Should the U.S adopt the Metric system completely and why?

[Joecoolyo]

That's weird.

I have been using metric all my life until I moved to Canada. Picturing feet, inches, and miles is easy, once you figure out how long they are. Should be equally easy going the other way.

What's there to imagine, anyway? Once you know how long it is, that's all you need.

Maybe you're just special

But, I, for the life of me, can't imagine how long a kilometer is. I can imagine a mile, and I can use miles when talking distance, but kilometers escape me. The same goes with Celsius.

I'm a little better with the smaller measurements, like meters, and centimeters, but the large ones I just can't grasp in metric.

 

[Ajidica]

Celcius isn't that bad. Just multiply it by two and add a bit.

Liters is where it gets me. While I know how big a two liter of pop is, I just can't visualize it as gallons.

 

[Camikaze]

Fahrenheit can give a more accurate reading of the temperature without going into decimals since there are more individual units in the range of temperature between boiling and freezing points. Those are the range of temperatures we commonly use.

So I assume you think an even better system would be to set the freezing point at 0 and the boiling point at, say, 1000, giving an even greater range.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Far easier to remember and far less cumbersome, it defeats American exceptionalism, and it also assists our integration with other nations - standardisation of weights and measures is historically a form of economic harmony, is it not? One could argue that a state can be bilingual to accommodate two major groups of people... but bi... er, whatever you'd term it, I don't think so.

Only issue is it would be very expensive to change, at least at first. For highway signs, things should be listed in both km and mi. For cars it's a bit more an issue... possibly give grants to companies who put km measurements in their cars?

Then you have the population. People are resistant to any change no matter how much it could benefit them; "We live in America so why should I learn Spanish?! " comes to mind. (Very different question than "why should I have to learn Spanish!") And, we'd need to get people to be able to mentally estimate size, rather than imperial units; I can mentally remember each imperial unit, more or less. But to date, the only metric unit I perfectly remember is the meter because it's said it's the width of an average doorway - 3.3 feet.

 

[Leonel]

It wasn't hard for me to imagine centimeters as I was raised on centimeters, meters, kilometers. But when I came to the states for university, I was like "Woah wait what the heck is an inch? Looks like 3 and a bit centimeters to me!" and the temperature just confused the heck out of me as I was used to 30C being hot and 20C getting chilly. I even programmed myself a program on my TI-83 to do quick conversions for me.

But now I'm accustomed to the Imperial system and can imagine miles, inches and that other thing, yards? It takes a couple of years to adjust but it happens.

 

[ZeletDude]

Far easier to remember and far less cumbersome, it defeats American exceptionalism, and it also assists our integration with other nations - standardisation of weights and measures is historically a form of economic harmony, is it not? One could argue that a state can be bilingual to accommodate two major groups of people... but bi... er, whatever you'd term it, I don't think so.

Only issue is it would be very expensive to change, at least at first. For highway signs, things should be listed in both km and mi. For cars it's a bit more an issue... possibly give grants to companies who put km measurements in their cars?

Then you have the population. People are resistant to any change no matter how much it could benefit them; "We live in America so why should I learn Spanish?! " comes to mind. (Very different question than "why should I have to learn Spanish!") And, we'd need to get people to be able to mentally estimate size, rather than imperial units; I can mentally remember each imperial unit, more or less. But to date, the only metric unit I perfectly remember is the meter because it's said it's the width of an average doorway - 3.3 feet.

They already put KM/H on cars speedometer, it's just alot smaller.

 

[Bill3000]

That doesn't help, because, even though I know that a mile is roughly one and half kilometers, I still can't imagine it. I'm too used to using a mile as a measurement, and for as long as I live, kilometers, celsius, and everything metric will be foreign to me.

Perhaps you just need to practice your fractions then?

Take 10 miles. Divide that by two to get 5. Add that to the original 10 to get 15 kilometers. If you need to be more precise than that, you can use a calculator.

For Celsius, take your F temp, subtract 32, then divide that by 2.

It's not that hard, dude, and I'm quite sure you're smart enough to do that in your head... And besides if you're ever actually using imperial units seriously you would have to do simple addition/multiplication/division of this kind anyway!

 

[innonimatu]

I'm talking this from wikipedia (so take it with a grain of salt):

The second point, 100 degrees, was the level of the liquid in the thermometer when held in the mouth or under the armpit of his wife — subsequent refinements.

rofl

I imagine that they'd have a real problem trying to calibrate a thermometer to that definition today!

 

[Zelig]

Far easier to remember and far less cumbersome, it defeats American exceptionalism, and it also assists our integration with other nations - standardisation of weights and measures is historically a form of economic harmony, is it not? One could argue that a state can be bilingual to accommodate two major groups of people... but bi... er, whatever you'd term it, I don't think so.

Only issue is it would be very expensive to change, at least at first. For highway signs, things should be listed in both km and mi. For cars it's a bit more an issue... possibly give grants to companies who put km measurements in their cars?

