America needs to finally adopt the metric system.

No thanks. One it would cost a lot of money during crappy economic times. Two... nobody here seems to want to. Most people over here seem comfortable with the way things are... if it bothers you... sorry for your luck.

[edit on 17-12-2008 by Resinveins]

No thanks. One it would cost a lot of money during crappy economic times. Two... nobody here seems to want to. Most people over here seem comfortable with the way things are... if it bothers you... sorry for your luck.

Nobody seems to want to switch to digital TV. What!? Now I have to buy a stupid converter box!? But it will help free up the range of the radio band for emergency services. So while it's a bitter pill to swallow, we still need to do it. The same goes for metric.

Just because people are comfortable doesn't mean things don't need to change. The reason why most people have such animosity on the subject are because they have too many misconceptions of the metric system. Most people with whom I've spoken about the subject actually agree once they see how easy metric really is. Otherwise, people are just prideful or mislead, such as in some European countries. Since 1 horsepower is equal to about 0.75 kilowatts they tell people the horsepower (despite being metric and despite all of the different "horsepowers" there are) because the number seems bigger.

Money during economic times? I have an idea. Let's stop spending about $5,000 every second on the war in Iraq. Actually, this could be part of Obama's big plan to kind of overhaul the country: economically, technologically, and educationally. If we're going to get sort of made-over and redo everything, we might as well measure with the rest of the world.

Well good luck with your campaign... I think you're going to need it. After listening to your rhetoric, I remain indifferent (which you'll notice matches neither of your blanket characterizations of being prideful or mislead) to your idea that this change is in any way needed. As far as I'm concerned, this country has far greater problems to concern itself with than whether or not we measure distances in kilometers or miles. Maybe after some of the more important issues are resolved, I might be interested in some trivial BS argument of quarts vs. liters. Until then, you might as well be trying to reorganize deck chairs on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.

Tell me something... Who pays for the Mars orbiter when it crashes or goes floating off into space never to return? The taxpayers do. And I don't think they like it when over 100 million dollars are wasted because someone didn't read a contract or use a metric unit (which is always expected in science).

It's as if the rest of the world has discovered electricity but America loves its whale oil and horse and buggies. If we never changed the little things (which can reverberate and become very large problems) then we'd have a lot of little problems. It's not difficult, and compared to other government spending it wouldn't cost that much money. Companies who do transition actually report noticeable gains.

[edit on 18-12-2008 by Totakeke]

reply to post by Totakeke


Yes the tax payers foot the biil on that one. But... translating between different measuring systems, or making sure you get the right part at the correct specs, is not rocket science... no pun intended.

As to it not costing much money as compared to anything... changing every road sign in the country would be no small undertaking. It also would not be cheap by any stretch of the imagination.

And by your kind of logic, I guess we should all be speaking the same language then too?

Like I said... good luck.

And by your kind of logic, I guess we should all be speaking the same language then too?

No, because there is no need to. Spoken languages are great to learn and having different ones is important. But measuring, especially in science, and especially because the rest of the world already does "speak the same language" (and by that I mean metric), that to not learn it is causing unnecessary problems.

Speaking different languages is cultural and will never change, and that's good. That would be bad if we all spoke the same language. It's a challenge to learn and I believe there are multiple studies out there about how being multilingual helps one's development and helps in the workplace, too. But to be a global competitor (which we used to be) we need to at least measure with everyone else; in the same "language," so to speak.

[edit on 18-12-2008 by Totakeke]

They tried to convert us to the Metric system when I was in school in the 90's and I never could catch on.No one could.The school district ended up dropping the idea.I struggle with the metric system because we use it a lot in the Military and i'm usually like " WHAT?" I'll stick with what I know.Thanks.

They tried to convert us to the Metric system when I was in school in the 90's and I never could catch on.No one could.The school district ended up dropping the idea.I struggle with the metric system because we use it a lot in the Military and i'm usually like " WHAT?" I'll stick with what I know.Thanks.

Well here's a quick lesson that only takes about 5 minutes. The metric system isn't that hard at all, and everyone should at least give it a try.

I assume when you say you use it in the military that you use the kilometer, correct? Well, a kilometer is 1,000 meters because of the prefix "kilo." There are 5 other prefixes as well, which are just multipliers; such as kilo. Kilo is "times 1,000." So 1 kilometer is 1,000 meters. There are 6 total prefixes: kilo, hecto, deca, deci, centi, and milli. This is an advantage because if you need a larger unit you just shift the decimal point, instead of multiplying or dividing with the English system. (Instead of multiplying "miles" times 5,280 to find how many feet are in a certain number of miles, all you'd have to do to find meters in a kilometer is shift the decimal point. No math required.)

For example, if you have a distance of 4 kilometers...

4 kilometers are:
40 hectometers are:
400 decameters are:
4,000 meters are:
40,000 decimeters are:
400,000 centimeters are:
4,000,000 millimeters:

That's all there is to it. If you need a larger unit you shift the decimal place over and tack on a multiplier word. It gets even easier, though. Even in science they don't use the "hecto," "deca," and "deci" prefix, so there's no need to worry about those. They're just there if you need them for something.

I hope this makes it a little clearer. No, it's difficult to use a unit if you don't know a lot about how the system works. (I felt the same way before I found out the meaning behind the prefixes.)

But if you're just having trouble finding reference points, think of it this way: a kilometer is about 10 football fields long and an hour's drive is about 80 kilometers. Once you have reference points it becomes just as easy as miles.

[edit on 18-12-2008 by Totakeke]

Wow, I honestly never realized the metric system was so.....simple. Seriously, I looked up a little more about it on google and it makes sense now.

