Why the US never fully adopted the metric system
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
12 inches, dozen eggs, 24 hours, 360 degree circle is 30 sets of 12...
If it weren't for the human justification of having 10 fingers on our hands, the base 10 metric system may not have gained traction at all.
You can do it with one hand, you can easily visualize dividing by two and four, you can count higher (144 if you use two hands), and it clearly looks way cooler.
Sounds pretty speculative. Has there been historical research about the age of these “traditional counting systems”?
I’m skeptical that this is the origin of the Sumerian number system.
I can count binary on my fingers and get much further than with decimal obviously, but it's not very practical or easy to learn. This makes fantastic sense and sounds almost as easy as decimal, the only difference being that it goes a few digits further.
From what I understand, in places without a highly developed positional number system, fractions for units were generally developed in an ad-hoc way, for convenience, whereas in places with a more entrenched base ten tradition (especially in East Asia where the “abacus” was made of beads on a fixed frame instead of a collection of loose pebbles on a board) fractional units were more often tenths. The metric system takes that tendency to an extreme.
In general, the metric system is an example of building a system less well suited to particular use cases, but overall more cohesive and systematic. Since modern people are universally schooled in base ten positional arithmetic, the metric system becomes reasonably familiar and convenient.
Edit: This made me think about the scale of things you're measuring. Roads are generally best measured in miles, not yards, feet, or inches. Some things are better measured in yards (like football fields or concrete (cubic yards)). Some things are best measured in feet, and some things in inches.
The avoirdupois system is human sized. The metric system is based on some inaccurate 18th century French calculation of the circumference of the earth, IIRC. Why would you care what your height is in relationship to the circumference of the earth? That never made sense to me.
Rarely does it matter if you can convert from one unit to the other. The only exception I can think of is when doubling or halving a recipe - going from teaspoons to tablespoons or liquid ounces can be a pain.
The problem is that although perhaps certain units may be good for measuring certain things, the things you use those measurements for will frequently involve things that use different units.
To take your road example again, what if I want to find out how many revolutions it takes a wheel with a 4 foot circumference to travel a mile? What if I want to find out how many yard long strides it takes to go down a road?
The metric units are interoperable. That's their big advantage.
Converting to miles is not practical.
It feels like a rollercoaster... https://morganalyx.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/metric-system...
The metric system uses base 10 all around. Not because we have 10 fingers, but because that's the system most widely used.
I just don't see the value of metric for everyday purposes. For science, yes, but not for everyday measurement.
So let me kick it back to you: What's your argument?
Metric and imperial are both pretty arbitrary; one strong argument for metric is just to get an international standard.
And that they are easy to convert among each other (simply powers of 10). And that there is a complete system of units (SI) that is based on it (what is the imperial unit of force, power, voltage, current,...? etc.).
The little-known "pound". :p
Why? 1m is about the length of one step (heel to heel)
> Fahrenheit is more useful than Celsius
Why? Freezing water has 0°C, boiling water 100°C.
> Pounds are more useful than kilos
By a numeric coincidence (gravity of earth is nearly 10 m/s^2) 1 kg has a weight of about 10 N. This makes it really easy when going climbing to compute what mass you can put on some part of the safety chain.
Generally: It is a pain in the ass to convert these non-metric units among one another. For one example 1 P̸ = 12p, 1 in = 6 P̸, 1 ft=12 in, 1 yd = 3ft, 1 mi = 1760 yd. Sounds very simple and logical to me. :-(
Alone this fact is for me argument enough for metric units.
For me, the major advantage of the imperial units is that they're all approximately human-scale. My foot is about a foot, my stride is about a yard, and it's surprising if I encounter weather outside 0-100F. A pint is a big drink; a cup is small one.
I'm a scientist, and all this goes out the window in the lab, of course. Even there though, a lot of the useful conversions do need some arbitrary constant (e.g. density, molarity) and the SI prefixes are not incredibly useful. I've literally never heard anyone measure something in deci/decameters. In practice, we tend to pick a unit that's approximately the right size and and stick with it--tiny things might be between 0.05µm and 2,500 µm, for example.
Given its origins in Revolutionary France, the metric system is quite literally a communist plot.
That must be a joke
Two systems of measurement for essentially the exact same things just complicates matters. Suggesting that your system is better (I'm (perhaps wrongly) assuming that it's because you learned one first) and more 'instinctive' or 'natural' is pretty poor argument.
Are there any truly objective reasons you can argue one system (in your case, imperial/customary) is actually better?
