why is the US not Metric

[rdl]

I'm pretty sure no one in the bottom picture is orbiting the Earth.

...
The people you see floating in the pictures below are orbiting around the earth's center of mass (at least at the moment the picture was taken and considering the earth's mass much greater than the orbiting people's).

[bsfeechannel]

I'm pretty sure no one in the bottom picture is orbiting the Earth.

Precisely. They are orbiting the earth's center of mass. Unfortunately (of fortunately, depending of your point of view) between them and the earth's center of mass there is a mud pond.

[Gyro]

Of course we snagged up as many German scientists as possible.  Germany has always had a superb educational system and world class scientists.  They were far ahead of the rest of the world.  There is no debate about that, it is fact.  There's a reason my parents had me take 4 years of German in high school (graduated '63) and perhaps this led to my being stationed in Mannheim, Germany rather than Viet Nam.  It was interesting, the young people in Germany (Boomers) all spoke English.  Or at least the ones I encountered and their English was far better than my German.

The US should keep combing the planet for talent and do whatever is necessary to bring them to the US.  We do quite a bit of that with our Doctoral and Post Doctoral education/research system and the associated visas.  We need to expand that!  And we need to make it easier for those scientists and engineers to bring their immediate families.  The H1B visa is not the way to attract high skill talent.

Need a foreign scientist?  Try a million dollar signing bonus!  It's worth every penny!

We do grow a few of our own at places like Cal Tech, Stanford, MIT and Berkeley but it's probably cheaper to import.

... and you don't see an irony in all of your 'imports' having Metric as their first language, because I think most people here do. 

[rstofer]

... and you don't see an irony in all of your 'imports' having Metric as their first language, because I think most people here do. 

Nope!  They're scientists and engineers, of course they're going to use metric.  Until they use imperial and crash a lander...

My contention is that ordinary people, folks who aren't scientists or certain types of engineers do now, and always will, use imperial units.  We're never going to change for all the reasons I posted earlier.  You can see that after 47 pages of useless interaction, nothing has changed.  Nor will it ever!  But keep on posting...

[Gyro]

Nope!  They're scientists and engineers, of course they're going to use metric.  Until they use imperial and crash a lander...

My contention is that ordinary people, folks who aren't scientists or certain types of engineers do now, and always will, use imperial units.  We're never going to change for all the reasons I posted earlier.  You can see that after 47 pages of useless interaction, nothing has changed.  Nor will it ever!  But keep on posting...

So you're talking about "ordinary people, folks who aren't scientists"... Then why do you keep parroting the...

Just remember:  There are two types of countries, those who use metric and those who have left footprints on the Moon.

...crap then? That hasn't got anything to do with the doings of "ordinary people", it's the achievement of "scientists and engineers", who by your own admission are using METRIC.

It's got bog all to do with your non-metric using country having "left footprints on the Moon". 

[CatalinaWOW]

The repeated mention of the failure of Mars Climate Orbiter due to a units error and the footprints on the moon comment that also comes up everywhere caused me to actually look up some numbers.  Unfortunately they are on my desk at home and I am on travel for a while, but the numbers were the total number of Mars missions and their successes or failures.  Turns out that Mars has been a tough target.  The country with the best record on getting a mission there is India who is one for one.  The US is second and from memory is something like 15 for 21.  The EU comes in third but the number depends on how you count (does the Joint EU/Russia mission count as half for each country or does each country get credit for a full successful mission).  And either way the success rate is under 50%.  All other nations are far worse, with Russia having notably poor success.

Among the countries that have done several missions the US success rate is far higher than all others.

All of those countries except the US are metric, so either metric doesn't really matter, or it is far from a dominant factor.  Whether the dominant factor is a set of German scientists, the basic wealth of the country, a more practical approach to problems, a larger technical base or whatever it isn't the measurement system.

Which comes back to why the US hasn't switched.  It isn't crucial.  Metric is nice.  Like a new car is nice.  And from many points of view better.  But if the old beater is still doing the job, there is not compelling reason to switch.

[boffin]

Just remember:  There are two types of countries, those who use metric and those who have left footprints on the Moon.

