The metric system ...

Its weird because we use the metric system fro some things but not for others. If I hear a measurement or weight in SAE I can picture it immediately, if I hear a metric value I get a vague picture then I have to do a little math in my head to get an exact conversion.

My only problem with the metric system is I feel like if needs a more widely used value between centimeters and meters. Saying six feet to me seems much better than then saying 1.83 meters, but that could just be because I am more used to it. The ones that always threw me off were the measurements that exist in both systems but aren't the same, like a metric ton and a short ton.
 
elkins45 said:
Those guys are all English but they still talk in miles and pounds instead of Km and euros...
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Britain & the other countries in red kept their original currencies & didn't convert to the Euro.
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Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.
― Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
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Scientific proposals for an international decimal system of weights and measures began in the 17th century. The idea's first political sponsor was American President George Washington, who appealed to Congress to act upon its constitutional mandate (article 1, section 8) by adopting a uniform system of weights and measures. On January 15, 1790, the First United States Congress instructed Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to present a proposal for such a system. Responding to the American initiative, French scientists Nicolas de Condorcet, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Adrien-Marie Legendre, Antoine Lavoisier and Jean-Charles de Borda organized a Commission of Weights and Measures to create a French decimal system. Working in close collaboration with the French commission, Jefferson completed his system first and submitted his Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States to the U.S. House of Representatives on July 13, 1790.

Not surprisingly, Jefferson's proposal was quite similar to the later metric system. These were its measurements of length:

  • point = 1/10 line
  • line = 1/10 inch
  • inch = 1/10 foot
  • foot (base) (either 1/3 or 3/10 of 994.4 mm)
  • decad(e) = 10 foot
  • rood = 10 decade
  • furlong = 10 rood
  • mile = 10 furlong (ca. 2 traditional miles)

When the French commission presented their report to the Assemblée nationale constituante in March 1791, they had made a significant change. The original scientific basis of their system, agreed upon in consultation with Jefferson, was a seconds pendulum based on a measurement at the latitude of Paris, for which they ultimately substituted a length of a meridian of the Earth. With their last-minute change, Jefferson's proposal became an eccentric national standard for an insignificant new nation. Understandably (in this case) Congress dithered and did nothing. The Terror in France scuttled adaptation of the French system. The land rush which followed the end of the Northwest Indian War in 1795 forced an immediate decision, and Congress's quick and dirty solution — a survey grid system of 6–mile–square townships divided into 1–mile–square sections — established the Imperial system as our de facto national standard.
 
It's a waste of time. It will be centuries before the USA switches to the metric system. It was tried and failed. Heck, we still use a bushel and a peck. :rolleyes:

A U.S. Dry Measure bushel is 35.24 liters. There are 4 pecks in a bushel. The British Imperial bushel is different.

BTW, what's a cubit? :D
 
gadunz said:
The distance from elbow to middle fingertip.
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I know that, but what is the official cubit? Wait! I found it. It's 1/4 of a fathom or 0.2862 of a pace or 26,020 twips or 0.6429 arshins or 45.72 centimeters.

What was the topic again? :D
 
metric system? we don't need no stinkin metric system. on lobster boats we use mikes, nautical miles, and fathoms. :p
 
I'm fine with other countries using whatever systems of measurement they want. And they should be fine with letting us use the system we want. By the way, I know it is nit-picking, but we are not the only country still not using the metric system.
 
It's pretty ridiculous, but I'd say I use both...

As a science major, most of my work uses the metric system, and it honestly makes a lot more sense; all of the units convert so smoothly.
However, being American born and raised, most of my outside life uses good old inches and feet, so when looking at knives in my free time, it makes a lot more sense to me when blades are described as "4 inches long, quarter inch thickness.. etc.."
 
Very interesting discussion, especially for a science teacher who has had to wrestle with trying to teach students various units and how to make conversions. I especially enjoyed the history provided by Piso Mojado - I had never heard about Jefferson's contributions.

