Nations who have not yet adopted the metric system (pic)

en.wikipedia.org...

upload.wikimedia.org...

- Liberia
- Myanmar
- United States

Related Thread: Nasa's Betrayal: Going Metric

The metric system is used widely for scientific purposes but there are some exceptions, especially at large and small scales, such as the parsec. It has been adopted for everyday life by most nations through a process called metrication. As of 2006, 95% of the world's population live in metricated countries, although non-metric units are still used for some purposes in some countries. The holdouts to full metrication are the United States and, to a lesser degree, the United Kingdom, where there is public attachment to the traditional units.

Any Idea When the world will at least agree on something and adopt the metric system?

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URLed graph - too big for page

[edit on 25/7/07 by masqua]

The USA is the only developped county that is still using imperial? How surprising !!!

Originally posted by a1ex
Any Idea When the world will at least agree on something and adopt the metric system?

Nope, no egocentricity there...






psssst... the 'world' has already adopted it.
.

Well, to be fair, that map only shows 'official' adoption of it.

I know that Metric is still in wide us in the UK and Canada.

I would'nt be surprised if most of the world does'nt strictly use the Metric system all the time.


Personally I'm all for officially declaring both Imperial and Metric as the official measuring
systems of the U.S.

I dislike Metric, never been good at tit, and it just always seems so wrong, when it comes to
body measurements like height and weight.


I don't mind kilometers though, makes me sound healthier if I use kilometers to say
how far I walk each day.

By Iori
Personally I'm all for officially declaring both Imperial and Metric as the official measuring

For practical purposes that may be the best thing. Adopt them both and wait and see which measurements win out in the long run. For some reason Americans just love their "English" measurements. I have long since used both systems but it would be difficult for me to for instance build a house using metric. I would spend my day figuring rather than building! And I know that most builders feel the same. There are those who do work with both because we have many products and machines from abroad but they learned it out of necessity.
A lot may be cultural also. We don't want to use metric any more than we want to learn French! Here's how the average Joe sees it: "We obviously know how to do things better over here, didn't we all prove that back in WWI and WWII! Why do all the foreigners want to come over here to live? Heh? So don't tell us to learn a silly new measurement system that makes no sense!"

Thats nothing !
Some people are still using units like these:

Football stadiums : To measure the size of something big.
Hair width : small things
Library of congress : unit of quantity of data
Eye blinks : small intervals
Atomic bomb blast : Energy
Cars : Weight
Earth circles : long things.

So, don't be surprised if you see something like this written in any 'reputed' magazine or newspaper (mostly an american newspaper..) or said on TV:

The top US scientist told that this new machine weighs just below 4 cars and can process data of 200 libraries of congress in an eye blink. The components on the chips, which are no more than 0.5 hair width can easily circle earth twice, when placed side by side.
In the past such machines were of the size of one and a half football stadiums and consumed the energy of 5 atomic bombs to operate. Movie at 11....

I don't know what is meant by "adopted," the U.S. federal government has in fact switched over to the metric system for all its purchases. If you want to sell anything to the federal government, you have to measure it in metric.

It's not that difficult to translate between the two though. But on the other hand languages are difficult to translate, I cant wait til one universal language!

The UK isnt 100% Metric. I still like to measure in Feet and Inches, and our speed limits are in MPH

we use both here in the UK. for food, officially it has to be metric, but sellers can label in Imperial as well.

I think anyone who claims Metric is difficult is a bit of a fool. It makes much more sense than Imperial and the conversions are easy to remember.

Originally posted by stumason
we use both here in the UK. for food, officially it has to be metric, but sellers can label in Imperial as well.

It's usually the same way here, virtually everything commercial is labeled in both, although there's no requirement to do so. Of course most fruit stands and informal stuff is usually just in pounds.

I understand the metric system has some advantages, especially in science, but I don't see why some think it's so much better to justify the treatment of people who prefer fahrenheit, feet, and pounds being treated practically as cavemen by the metric elitists. In everyday life, I really don't think there's much difference. In regards to temperature, I think fahrenheit is superior since it's more fine -- i.e. each degree change in fahrenheit is much less than in celsius.

