Metric System

[cbo111]

I attended grade school back in the 60's and, along with many of you, was taught the basic metric system. Grams, centimeters, all that fun stuff. I distinctly remember teachers emphasizing "we will be transitioning to this system in the coming years." A decade later I noticed gas station pumps started displaying amounts in gallons and liters. That's about it. Except for having to maintain two complete sets of wrenches and sockets, the USA has really managed to avoid what the rest of the world has determined to be the best, most logical system. One of the reasons we are special, I suppose.

 

[braumeister]

I distinctly remember teachers emphasizing "we will be transitioning to this system in the coming years."

It has been the "preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce" since 1975.
https://usma.org/laws-and-bills/metric-conversion-act-of-1975#locale-notification

Right.

But even in Jolly Olde England the roads are marked in miles, not kilometers.

 

[Music Lover]

Canada transitioned to metric when I was in grade school so I'm familiar and can easily work with both if need be. Isn't it time for the US to stop being stubborn and get with the times?

 

[JoeWras]

Yeah, UK is still hanging on here and there. What's your weight in stone? [emoji3]

Since I started baking by weight, I got a good handle on what a few hundred grams feels like.

Runners know what a kilometer feels like. Soda drinkers know a liter.

Maybe some day this experience will result in a true switch.

Meanwhile auto manufacturers have switched. Mechanics almost exclusively use their metrics.

I'm all for it, but I'm honestly not a fan of Celsius. But I could deal with it if necessary.

 

[oscar1]

If anyone would do a GDP productivity loss study on why we should transition from imperial to metric, it would be a no brainer. Amazing more companies are not demanding this.

 

[JoeWras]

If anyone would do a GDP productivity loss study on why we should transition from imperial to metric, it would be a no brainer. Amazing more companies are not demanding this.

We could start with the Mars probe that crashed because someone forgot to convert. Something like $150M that the taxpayers lost.

Important industries like autos have converted.

But yeah, more industries could benefit if they went all in.

It's not easy, though. We're still used to fasteners like hex nut sheet metal screws coming in standard sizes. I've recently started encountering metric versions of these. It's... Interesting as the common metric size doesn't fit the hex driver sets we have. So manufacturers of HVAC equipment, for example, are going to have to make a decision. Probably pretty soon, because the imports are here.

 

[Music Lover]

Meanwhile auto manufacturers have switched. Mechanics almost exclusively use their metrics.

It's common in Canada for socket sets to include both Imperial and Metric. I have both. My Acura has 19mm lug nuts, my parent's GM vehicles are 7/8".

 

[JoeWras]

It's common in Canada for socket sets to include both Imperial and Metric. I have both. My Acura has 19mm lug nuts, my parent's GM vehicles are 7/8".

They are probably 22mm if a recent car. 7/8 fits 22 well. GM has actually been really good about going metric.

Speaking of lugs. Wheels and tires are a mess . Maybe your lugs have metric threads. Maybe not. Then there are tires. They are measured in mm for width and profile, but put on wheels measured in inches. Whatamess

 

[GalaxyBoy]

In the 90s I worked designing building systems for the US government, domestically, where we were required to produce drawings in metric. So we’d design in Imperial, convert it to metric for the drawings, so the contractor could convert it all back for his work.

I worked on a commercial job in Chile and thought it interesting that pipe sizes were noted in inches with lengths in mm. After all, they sourced the pipe from the US but cut it to length themselves. But then again, a 1” pipe is identical to a 25 mm pipe but, in reality, is exactly neither.

 

[Walt34]

I've noticed the U.S. is finally, but still slowly, changing to the metric system. While I bought my first set of metric mechanic's tools shortly after buying a Yamaha motorcycle in 1967, it's been slow going since then. More recently I have noticed that more and more American-made mechanical stuff, like the Ariens snow blower I have, uses metric fasteners. The engine is made in China so that's not a surprise. But a lot of other stuff on it is metric too, as is the R/C hobby stuff I buy.

And within the past year or so the local newspaper has taken to reporting temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius and distances in both miles and kilometers. So maybe in a couple more generations the change will be complete.

 

[MRG]

Isn't this like when to take Social Security?

Back in the 70s I was working in lumber and everything I did was based on a system of 1/12ths. Today I don't care. Actually I weigh a lot of ingredients for recipes in grams and convert to ounces on the fly.

 

[JoeWras]

Take Social Security while you are still 37 degrees.

 

[SecondAttempt]

If anyone would do a GDP productivity loss study on why we should transition from imperial to metric, it would be a no brainer. Amazing more companies are not demanding this.

In my engineering career I have operated almost exclusively in metric. It was not so much a choice as a reality every place I worked. I think the one major holdout is the aerospace industry although I have worked on non-aircraft projects for divisions of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman and a few others and they were all strictly metric.

Yet when I leave work I speak American units. I am equally comfortable in both systems of units and have no strong opinion on whether the US should switch.

In the early 90s I would visit machine shops and see our drawings marked up with conversions to inches for dimensions but that has become rare in the last 20 years or so. Now they just flip the in/mm switch and machine away.

I will say that engineering calculations are FAR easier in metric units and that leads to fewer errors and ultimately lower cost to companies.

You will find that most countries have a traditional system of units that are still used behind the scenes and they typically have something that translates as "thumb" for example that is about an inch.