It will be nice, though perhaps boring, when one standard measurement is accepted and used. People are slow to change, and they do not like to give up the units they grew up with. The USA will become more fluent with the metric system as people learn to use it in the military, but otherwise Americans remain very reluctant to change,

I have not seen anyone mention the fact that American SCUBA divers could have, but did not, start their sport with metric units. After all, Jacques Cousteau was French. Because the US military also helped develop SCUBA, one might think that sport divers would now use metric units and be able to communicate with divers in other countries.
Unfortunately, this is not the case - Americans have continued to use feet, psi and other customary units in the sport.

It has been noted elsewhere that illicit drug use has at least made Americans familiar with some metric units: grams, milligrams and kilograms are becoming more familiar:D

Faiaoga
175 cm length, 75 kg body mass, 310 K body temperture
 
gadunz said:
Sonar detection?
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microseconds. Loran C time differentials. it is a more accurate navigation system than using lat and long especially for setting fixed fishing gear. every mike is a tenth of a nautical mile, or 600 feet. Although Loran C towers are defunct, modern GPS machines can convert latitude and longitude into TD's and display them.
 
Codger_64 said:
I'm fine with other countries using whatever systems of measurement they want. And they should be fine with letting us use the system we want. By the way, I know it is nit-picking, but we are not the only country still not using the metric system.
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The remaining non-metric countries are the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar (Burma).
 
Piso Mojado said:
The remaining non-metric countries are the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar (Burma).
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Yes. And I note that, in this age of metric conformity that scientific, medical and drafting instruments and CAD programs continue to be produced using our measurement system in metric compliant countries and exported here for our use. Ain't diversity grand? As for Jefferson and metrics, he wasn't keen on the idea of sending his delegation to France to see the system they had concocted. And then relations greatly cooled with France and it was decided that our system was sufficient. And so it has been for all practical uses for over 200 years.
 
Faiaoga said:
I have not seen anyone mention the fact that American SCUBA divers could have, but did not, start their sport with metric units. After all, Jacques Cousteau was French.
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By the way, throughout the world, pilots speak English, measure speed and distance in Nautical Miles (knots), and measure angles using the 360-degree compass.
 
Codger_64 said:
Yes. And I note that, in this age of metric conformity that scientific, medical and drafting instruments and CAD programs continue to be produced using our measurement system in metric compliant countries and exported here for our use.
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Probably because, despite being a metrological backwater, we remain the largest market for scientific, medical and drafting instruments and CAD programs.





But is the US really a metrological backwater? Does our sentimental cleave to outmoded units doom us to be the metrological laughing stock of the world? I do seem to recall that, earlier in the year, the US National Institutes of Science and Technology announced that they had developed a new method of exciting atoms resulting in a new world bar for most-precise atomic clock. So, despite our antiquated units of measure, we're still #1 in the world in metrology.
 
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Could be. For my part, I just ignore the side of the instruments with the funny scales and keep my CAD settings in familiar inch/foot archetectural units unless I am doing a mechanical design that requires decimal accuracy. Even then it is thousandths of an inch. All of my civil engineering work has been done in common U.S. measurements including highways, utilities and even the cut and fill calculation sheets. Though I did have a rod once graduated in tenths of a foot, but it just confused workers and machine operators. All of my current rods are in feet and inches. As are all of my construction plan sheets.
 
Gollnick said:
By the way, throughout the world, pilots speak English, measure speed and distance in Nautical Miles (knots), and measure angles using the 360-degree compass.
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The confusion of changing to metric would've resulted in fatal crashes, like Mars Climate Orbiter, but with people. Confused surface vehicles can stop without deaths, not planes.
 
The Imperial and US standard systems are extant and socialized as is metric, so I just use either as necessary. Our brains are plenty capable. Akin to being fluent, or at least adequate, in more than a single language. Where such is necessary and socialized, people have little problem with it. Example: contour maps where grid is metric/MGRS and contours aren't.
 
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