Actually there is only one type of country, those who used metric to leave footprints on the moon.

All of NASA's calculations were in metric


https://ukma.org.uk/why-metric/myths/metric-internationally/the-moon-landings/

[Cubdriver]

Just remember:  There are two types of countries, those who use metric and those who have left footprints on the Moon.

Actually there is only one type of country, those who used metric to leave footprints on the moon.

All of NASA's calculations were in metric


https://ukma.org.uk/why-metric/myths/metric-internationally/the-moon-landings/

Well then apparently the US is metric enough, proving this whole discussion even more pointless than it already was.

-Pat

[bsfeechannel]

My contention is that ordinary people, folks who aren't scientists or certain types of engineers do now, and always will, use imperial units.  We're never going to change for all the reasons I posted earlier.  You can see that after 47 pages of useless interaction, nothing has changed.  Nor will it ever!  But keep on posting...

C'mon, man, you're not serious about this are you? You don't expect that after this thread the people in the US put on sackcloth, sit in ashes, fast for 40 days and then change to metric in repentance, do you?

We are just discussing the issue. And yes, after 47 pages, you are right. People in the US know metric is superior in every aspect to imperial and they have the resources (and had many opportunities) to metricate the country and bury imperial for good, but they don't do it simply because they do not want to.

Imperial is like country music. People in the US love that thing. But, man, it sucks.

[bsfeechannel]

Well then apparently the US is metric enough, proving this whole discussion even more pointless than it already was.

We are not discussing whether it is crucial to use the metric system to land on the moon. We are discussing why the US does not adhere to the metric system to the point of deprecating old systems of measure.

It is clear that some in the US feel uncomfortable when people discuss what, in the modern world, seems to be an odd cultural trait.

So, to try to shut up the discussants, the moon landings or other equivalent event are mentioned, implying that the imperial system is not only an alternative to the metric system, but also probably even better, since it helped a nation that apparently doesn't give a toss about metric achieve something the other nations couldn't.

When it is shown that the US actually used metric to achieve something, debunking the above argument, then it is said that the US is "metric enough", "metricated where it makes sense" or the like. But this is exactly the moon-landing argument, only that you replaced imperial with metric. However the issue we are discussing is left unanswered.

In short, this kind of argument is a fallacy and this thread is still going on because we are not falling for it.

[tooki]

It is clear that some in the US feel uncomfortable when people discuss what, in the modern world, seems to be an odd cultural trait.

No. We don't care about it being discussed politely.

What we Americans object to is the patronizing, sanctimonious way that the metric nuts describe Americans as being backwards, stupid, etc. for not switching to metric. Then again, it's no surprise, since Europeans are frequently patronizing and sanctimonious towards Americans anyway, regardless of the topic and regardless of the veracity of the European's claim. (And yes, some Americans are patronizing and sanctimonious towards Europeans, but frankly, most Americans have a positive opinion of Europe, while I think most Europeans have a negative opinion of the U.S. It's certainly not a balanced give-and-take.)

[Cubdriver]

Well then apparently the US is metric enough, proving this whole discussion even more pointless than it already was.

We are not discussing whether it is crucial to use the metric system to land on the moon. We are discussing why the US does not adhere to the metric system to the point of deprecating old systems of measure.

It is clear that some in the US feel uncomfortable when people discuss what, in the modern world, seems to be an odd cultural trait.

So, to try to shut up the discussants, the moon landings or other equivalent event are mentioned, implying that the imperial system is not only an alternative to the metric system, but also probably even better, since it helped a nation that apparently doesn't give a toss about metric achieve something the other nations couldn't.

When it is shown that the US actually used metric to achieve something, debunking the above argument, then it is said that the US is "metric enough", "metricated where it makes sense" or the like. But this is exactly the moon-landing argument, only that you replaced imperial with metric. However the issue we are discussing is left unanswered.

In short, this kind of argument is a fallacy and this thread is still going on because we are not falling for it.

The title of the thread is "Why is the US not metric?"  That question has been answered multiple times in the thread.
   
For some unfathomable reason, YOU seem unable to accept the answers given, despite them being presented to you repeatedly.  I'm not sure why you're dug into this like a tick, but here we are.  I'm not going to bother rehashing the reasons; if you want to know why the US is not metric all I can suggest is that you re-read this thread and take note of the answers to that question contained herein.