Yes, some units have slightly nicer divisible quantities, but that's easily outweighed by the crazy inconsistencies between different units of a type (stones, pounds and ounces, for example).
Or inches, feet, yards & miles. There's no obvious relation whatsoever, and while there maybe be historical justifications for their values, they're not exactly arithmetically convenient.
Or the horrible mess that happens when you get into fractional quantities. How much is 17/32" + 1/4"? Sure, I can work it out, but just adding some decimals together is a darn sight easier[1]. That can be done in either system, but imperial/customary definitely seems to favour it IME.
Ultimately, I think people are going to have a preference for whichever they learn first, and intuitively approximate.
For that reason, making a distinction between 'those fancy-pants science units' and 'good ol' everyday patriotic inches' strikes me as a foolish compromise that benefits neither.
I could probably object to other things in your original post as well, but maybe I'm just projecting my childhood biases the other way.
[1] for me, anyway. I've grown up with a bastard hybrid knowledge of mostly metric/SI, but enough exposure to imperial that I can intuit some, but not all of the conversions. Temperature is probably my weakest. I know from memory that 37oC ~98F, and that conversion is 5/8x + 32 or something along those lines. But to see '250F' and set my oven correctly, I have to think a bit. Or to guess if a temperature is below freezing or not.
Having a hobbyist/armchair interest in machining & woodworking, the mental mode-switching when reading/watching videos by Americans vs everyone else is jarring.
What's the most important then? The price tag. But each unit of ground beef isn't always the same size: 1.08 lbs, or 1.23 lbs ,etc.
Fortunately vendors are required to put a price PER unit of weight. In metric system countries it would be : Brand A is 7€/kg, Brand B is 5€/kg , (and for the sake of the argument, Brand C is 0.65c per gram, but usually it's always per kg.) Which one is the cheapest? Easy answer. Brand B < Brand C < Brand A
In the US? One is $5/lbs , the other is 35c per Oz. Which one is the cheapest? In this base 10 world, It's a bit tricky to make base 16 conversion by head
Same with liquids: fl oz, gal, etc. with the Metric system? €/cl , €/l , they could even write €/ml, multiplying/dividing by 10, 100, or 1000 doesn't' requires a calculator. Even if you only have the price per unit, for the same brand: 1 bottle of 2L is $3, 6 bottle of 500ml is $3, here buying the 6 pack is better. (Usually the bigger the bottle, the cheaper per unit of volume, but not always, especially in the US)
In the US? 1 gallon is $3, but a 6 pack of 16 fl oz is $3, which one is the cheapest? 6*16 = 96. but 1 gallon is 128 floz, so the 6 pack is 75% of a gallon, so the gallon is cheaper here
The Fahrenheit temperatures map onto reasonably discrete "comfort ranges" for me. If it's going to be in the 50s, I might want a light jacket. I don't need one if it's in the 60s, and probably want short sleeves in the 70s (definitely in the 80s).
In contrast, if it's going to be in the "teens" in Celcius, the weather might require anything from a jacket to short sleeves.
So don't think like that. Consider five degree increments instead. After a little bit of experience it's quite simple.
I bet the weather forecasters in America never tell you the temperature is going to be "positive, and in 2 digits".
Whatever next? Difficulty knowing how far away things are because miles are so large compared to km?
On the other hand, in Canada, they do say "temperatures will be in the teens this morning" all the time on the radio without elaborating further.
But...since you brought it up, I also find it's much easier to get in the appropriate lane when the exits (etc) are indicated one mile in advance (~1 minute driving time) than 1 km (~30 seconds). 2km warning would be fine too, but since it's not a round number, they tend not to be signed that way....
> While I agree that it probably matters most whatever you
> were brought up with, Fahrenheit is a smaller unit of measure,
> and, as a result, more precise.
If you ever did have a need for something 'more precise', please remember:
This one always comes up and it's the worst argument to me. Just going from the shade, or out from cover of wind and you'll get more than a degrees temperature difference. What use is that extra precision in daily use? And in any field that actually needs the extra precision (science, engineering), you're not going to shy away from using decimals.
For instance, I am puzzled by the affirmation about Fahrenheit. Cooking very often uses water and Celsius having a scale based on that. I'm not sure that having a scale with the highest temperature based on the temperature of horse blood is much more relevant in every day life...
And so on for the other measurements...
Usefulness is not a relevant question for measurements, because we can always find real life objects to make these more visible (for instance, one long step is for me about 1 meter).
To divide a foot, you can divide by 12, 6, 3, 4, or 2 and get round numbers in inches. Round numbers can be easier to deal with than fractions or decimals.