 

[SecondAttempt]

In college my engineering thermodynamics professor had us using a system he made up for an entire month. I don't recall all the details but I remember that velocity was measured in furlongs per fortnight, the unit of weight was the average weight of a linebacker on the college football team (and of course it varied every year). Temperature used a scale that ranged from the ideal temperature for his coffee (29 degrees in his system) and the temperature he preferred his beer (0 degrees in his system), because, well prime numbers just complicate everything. It was a nightmare at the time but to this day I am extremely good at unit conversions.

And then there is the factoid that a barn*-megaparsec* is about 2/3 teaspoon and is therefore useful in recipes.

Ain't units fun!

* A barn is about the cross-sectional area of a uranium nucleus and is a real unit used in nuclear physics and is about 0.00000000000000000000000000001 square meters. A megaparsec is a unit used is astronomy and is about 19,170,000,000,000,000,000 miles.

 

[Sunset]

I'm waiting for America to adopt the Metric Time Standard (MTS) so we can have a longer retirement

 

[Sunset]

When I was flying repeatedly between USA and Canada, one time I flew into Kansas, hopped into my weekly rental, and drove at 65*.6 down the freeway.. I was driving as though I was still in Canada and had mentally converted to the km/h instead of mph.

Realized after so MANY cars passed me...

 

[SecondAttempt]

I'm waiting for America to adopt the Metric Time Standard (MTS) so we can have a longer retirement

Would you prefer a Gs retirement or a Ts retirement?

 

[SecondAttempt]

When I was flying repeatedly between USA and Canada, one time I flew into Kansas, hopped into my weekly rental, and drove at 65*.6 down the freeway.. I was driving as though I was still in Canada and had mentally converted to the km/h instead of mph.

Realized after so MANY cars passed me...

I bet a lot of people tried to inform you of your error.

 

[RobbieB]

You mean you drove 40 on the freeway and didn't think it was slow?

 

[Pellice]

Do you think people would be willing? I'm ready. Metric is SO MUCH EASIER than imperial measurements. I can tell you instantly how many meters are in 6 kilometers. I can't tell you how many yards are in 6 miles without calculating it.

For an upcoming foreign trip I'm trying to familiarize myself with bird sizes that are given in that country's field guides in centimeters. 10 is small, 4 inches. 15 is medium. 20+ is 8 inches or more, relatively big.

I think the US is alone in its retention of the old system, which is ridiculous.

 

[Pellice]

Isn't this like when to take Social Security?

Back in the 70s I was working in lumber and everything I did was based on a system of 1/12ths. Today I don't care. Actually I weigh a lot of ingredients for recipes in grams and convert to ounces on the fly.

For recipes we'll keep needing our dual-marked measuring cups for at least my lifetime. In fact, I have never seen measuring SPOONS for sale that use a metric system.

But, oddly, things like the minimum daily requirements for nutrients, and all the calorie counting apps online give their numbers in grams.

 

[Alan]

Not really sure why the UK is hanging onto miles on the road system, pretty much everything else is metric including the gas which is priced and sold in liters.

I worked in engineering for global companies for several decades and everything is in metric including the time I worked in the USA. Most of the instruments we bought were metric.

 

[JoeWras]

Do you think people would be willing? I'm ready. Metric is SO MUCH EASIER than imperial measurements. I can tell you instantly how many meters are in 6 kilometers. I can't tell you how many yards are in 6 miles without calculating it.

True. And in recipes, I can switch between liquid measure and the scale for water with ease. (1g = 1ml)

Many benefits.

But for the human experience, that dies with Celsius. Farenheit actually makes sense because it basically took 0 and 100 as the approximate ends of the scale for the typical human experience. In a way, that's metric because it is a factor of 10. Anything over 100 is a warning, and is especially handy for body temperature. We know fevers over 100 need attention.

The REAL metric measurement for temperature is Kelvin. That's what we use in science. Zero is absolute zero. Celsius is just a crutch.

I mean, what would be so bad saying: "Today's going to be a perfect day. A high of 300!" Or, "He has a mild fever of 312."

 

[JoeWras]

Not really sure why the UK is hanging onto miles on the road system, pretty much everything else is metric including the gas which is priced and sold in liters.

Back in the early mid 80s I went to a gas station in Binghampton, NY a few times. Poor guys converted their mechanical pumps to liters. They were stuck with it. They displayed prices in gallons on the price board, but the pumps did liters.

We actually should flip to liters. It could be done overnight with a flip of a few switches. We'll survive.

As for price position of tenth of a currency unit, that should be banned worldwide.

Alan, you guys also hang onto stones. Every time I read a UK based article about someone's weight, I have to get out my multiplication by 14 table. One time, I flipped the switch on our digital scale to stone, for fun, and forgot. DW enjoyed the massive weight loss.

 

[punkinhead]

I designed robotic assembly machines and we did all our designs in metric and only purchased metric components. Then we'd generate drawings in inches for the shops to build the machine. Then we'd generate metric drawings for the customer if the machine was going to Europe. It was extra work and required doing revision control on multiple sets of drawings. I couldn't convince people how stupid this was. And the only reason was because the US shops we used preferred inch drawings. I finally sat the shop owners down and asked them to explain it and they said the CNC mills/lathes don't care because they can be switched between systems at the press of a button. The real reason was because raw stock like aluminum and steel is still sold in inches in the US so it made their life easier for quoting and purchasing material if they had inch drawings. I compromised and we started generating only metric drawings but we'd dual dimension "bounding box" dimensions with both inch and metric so the shop knew what size stock to buy without converting units. I retired within months of decreeing to the group that we'd do it that way going forward so I suspect they went right back to inch drawings after I left. "We've always done it that way" is a hard paradigm to break, even when the new way is faster and less error prone.