Have a splendid rest-of-your-day.

-Pat

[tooki]

The title of the thread is "Why is the US not metric?"  That question has been answered multiple times in the thread.

Yup. The metric nuts simply don't like the answer (since the question was almost certainly asked out of smugness, not genuine curiosity), so they pretend the answer is invalid, or even pretend the answer is not there. 

[Cubdriver]

The title of the thread is "Why is the US not metric?"  That question has been answered multiple times in the thread.

Yup. The metric nuts simply don't like the answer (since the question was almost certainly asked out of smugness, not genuine curiosity), so they pretend the answer is invalid, or even pretend the answer is not there. 

It's like explaining to a three year old.  *answer question* "But why?"  *answer again* "But why??"  *answer yet again*. "But whhhHHHhhyyYYyYyyy??"  <lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum >

-Pat

[bsfeechannel]

What we Americans object to is the patronizing, sanctimonious way that the metric nuts describe Americans as being backwards, stupid, etc. for not switching to metric.

It is the Americans that say that the use of imperial is backwards, stupid, etc.! Didn't I post a video pages ago about some senior scientist at NIST saying exactly that? Holy crap!

So we say what we say using the authority of the highest body instituted with the task of defining those doggone units. What patronizing do you see there? Geez!

For some unfathomable reason, YOU seem unable to accept the answers given, despite them being presented to you repeatedly.

I, and others, have accepted many of the answers. But some answers are clearly bullshit. I've just shown the moon-landing/metric-enough fallacy a few posts above.

Yup. The metric nuts simply don't like the answer (since the question was almost certainly asked out of smugness, not genuine curiosity), so they pretend the answer is invalid, or even pretend the answer is not there. 

We are "nuts", but not because of metric. Because of that kind of argument.

[CatalinaWOW]

I can't tell from personal knowledge how much metric was used by NASA during the moon landings.  I can easily believe that trajectories and guidance were done in metric.  I can virtually assure that fasteners, material and electronics packaging were done in traditional units as very little metric material was available in the US in the 1960's.  My own experience in the aerospace world of the 1970's and on was that units were very mixed.  On one system I was involved with the sensor diameter was in traditional units while focal length and area were metric.  Similar mix in a detector, linear size in standard units, but area in metric.  Any assertion that the unit system had anything significant to do with the moon landings is very suspect.  From either side of the discussion.

[rdl]

America is already mostly metric anyway. If a complete switch was magically done overnight, the only things that most people would be annoyed by are temperature, driving distances and buying gas by the liter. And I'm not sure about the gas because soft drinks are already sold by the liter.

[tooki]

It is the Americans that say that the use of imperial is backwards, stupid, etc.! Didn't I post a video pages ago about some senior scientist at NIST saying exactly that? Holy crap!

So we say what we say using the authority of the highest body instituted with the task of defining those doggone units. What patronizing do you see there? Geez!

Not all metric advocacy is patronizing and sanctimonious. But what's contained in this thread mostly is. It hasn't been the American metrication advocates in this thread who've been patronizing and sanctimonious, it's been the European ones.

I, and others, have accepted many of the answers. But some answers are clearly bullshit. I've just shown the moon-landing/metric-enough fallacy a few posts above.

A few of the answers were BS. But the metric nuts here continue to reject even the sensible, realistic answers.

We are "nuts", but not because of metric. Because of that kind of argument.

I never said that metric makes someone "nuts". I am referring to "metric nuts" in the sense of "nuts whose chosen subject is metrication". I said "metric nuts" deliberately instead of "metric advocates", because not all metric advocates are nuts, and I'm not talking about ALL metric advocates, only the ones that are nuts. Like several people in this thread, including yourself.

Bear in mind that I was referring to the discussion occurring within this thread, not about all metric advocacy by anyone anywhere.