How often do you try to describe something a sixth of the length of your foot? I'm trying to think of an example where it matters either way, but the only thing I can come up with is that there is only one measurement in metric distance: the meter. A centimeter is a hundredth of that, a milli- is a thousandth. In the American system I have to know the relation between inches, feet, miles and probably more (isn't yard also part of it? I don't even know).
It happens all the time. There's a very popular piece of wood known as a 'two by four' which is 2 inches by 4 inches.
(If you can't figure out what fraction of a metre this is, let me know, and I'll try to help you out.)
> a "2x4" board historically started out as a green, rough board actually 2 by 4 inches (51 mm × 102 mm). After drying and planing, it would be smaller, by a nonstandard amount. Today, a "2x4" board starts out as something smaller than 2 inches by 4 inches and not specified by standards, and after drying and planing is reliably 1½ by 3½ inches (38 mm × 89 mm).
Also, don't forget that wonderful measure of area, the acre. I have no idea how big a hectare is, only that it's less than an acre. And there are 640 acres to a square mile, which is convenient if you grew up in farm country where there is a road pretty much every mile.
I won't bore you with gallons, chains, rods, furlongs, or hundredweights (American or Imperial).
Meanwhile one litre equals one litre (regional spelling variations notwithstanding).
Here in AU we use metric widely. There are some older generation types that drop to imperial measurements for some things, particularly when talking about human height.
A foot is about 30cm (or 300mm) - so if you're talking about working in 1/12, 1/6, 1/3, 1/4, or 1/2 of something around that size, it's not something that blocks us for very long: the calculating of fractions of 30 (or 300) units.
Typically I work with metres (and subsets of) - 1000mm - which your 1/4 and 1/2 are, obviously, easy to apply and still get this enviable 'round number' that you speak of. 1/3 of a metre is 333mm (or close enough to) and it's rare that my pencil is sharp enough (or my care high enough) to denote a third of a millimetre. Similarly 1/6th (I don't recall ever needing to divide a length of anything into 1/6ths - perhaps I'm atypical).
I think the most compelling evidence against any claim that 'it's easier to work in base 12' (or similar) is that our machines, our houses, our infrastructure ... don't all fail to fit together, or fall apart, because their components were measured in metric.
When I say 'our' I mean the 95% of the world's population that isn't the USA.
Albanian, Armenian, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Estonian, Georgian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian
It makes absolutely no sense and is a large economic detriment. It leads to dramatic inefficiencies in communication and attempts to form common markets. Yet nobody dares to seriously confront ending the wildly inefficient system of using dozens of languages across Europe. Every excuse in the book is made as to why dozens of languages should be taught and maintained, it still rationally makes no sense. The point is, people do things out of custom, out of comfort, out of laziness, for all sorts of reasons that are not logical.
These languages have evolved during centuries and continue to evolve, whereas the metric system was built purposefully for simplicity. The equivalent of the metric system would be something like Esperanto. English is as archaic and complicated as the customary system for measurement.
In Switzerland I used to fly glider planes. Unlike motored airplanes glider planes use the metric system. So heights are measured in meters and speed in km/h. It helps a lot to calculate how far or fast the plane will go compared to feet and miles.
<0C = cold, 10C = cool, 20C = warm, >30C = hot.
There is a value in saving lives by adopting a universal standard. I remember watching an air crash investigation episode about this confusion causing a fatal crash
Actually, unit conversion being complicated, makes a lot of problems complicated to calculate and so makes science appear difficult which only makes people not want to do science.
Using the American customary system of measurements is like using Roman numerals - everything is possible, but harder, so science and engineering progress slower.
And there's the money quote.
Typical daily usage includes cooking, ex "if I need 60g of sugar for 2l of water, how much sugar for half a liter?" Is really easy (60/4=15g), versus "if I need 2oz for 1 quart of water, how much sugar for 8floz?" Is annoying and frankly rather ridiculous: first you have to know that 1qrt=32floz (metric is of course always multiples of 10), then you get a result ½ ounce, that you can't convert to anything else and you're now dealing with fractions...
But this is only because you have learned it first.
Here we have learned just metric units and we don't see the value of imperial for everyday purposes
How many miles is 154,631 feet? How many kilometers is 724,642 meters?
How many inches in one sixth of a foot? How many centimeters in one sixth of a meter? (in case you don't think there's much gain in the imperial unit, try using 16 and 2/3 centimeters in your calculations,and it quickly becomes more cumbersome)
"There are two types of countries in the world: Those that use the metric system and those that have been to the Moon.(1)"
(1)I purposely leave Liberia out of it. Unfortunately, I think it still might be a few years before the LSA gets to the moon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_units_of_measurement#A...
