Why is the U.S. still not using the metric system?

[Rashiminos]

This is an occasion where we should be glad about gradual changes.

 

[bhsup]

When I see a nut, I can eyeball it and say right off the bat with pretty good accuracy whether it is 1/2", 7/16", etc. I have no clue if it is 10mm or 11mm or whatever. US system FTW.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I'm sure this whole metric thing is just a passing fad. Burma, Liberia, and the US will show the rest of the world that they are really the ones who are hopelessly backward by trying to standardize something as silly as weights and measures.


Link to video.

USA # 31/32nds.

 

[Disgustipated]

only because you are used to it. I see 7 mm nuts all the time at work (that sounds dirty, but it isn't ) and I can eyeball 7mm or 5.5 mm at work all the time too.

 

[Rashiminos]

When I see a nut, I can eyeball it and say right off the bat with pretty good accuracy whether it is 1/2", 7/16", etc. I have no clue if it is 10mm or 11mm or whatever. US system FTW.

Acclimation is not an argument.

 

[Skwink]

Well before I make a statement I need some numbers on the amounts of deaths caused by the Metric system vs the United States customary units system.

 

[bhsup]

Acclimation is not an argument.

But who are you to say I cannot use that as an argument? I am used to it, I like it, and I have no desire to change from it.

 

[mangxema]

We could switch to 350/400 mL cans.

That seems like an awful lot of effort for a few lousy millimeters.

Well I think half a liter is much more perfect beverage size.

Translation: I don't think that's not a good argument at all.

Fair enough. All I'm trying to say is that people like it and for many instances, metric would add no extra value. There is a vast infrastructure that already supports, for example, the 12 oz. can, and if you decreed that the nation must switch to metric, my prediction is that the 12 oz. would still live on. It might officially be the 355 ml can but few people would ever say that b/c the old name is much shorter.

 

[Joecoolyo]

why do they drive on the wrong side of the road anyways?

According to Wikipedia, it goes faaaar back to the day when people rode horse just with a saddle. And, apparently, since more people are right handed, they preferred to use their left hand to hold the reins, and keep their right hand free in order to do stuff, like hold a sword, or greet passerbyers. And to do that, they would need to ride on the left side of the road.

But since we no longer ride horses, I think Britain should give up this clearly barbaric and backward practice, going against the what the rest of the world has clearly decided upon as the right way to drive.

 

[bhsup]

According to Wikipedia, it goes faaaar back to the day when people rode horse just with a saddle. And, apparently, since more people are right handed, they preferred to use their left hand to hold the reins, and keep their right hand free in order to do stuff, like hold a sword, or greet passerbyers. And to do that, they would need to ride on the left side of the road.

But since we no longer ride horses, I think Britain should give up this clearly barbaric and backward practice, going against the what the rest of the world has clearly decided upon as the right way to drive.

Interesting. Another thing the English gave us... the size of the space shuttle boosters.

The US standard railroad gauge (width between the two rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to watch for fear of destroying their wagon wheels, were first formed by Roman war chariots.

Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses. Thus, we have the answer to the original question.

Now here's the rest of the story...

There's an interesting relationship to the story about railroad gauges and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank.

These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.

The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a Horse's Ass!

 

[Leonel]

I will be buried under 6 feet of English Earth not two metres!

I believe the proper term is "a hand and a half of Yorkshire slug buckets"

 

[azzaman333]

According to Wikipedia, it goes faaaar back to the day when people rode horse just with a saddle. And, apparently, since more people are right handed, they preferred to use their left hand to hold the reins, and keep their right hand free in order to do stuff, like hold a sword, or greet passerbyers. And to do that, they would need to ride on the left side of the road.

But since we no longer ride horses, I think Britain should give up this clearly barbaric and backward practice, going against the what the rest of the world has clearly decided upon as the right way to drive.

Driving on the left > driving on the right.

 

[Bill3000]

But who are you to say I cannot use that as an argument? I am used to it, I like it, and I have no desire to change from it.

The only thing that proves is that you're old.

 

[fizikis]

Americans should certainly switch over to the metric system, but the rest of the "metric" world should complete the metrification themselves first.

Things that I would like to see converted to a base of ten:

Geometry: why 360 degrees in a circle and not 100?
Time: 10 hours/day; 100 minutes/hour; 100 seconds/minute ...
Calendar is tougher because we can't adjust the length of the year, but it can still be optimised.

 

[onedreamer]

Imperial > Metric.
Imperial = naturally created by Englishmen over generations.

Not exactly.

I don't know what your talking about Adiica. I PREFER THE IMPERIAL SYSTEM TO METRIC.

Only because you use it. You haven't made any real objective or critical comparison. And you capitalized your statement as to rise your voice in order to stress your refusal to accept a real confrontation. My 2 years old daughter behaves this way.

They do if they need to maintain military hardware, commercial planes, vehicles, or even most appliances purchased from US companies.

nah, they are adapted. It's the americans that have to adapt if they want to sell, not the other way around. Believe me, the rest of the world doesn't care if anglosaxons are stubborn and insist in using a pre-enlightment age system of measures.

 

[Quackers]

onedreamer, Adjica failed at reading my posts, he believed I was in favor of metric I had to tell him in the most clear and to the point way I could - I didn't.

Anyway I'm not argueing in a scientific rational way on this - I prefer Imperial over Metric like I prefer Beer over wine.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

All of us Americans will change over to metric once all the Brits start driving on the right side of the road.

Britain was supposed to have gone metric 40 years ago and it still hasn't really happened (except for money). One example I can think of where it can get confusing is fuel for cars. It's sold by the litre, but people measure their cars' fuel by miles per gallon.

 

[onedreamer]

Anyway I'm not argueing in a scientific rational way on this - I prefer Imperial over Metric like I prefer Beer over wine.

Given that I don't really think this discussion can lead to anything useful, I just wanted to say that I disagree with this comparison. You were grown from kid to use the imperial system, it is only natural that you instinctively prefer it. In short, you did not make a choice to use it. The same doesn't apply to wine and beer.

 

[Formaldehyde]

nah, they are adapted. It's the americans that have to adapt if they want to sell, not the other way around. Believe me, the rest of the world doesn't care if anglosaxons are stubborn and insist in using a pre-enlightment age system of measures.

Nope. If you want to buy an FA-18 or an M1A1 Abrams, you need all the Imperial tools, accessories, and related training to work on it.

Next, most of the same people who are so resistent to changing to conform with the rest of the world will explain why they think everybody should speak English.

 

[GinandTonic]

According to Wikipedia, it goes faaaar back to the day when people rode horse just with a saddle. And, apparently, since more people are right handed, they preferred to use their left hand to hold the reins, and keep their right hand free in order to do stuff, like hold a sword, or greet passerbyers. And to do that, they would need to ride on the left side of the road.

But since we no longer ride horses, I think Britain should give up this clearly barbaric and backward practice, going against the what the rest of the world has clearly decided upon as the right way to drive.

However by a very similar logic it is safer to keep your right hand on the wheel and use the left to operate the gears, stereo etc