[Mr. Scram]

I can't tell from personal knowledge how much metric was used by NASA during the moon landings.  I can easily believe that trajectories and guidance were done in metric.  I can virtually assure that fasteners, material and electronics packaging were done in traditional units as very little metric material was available in the US in the 1960's.  My own experience in the aerospace world of the 1970's and on was that units were very mixed.  On one system I was involved with the sensor diameter was in traditional units while focal length and area were metric.  Similar mix in a detector, linear size in standard units, but area in metric.  Any assertion that the unit system had anything significant to do with the moon landings is very suspect.  From either side of the discussion.

The on-board computers did their maths in metric and then converted it for the sake of the air force crew more used to customary units. Though I'm always surprised by patriotic smugness about the Moon landing half a century ago when there's currently no US manned orbital capability. NASA funding is predominantly a political matter so less attachment to the past and more attention paid to current matters would be great. NASA should be capable of wonderful things, but the political swerving isn't helping.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

What's an ms? A metre second. What's this? https://ludens.cl/philo/measures.html A very good read!

The new system was constructed in a logical way, as far as the fuzzy human mind allows this. There was to be just ONE unit of measurement for every physical  magnitude. For example, the unit for distance would be called the meter, and EVERY distance would be measured in it, regardless how large or small it was. Not like the stupid British system, where length could be measured in inches, feet, yards, furlongs or miles, to mention just a few of the many options! In the new system, for adapting to small and large distances, prefixes would be used that allowed to easily multiply the unit in decimal increments, from trillionths to trillions and much more! These same multipliers would be user for each and every unit. Only basic units, like distance, time, temperature would be freely defined. All derived units, such as speed, acceleration, inductance, would be built on top of the basic units. This is a fabulous advantage over every older system! You can simply multiply and divide any values in these units, to obtain the result in the correct unit of the resulting class. For example, one watt is the power that is required to free an energy of one joule in one second. This one joule is the energy required to push something with a force of one newton over a distance of one meter. The power of one watt means that the object will move that one meter in one second. This same one watt is the power defined by putting a current of one ampere through a resistor of one ohm, and the potential difference that will appear across this resistor is one volt! If instead you put this current of one ampere into a capacitor of one farad during one second, the capacitor will charge to one volt. Or if you apply this one volt to a coil of one henry, the current will rise by one ampere in one second. By the way, if the coil has one turn, then applying one volt to it for one second will result in a magnetic flux of one weber, and this flux distributed over one square meter of area is of course a flux density of one tesla! Everything is one by one by one! What could be easier than this? No other measurement system ever in history has been as practical! Every other system requires conversion constants in most or all of these calculations!

[bsfeechannel]

What's an ms? A metre second. What's this? https://ludens.cl/philo/measures.html A very good read!

The new system was constructed in a logical way, as far as the fuzzy human mind allows this. There was to be just ONE unit of measurement for every physical  magnitude. For example, the unit for distance would be called the meter, and EVERY distance would be measured in it, regardless how large or small it was. Not like the stupid British system, where length could be measured in inches, feet, yards, furlongs or miles, to mention just a few of the many options! In the new system, for adapting to small and large distances, prefixes would be used that allowed to easily multiply the unit in decimal increments, from trillionths to trillions and much more! These same multipliers would be user for each and every unit. Only basic units, like distance, time, temperature would be freely defined. All derived units, such as speed, acceleration, inductance, would be built on top of the basic units. This is a fabulous advantage over every older system! You can simply multiply and divide any values in these units, to obtain the result in the correct unit of the resulting class. For example, one watt is the power that is required to free an energy of one joule in one second. This one joule is the energy required to push something with a force of one newton over a distance of one meter. The power of one watt means that the object will move that one meter in one second. This same one watt is the power defined by putting a current of one ampere through a resistor of one ohm, and the potential difference that will appear across this resistor is one volt! If instead you put this current of one ampere into a capacitor of one farad during one second, the capacitor will charge to one volt. Or if you apply this one volt to a coil of one henry, the current will rise by one ampere in one second. By the way, if the coil has one turn, then applying one volt to it for one second will result in a magnetic flux of one weber, and this flux distributed over one square meter of area is of course a flux density of one tesla! Everything is one by one by one! What could be easier than this? No other measurement system ever in history has been as practical! Every other system requires conversion constants in most or all of these calculations!