"There are two types of countries in the world; those who have some sort of national paid law for new parent(s), and those that have been to the Moon (1)"
(1) and Lesotho. I don't think any country starting with an "L" has gotten to the moon.
"There are two types of countries in the world: those that use the metric system and those that have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (2)"
(2) And Somalia.
For some more cherry-picking: "Only Communist countries have managed to put rovers on the Moon or land probes on Venus."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_rover
Here's a beautiful photo of it:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Ap...
So, what about "more communist countries have succeeded in [said missions] than non-communist ones"?
The use of two different systems was the root cause
in the loss of the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter.
NASA specified metric units in the contract. NASA and
other organizations worked in metric units, but one
subcontractor, Lockheed Martin, provided thruster
performance data to the team in pound force seconds
instead of newton seconds. The spacecraft was intended
to orbit Mars at about 150 kilometers altitude, but
the incorrect data meant that it probably descended
instead to about 57 kilometers, burning up in the thin
Martian atmosphere.Looks like Technic hole diameters are set between between letting the poles spin and having brick pegs stick.
Yet ask them to do a calculation in these measurements would result in looks of scorn, "THAT'S INSANE' in the words of Moss from IT Crowd.
Because we calculate in metric, and that's because all textbooks post late 70s were in metric and 'new pence' [1].
Fahrenheit is largely dead as a common measurement in day-to-day conversation, pint the least likely to disappear, as it's treated as a countable unit, nor an interval scale; on that matter, probably stone too.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(British_pre-decimal_coi...
The US uses two measurement systems. As a practical matter, those who need to use metric do so. Many sporting events are metric. Much commerce is metric. Food labels are metric.
I have never seen why this is a problem. Most other folks don't either, which is why we haven't chosen to do stupid stuff like run around and change road signs or insist that people use particular measurements.
Oh, and the story about how the spacecraft crashed does not make a convincing case. Any aerospace contractor worth its salt would check all its units of measure. Being entirely metric does nothing to alleviate this burden. Reporting a measure in centimeters rather than meters will get you the same problem. Units of measure must be labeled, period.
cm to meter is not the same that feet to meter
There is very little interesting or informative about learning diverse unit systems.
Now, history of unit systems is interesting, but that's more like learning an aspect of other cultures than about measurement systems.
English is far more expressive than the other languages with which I'm familiar.
Or, certainly Lisp is "more expressive" than APL, and both are Turning computable and thus equivalent, but some trivial constructs in APL require much more Lisp to express.
How do you express Japanese honorific speech in English?
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The US rarely uses metric in it's popular culture. Weather reports are in Fahrenheit, movies almost always use miles and pounds. By any measure of cultural output that you export that I've seen (and Australia is a huge consumer of your popular culture) you do not use metric.
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In Australia we started metrication in 1971[1] with 1974 being the effective tipping point when all road signs were changed.
Being born in the early 70's, I have a rough understanding of imperial measurement units. I can roughly understand if something is a few inches or a few feet, but can never remember how many inches in a foot, and have no concept of relation between feet and miles. Miles I understand as a bit over 1.5kms. The only length measurements we tend to still give in imperial is a person's height in feet and inches. The concept that over six foot is tall, and under five is getting to be short (for men at least) has such utility that it's stuck. Official documents will use metric though, usually centimetres.
Weight is similar. Kilograms rule, except when talking about the weight of newborns which will still often be given in pounds and ounces informally. But give me anything else in pounds and I have no idea (very frustrating when that happens in movies.)
Similarly Celsius rules. I know 100°F is a hot day, but wont boil an egg, and 0°F is colder than a mother-in-law's kiss, but those are rough approximations, and anything between those two I have to convert.
Gallons is a foreign language.
However all the colloquialisms such as giving an inch and taking a mile are still common.
And yet somehow despite all this, the world continued to spin.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Australia
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Just an interesting aside, measurements in construction are almost always given in either metres or millimetres, never centimetres (at least in Australia.)
So that would be 914.4mm and 1219.2mm respectively (or 1.2192m I guess).
The wisdom of this was explained to me by my builder father that metres and millimetres are orders of magnitude far enough apart that you can usually figure out which is which without too much difficulty in a specification even if they are not annotated properly. Centimetres fall close enough to in between that it can be confusing. Plus only using two standard units of measure (one for small stuff, another for large) is less potential confusion then using three.
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Now if we could only stop anybody using m/d/y date formats...