. Basically that means that I don't have a good grasp on either of them.



All I know is if the sign in the States says 50, that means I can go 80! Woohoo, it's like speeding without the tickets....

Yes.

Being able to think Metric and Imperial is like being bi-lingual.

I do 15-20 mental conversions each day.

But when it comes to converting cubic feet to cubic metres or vice versa, I would never chance it without a good Metric Conversion table.

The other day on radio people rang in to query a European record set by a German guy recently who spent five minutes in a sauna at 110 degrees with the coals being splashed every 30 seconds.

Was that degrees C or F?

I know the answer. But the discussion that this generated was interesting!

That's just hilarious. I complain enough when it goes over 35 degrees here, I can't even imagine 110 degrees. Doesn't wood spontaneously combust right around that temperature?



[edit on 30-6-2005 by Duzey]

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
I do 15-20 mental conversions each day.

But when it comes to converting cubic feet to cubic metres or vice versa, I would never chance it without a good Metric Conversion table.

I spend more time trying to actually think in terms of metric as opposed to converting, like you should to be fluent in a language. The physics and chemistry helps a lot, especially for the volume, as well as hiking (water bottles carry a liter). Still, it's very hard.

The problem with Kelvin is that the numbers are unwieldy. Nobody wants to say "It's a firgid 273K outside today." Still, it'd be nice.

Doesn't all scientific work get done using the metric system, even in the US? They switched over to the metric system in the 60s-70s where I live now. Apparently they fined shopkeepers who sold stuff using "pounds" and such.

It would actually be quite simple to change, actually. Start with everything else. Make the car manufacturers print the KM on the speedometer. Make shopkeepers put $/kg or $/g on the price tags of stuff bought like that, etc.

Science, yes, but that's because science needs to be reproducible elsewhere, wher ethey use the metric system. Also because people who do science are smart and therefore would use these units.

It's not easy like that, because it costs a lot of money. An absurd amount of money. And the government doesn't have control over a lot of the aspects of life that use it. Besides, people resist the change because it's hard once you've learned one way.