Then you have the population. People are resistant to any change no matter how much it could benefit them; "We live in America so why should I learn Spanish?! " comes to mind. (Very different question than "why should I have to learn Spanish!") And, we'd need to get people to be able to mentally estimate size, rather than imperial units; I can mentally remember each imperial unit, more or less. But to date, the only metric unit I perfectly remember is the meter because it's said it's the width of an average doorway - 3.3 feet.

None of those issues are particularly complicated, just look at what Canada (or any of dozens of other countries) did when presented with the exact same situation.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Perhaps you just need to practice your fractions then?

Take 10 miles. Divide that by two to get 5. Add that to the original 10 to get 15 kilometers. If you need to be more precise than that, you can use a calculator.

For Celsius, take your F temp, subtract 32, then divide that by 2.

It's not that hard, dude, and I'm quite sure you're smart enough to do that in your head... And besides if you're ever actually using imperial units you would have to do simple addition/multiplication/division anyway!

I'm not talking about using it in science and math, I'm fine with that

I'm talking about everyday usage. Such as telling someone directions, or estimating the temperature, etc.; and I just can't do metric. I can't imagine how far someone's house is away in kilometers, and I can't tell how warm or cold the temperature is in Celsius.

I bet if I moved away to somewhere where they use metric and lived there for a couple years, I could learn to imagine it. But for now, it's a lost cause.

 

[Bill3000]

I'm not talking about using it in science and math, I'm fine with that

I'm talking about everyday usage. Such as telling someone directions, or estimating the temperature, etc.; and I just can't do metric. I can't imagine how far someone's house is away in kilometers, and I can't tell how warm or cold the temperature is in Celsius.

I bet if I moved away to somewhere where they use metric and lived there for a couple years, I could learn to imagine it. But for now, it's a lost cause.

I'm not talking about using it in science and math, I'm talking about basic math skills that everyone should have and be able to use on a daily basis

And if the system was changed in the US then you admit yourself that you would be fine with it after a while

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

I say go for it ! . And you won`t have to change to "Royale with cheese" anyway . We have the metric system and it`s still Quarter Pounder

 

[Joecoolyo]

I'm not talking about using it in science and math, I'm talking about basic math skills that everyone should have and be able to use on a daily basis

And if the system was changed in the US then you admit yourself that you would be fine with it after a while

But doing everyday things, I'm not going to do math to find out something in metric when I already know what it is in imperial.

And yes, if it was changed, I could change to. The thing is, I'm lazy, and I'm already used to imperial

 

[Ace]

The US government tried to get the country to convert to the Metric system back in the 70's, IIRC. But it didn't go over with the majority of the people. End result, we are stuck with both systems. Buy a Toyoda and you need metric tools, buy a Ford and you need tools in inches....

 

[illram]

Pumping gas in foreign countries is also where I run into problems figuring out how much it will cost me. I am a complete imbecile at math and can never remember liter/gallon conversions.

 

[Bill3000]

But doing everyday things, I'm not going to do math to find out something in metric when I already know what it is in imperial.

You wouldn't need to - I am simply talking about how you would gain the intuition in the first place. You should be able to understand what it means for a distance to be one and a half times longer than another distance, or be able to understand what half a temperature degree is compared to a whole degree. You can easily find out and understand the temperatures which are cool, cold, warm, hot, etc. as reference point for yourself. Once you get the intuition of the scale between units then everything should be fine.

Pumping gas in foreign countries is also where I run into problems figuring out how much it will cost me. I am a complete imbecile at math and can never remember liter/gallon conversions.

A liter is approximately a quarter of a gallon.

 

[emzie]

If we did, we would have to reteach EVERYONE. Why
change what works good enough, and takes less effort.

I grew up in Ohio. I learned metric just fine. Weights and distances take about 5 minutes to get a feel for. I'll admit temperatures took a lot longer.

 

[Lillefix]

A little thing that bugs me. PEople keep saying that the US uses imperial units, but that's not completely true. Most of the measurements in the US system are identical to the imperial system, but gallons for example are different. An imperial gallon is about 4.55 liters, and a US gallon is about 3.8 liters.

 

[Traitorfish]

This one is actually really easy. Observe: In green are the countries that have officially adopted the metric system. In grey, the hold-outs.



You will have noticed that the hold-outs are thin on the ground. That is because they consist entirely of the United States, Liberia and Myanmar- the last of which has a government which is commonly acknowledged as being quite mad, and the second-last of which barely has any government to speak of. America, this is not good company! You can do better! Hell, Somalia can do better!

 

[classical_hero]

USA not #1. The metric system makes everything consistent. The imperial system is very weird, yet you guys do use the metric system in currency, rather than the imperial system, which I think is based on the power of 12, or something like that. I remember my mum telling me about the old system, where one pound was 12 pennies or something like that.

Who spell the word "litre" as liter? It is closer to litter than the measurement of liquid.