Anyway, in the end, people are most comfortable with what they're used to and Americans are notoriously stubborn to change imposed by government, so I imagine general use of the Imperial system will continue here for quite a long time.

[edit on 6/20/2007 by djohnsto77]

How About dpi Dots per Inch? ...per inch! why not metric?

Ohhh Wait:
en.wikipedia.org...

There are some ongoing efforts to abandon the DPI in favor of giving the inter-dot spacing in micrometres (µm). This is however hindered by leading companies located in the USA[citation needed], one of the few remaining countries to not use the metric system exclusively. A resolution of 72 dpi for example equals an inter-dot spacing of about 350 µm, 96 dpi → 265 µm, 160 dpi → 160 µm, 300 dpi → 85 µm, 4000 dpi → 6.4 µm. Going the other way, 1 µm → 25400 dpi, 30 µm → 850 dpi, 200 µm → 127 dpi. Note that 25400 = 1 dpi·µm, so dividing 25400 by a measurement in one of these units gives the measurement in the other unit.

Some have also proposed using dpcm (dots per centimetre).

Any know if the Metric measurement of monitor resolution is realy being indered by leading companies located in the USA?

That damn foreign metric junk is on EVERYTHING I buy.

I'm an American, damnit, and we use our own measurements
for everyday stuff. Oh sure .. the metric stuff is on everything
but I am too old to 'switch' ...

Not using metric is part of our culture.
Leave our American culture alone!

Originally posted by a1ex
Any know if the Metric measurement of monitor resolution is realy being indered by leading companies located in the USA?

Isn't monitor resolution defined by the the amount of pixels on the actual screen? So 1280 x 1024 is the amount of pixels in the image and the pixels being defined by the amount of actual lines in the screen itself?

Flyersfan, maybe they should just do both sets concurrently until "old farts" such as yourself "make way"? hehe, only messing

As I said though, the conversion is easy enough to remember and do in your head....

Originally posted by stumason

Originally posted by a1ex
Any know if the Metric measurement of monitor resolution is really being indered by leading companies located in the USA?

Isn't monitor resolution defined by the the amount of pixels on the actual screen? So 1280 x 1024 is the amount of pixels in the image and the pixels being defined by the amount of actual lines in the screen itself?

Flyersfan, maybe they should just do both sets concurrently until "old farts" such as yourself "make way"?

hehe, only messing

As I said though, the conversion is easy enough to remember and do in your head....

You're Right I meant to say printer resolution my mistake.

Originally posted by stumason
Flyersfan, maybe they should just do both sets concurrently until "old farts" such as yourself "make way"?

I think that's what they are doing. They've been doing it for decades.

Oh ... dont' forget ... I'm a 'fart-ette'

Originally posted by FlyersFan
That damn foreign metric junk is on EVERYTHING I buy.

I'm an American, damnit, and we use our own measurements
for everyday stuff. Oh sure .. the metric stuff is on everything
but I am too old to 'switch' ...

Not using metric is part of our culture.
Leave our American culture alone!

Possibly that's how the Mayans felt when they took their Calendar away

I see a pattern... Does anyone else see it?





I dunno maybe it's just me. Sigh.

I'll assume the above is a poor attempt at American humour

As for your "WTF" on the side of Africa, I am surprised as an American citizen you don't know your history.

I do believe, although I may be wrong, that little red blob is Liberia.

Originally posted by apc
I see a pattern... Does anyone else see it?

Need I remind you it was this glorious nation that spread the
Imperial system far and wide in the days of the greatest empire ever seen! (Nostalgic tear *sniff*) And its served its purpose very well.

P.s. I can't get used to Imperial tho - taught Metric at school, fixing an engine with my old man is a nightmare

Edit to move thing around
someone (no names mentioned alex!) dosen't know
how to up load pics to max size 640x480!!

[edit on 20/6/2007 by Now_Then]