I think this is one of the problems with converting to metric for the U.S. We grow up being taught feet, inches, miles....and when we see something in metric, ie: kilometers....(which we have on our speedometers) we confuse ourselves by making it seem harder than it actually is.

I'm down for joining the rest of the world in making things a bit easier, but imagine the infrastructure changes that would have to take place. Not to mention the businesses that would go under because of the switch. Specifically the tool companies who would lose a ton just from socket wrenches lol.

It's overall a good idea, but one that would take to much time and entirely to much money in these harsh economic times.

I use metric and inch measurements in my job everyday. It's not really that hard to convert one to the other. I see no problem with our measurement system either. I really don't understand why this is a problem for anyone that lives outside of America though. I don't care that you use metrics, I adapt and read the calipers in metric if I need to.

It's like an American saying " I wish those Germans would change their language to English, it's too hard to understand what they are saying".

[edit on 18-12-2008 by Daz3d-n-Confus3d]

I'm down for joining the rest of the world in making things a bit easier, but imagine the infrastructure changes that would have to take place. Not to mention the businesses that would go under because of the switch. Specifically the tool companies who would lose a ton just from socket wrenches lol.

Good point. But would the companies lose money (which isn't unheard of with the economic situation now lol) or would they gain even more because now everyone has to use the metric wrenches? Most new cars are metric anyway (if not all new cars. I'm not sure, I know squat about cars ) so people would still need wrenches, they just wouldn't have to have two sets.

Yes, it would cost money. But it's costing money each year we don't do it, and the longer we wait the deeper we get into the hole. Yes, we'd probably want to wait until the economy is doing better, but we could implement the metric system as part of some kind of economic rebuilding plan. It could also be part of the plan President-elect Obama has for rekindling America's scientific competitiveness (he's already assembling a science team). Nothing says "We're a scientific nation" like adopting the measuring system of science.

I recall reading somewhere that the metric system was brought in by Napolean who spread it across Europe when he was out rampaging with his armies. So it's not so much a system of choice, but more one that was brought upon Europe (UK excluded)

I really don't understand why this is a problem for anyone that lives outside of America though. I don't care that you use metrics, I adapt and read the calipers in metric if I need to. It's like an American saying " I wish those Germans would change their language to English, it's too hard to understand what they are saying".

It's a problem because America does business with other countries, all of which do not use the English system. Why have two different ways to measure length, and one of those is with an old, broken system? All you really need is one.

Originally posted by WatchRider
I recall reading somewhere that the metric system was brought in by Napolean who spread it across Europe when he was out rampaging with his armies. So it's not so much a system of choice, but more one that was brought upon Europe (UK excluded)

Not sure where you read that, but didn't it have something to do with the Treaty of the Meter (Convention du Mètre)? The treaty established three organizations relating to international units of measurement and was signed by 17 nations. I don't think it had much to do with armies. Switching measurement systems isn't so cut-and-dry. It takes time, money, and hard work to switch everything, such as businesses, roads, books, etc., and is a coordinated effort. Not sure some armies marching through switched all of Europe to an international system of units. Napoleon brought it to France, but not so much all of Europe (even though without Napoleon it might have taken longer for the metric system to be accepted as the international measuring system).

www.bipm.org...
www.mel.nist.gov...

[edit on 24-12-2008 by Totakeke]

reply to post by Totakeke


I have to say i really dislike the metric system,and actually find it harder to use.

The metric system also allows for covert price inflation.
For example;in the US when liquor started to be sold in the international standard (750 ml,about 0.198 gal) instead of in fifths of a (U.S. fluid) gallon (0.2 gal about 757 ml) and the price remained the same.In Ireland,Glanbia,a large liquid milk processing company,decidec to replace its one-pint milk packs with half-litre packs which contain 62 ml less milk at the same price.



[edit on 26-12-2008 by DantesLost]

62 milliliters less? One pint is 473 milliliters, so a half a liter (500 milliliters) would actually be more, it would be 27 milliliters more. Unless you're talking about some other kind of pint? (Which only highlights the problems with the English system even more.)

EDIT: Ah, I see. You were talking about an Imperial pint, and I was using a US pint. And that is why the English system is so broken. They can't even agree on the same pint.

The goal of the metric system isn't for covert price inflation. If a company uses the metric system to inflate prices then that's the company's fault and is just another dirty business practice (there are tons of them). Just because a company inflates prices with the metric system is horrible but that doesn't make the metric system bad.

[edit on 26-12-2008 by Totakeke]

You know, I am very familiarized with both systems and I can honestly say that I hate, hate, HATE the metric system. It's annoying and I can't stand it and I'm not going to start using it just because the rest of the world does. They want everything in metric? Let them convert it.

America doesn't NEED to do something because another country wants it to. They've tried to get metric to catch on before and it doesn't work. Why? Because there's nothing wrong with the system we've got.

I like my inches and miles and feet, yards, pounds and cups. I hate liters and I hate meters and I hate the prefixes.

Originally posted by Totakeke
[Could you imagine a 65 nanometer manufacturing process (used in creating computer processors) where, instead of nanometers (which is a prefix combined with the base unit) it said 0.00000255905512 inches? Too difficult.

I think you know you're using excessive precision along with an inappropriate unit selection.

65 nanometres ~ 2.56 microinches

That's not so bad.

reply to post by nscopheacriaaclters


Absolutely NOT easier!

America has to adopt the metric system because all the other countries are doing it and it's cool to give into peer pressure these days. Didn't you get the message?

EDIT: spelling

[edit on 1/15/09 by TasteTheMagick]

If America adopted the metric system then it would make us a little bit like the French and we do not want that to happen.