Why the US is not metric and why it won't be any time soon

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I believe the only country that uses exclusively Imperial/English measurements, aside from the US, is Belize.

We use liters only for sodas, for some reason. We still have a quart/gallon of milk.

In New Hampshire, distances to exits on highways are rendered in both miles and kilometers. I think I saw that in Maine as well.

In England, the yard is more commonly used on highways than feet; in the US, it's the other way around.

I could convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius easily. I use 10C=50F; 15c=59F; 20C=68F; 25C=77F, and 30C=86F as benchmarks.

Furlongs are still used in horse racing; 1 furlong equals 1/8 of a mile.

We also use pecks and bushels for dry measure.

We measure snow using inches. We measure rain using fractions of an inch.

There are a few nurses who use kilograms to record a person's weight, and centimeters to record a person's height. In nursing forms, the option is use either exists.

Medical doses, in the vast majority of instances, are rendered in variations on the gram or liter.

I am 5 foot 4 3/4 inches tall; that's about 164 centimeters. I weight about 185 lbs, or about 83 kg or so, and about 13 stone.

Celcius and Kelvin are the same scale, it's just that Celcius sets the freezing point of water as 0 (therefore has negative values for anything below freezing), and Kelvin starts at the absolute minimum, which is about -273C.
I find Celcius quite practical for the human scale: 20C is "room temperature", anything over is hot. Below 0C means it's freezing which is probably the most important thing to know about the weather (apart from natural disasters of course).

I work in shipping so I'm used to using kilograms and cubic metres,which are the international standard,but when it comes to knowing a person's weight etc my default thinking is in stones and pounds,which is what I grew up with.The same with lengths - I'm familiar with metres and kilometres but my defaults are feet and miles.

From a British point of view,the one great advance of metric was when we introduced decimal coinage in the 1970s. It's incredible to
think that some people found the new system of 100 pence = 1 pound difficult to adapt to,when the old system was the patently
ridiculous 12 pence = 1 shilling and 20 shillings = 1 pound.

How is more practical than Fahrenheit in the human scale tho? Most don't want to mess around with fractions when it comes to temperature and 1 degree Fahrenheit is 1.8 degree Celsius difference or something like that so it is more accurate. Maybe people from more dreary climates can't appreciate the difference, I've lived in places that get -30 and get up to 100. I live in the desert now so it gets up to 120+ and can get below freezing too. Fahrenheit just seems superior in the human scale as far as weather is concerned, 0-100 is generally what most people experience. 0-100 in Celsius ranges from a bit nippy to dead.

I think of the weather in Celsius. That is how the temperature is forecast over here in France, they never use fractions of a degree, there is no need I can't imagine how half a degree would feel any different, let alone the forecast isn't that accurate anyway, they are lucky to be within 5 - 10 degrees Celsius of the actual temperature.

Jacoby: you don't live in Jersey any more?

To quote Messrs Gaiman and Pratchett:

NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One Shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Wichfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system:
Two farthings = One Ha'penny. Two ha'pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.
The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.

What enabled Americans to walk on the moon was national will and science. We aint got the the national will no more.

I've never live in Jersey

Australia went fully metric in 1972.
Most people still use the foot as a measurement.

I switch between inches and millimetres, feet and metres, easily. And most people seem to do so also.
Baby's weights are always given in pounds and ounces as well as kg.
Areas are in metres squared, but quarter acre, half acre, and acreage lots are often refered to.
I had a 1972 Toyota for decades, and could easily convert miles to km in my head.
I have to convert fuel use km/lt to miles/gallon in order to understand the number. That's probably just me though.
I did engineering at collage, and anything to do with Newtons confused the hell out of me.
Same with torch, give me foot/pounds any day. It makes intuitive sence.
I sure don't miss the coinage though. I've got some penny's and thripences in my collection from the "good old days".

Yes, you don't really need fractions for a weather forecast. Most people can't feel one degree difference even. The way the temperature feels is also very dependant on humidity, wind etc. At 100% humidity sweating is not really effective anymore.
I think that if temperatures are usually between 0 - 25 C, that's pretty easy for people to understand. That would be 32 - 77 F, which to me feels more difficult to interpret.
Ultimately it doesn't really matter what scale we use, I just think it's more important that everyone uses the same scale. For example the billion-problem. In some places a billion is 10^9, and in other places it's 10^12.

I guess it is just perspective and what you're use to, Fahrenheit is still better tho for weather. Celsius is nice if you're like boiling water. I feel like I can tell the nuance between 103 and 105 degree weather, I grew up in a cold climate so we would be in negative temperatures for months if we used Celsius as opposed to just a week or so with extreme cold. It's the same temperature but 20 degrees sounds better than -6.66 degrees to me at least.

A lot of things are just more practical in American or Imperial units, feet and inches too. Saying someone is 6' is just better than saying they're 1.82 meters.

Like I said, not a scientist and I am more concerned about practicality in the human scale. It is all arbitrary one way or another, some things just don't need to be change. There is metric and decimal time, why don't other countries use that?

here's a vid to old skit on SNL lampooning the metric system with the Decabet.

http://vimeo.com/66638573

That's why when I hear someone say that their country is fully metric, not like those silly Americans, I think Right! Unless you did it 200 years ago I want to hear it from a mechanic or civil engineer. Suppose you maintain an old office building. Sure, as water heaters and other machinery wears out, you can replace them with metric equivalents. But you're not going to rip out miles of perfectly good plumbing, conduits, sprinkler pipe, ductwork, and everything else, just because it's in inch sizes. Doorknobs fit into a 2" hole. The windows on the front facade are 18" by 36". The beams which hold the parking garage together are joined with 1" bolts. I guess you just convert all those to metric units ? hand me my 1.4287cm wrench, tell the glazier we need three replacement panes in 45.72 by 91.44cm, and the guy in the corner office wants another electrical socket, so we'll need several meters of 2.54cm conduit. Yeah, we're fully metric now, you betcha.

In the US a meter is 2 ft while a yard is 3 feet! That is just how it is In the metric system im assuming a meter is 3 feet! We also measure in miles which 1 mile= 5280 ft a kilometer is 2000 feet!

A meter, in the US, and everywhere else, is 39.37 inches--or a yard and 3.37 inches.

A kilometer is about 3,333 feet.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 21 Aug 2014, 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It would seem like it would be a mess in say sports where a football field is a 100 yards, and if that is converted to meters then the distance needed for a first down becomes fractional.

And the distances cannot be changed because then the comparison between older sports statistics and modern day statistics would not be with regard to the same lengths, so not a fair comparison.