Manfred, a.k.a., Homo ludens, is the guy who got me to reject any other system, imperial, cgs, MKS, whatever, but metric (i.e. SI). He's absolutely right. After I stuck exclusively with the metric system, not only calculations and measurements became a lot simpler, but also understanding theory became easier, because the metric system is the result of the endeavor to understand nature.

Namely

https://ludens.cl/Electron/Magnet.html

There is one request I have: When you enter this page, you have to leave out all obsolete, absurd units of which most textbooks and catalogs are full: Most notably, inches, gauss and oersted. Delete these three words from your vocabulary! They have no place here. They are the principal culprits in confusing people attempting magnetic design to the point of driving them crazy. Now, that we have gotten rid of them, we can start.
(Bold letters are mine.)

[bsfeechannel]

Not all metric advocacy is patronizing and sanctimonious. But what's contained in this thread mostly is. It hasn't been the American metrication advocates in this thread who've been patronizing and sanctimonious, it's been the European ones.

The US is the only country that has a metric "advocacy". The other countries don't waste their time discussing the benefits of the metric system, because it has been tried and tested for at least two centuries and it proved beyond any doubt that it is the ideal system for the era we are living.

In the US people are still ridiculously debating whether to use it or not, and the arguments are the most stupid like the one by that guy James Panero, self entitled an "anti-metrite" in the second message of this thread (not to mention Tucker Carlson's opinions who's paid to play retarded).

What is alarming is to see exactly the same ideas, which were just exposed emphatically in that video, being held in the arguments in this thread, with less radical words, but carrying the same spirit. And I'm not talking about rstofer's arguments.

The truth is that this discussion is two hundred years old and settled long ago.

Talking about the metric system with some people in the US is sometimes almost like trying to explain the benefits of electricity to the Amish (some of them reportedly use very limited forms of electricity, by the way).

[boffin]

It still amazes me that this is even an argument.
200 countries use Metric
3 countries use Imperial

You'd think those three countries would want to switch in order to better position their businesses for international trade.

Fundamentally the only thing is comes down to is arrogance.  We don't want to switch, why should we switch.

[CatalinaWOW]

Not all metric advocacy is patronizing and sanctimonious. But what's contained in this thread mostly is. It hasn't been the American metrication advocates in this thread who've been patronizing and sanctimonious, it's been the European ones.

The US is the only country that has a metric "advocacy". The other countries don't waste their time discussing the benefits of the metric system, because it has been tried and tested for at least two centuries and it proved beyond any doubt that it is the ideal system for the era we are living.

In the US people are still ridiculously debating whether to use it or not, and the arguments are the most stupid like the one by that guy James Panero, self entitled an "anti-metrite" in the second message of this thread (not to mention Tucker Carlson's opinions who's paid to play retarded).

What is alarming is to see exactly the same ideas, which were just exposed emphatically in that video, being held in the arguments in this thread, with less radical words, but carrying the same spirit. And I'm not talking about rstofer's arguments.

The truth is that this discussion is two hundred years old and settled long ago.

Talking about the metric system with some people in the US is sometimes almost like trying to explain the benefits of electricity to the Amish (some of them reportedly use very limited forms of electricity, by the way).

Metric certainly doesn't prevent imprecision or confusion.  The metric system you have been touting, the self consistent and easy set of units has NOT been tried and tested for over two centuries.  Although the two basic units, the meter and the kilogram (and the scaling prefixes) are that old, the system is much newer.  The MKS system was introduced in 1889 and SI, the well thought out system was first introduced in 1948. 

And even today could use some improvement.  The Kelvin and the related Celsius divide freezing and boiling point of water by 100 degrees.  Which may be convenient for something, but it results in a strange quantity for the temperature rise from putting a Joule of energy into a kilogram of water. 0.00263 degrees C.  It would be far more useful to have the metric temperature unit be chosen such that 1 joule into a kg of water resulted in one degree rise.  Call that unit a Degm and it would equal 380 degrees C.  Not necessarily a convenient size for deciding whether to wear a jacket or not, but the scaling prefixes come to the rescue here.  Daily usage would be in milliDegm.  Normal room temperature would be about 780 mDegm.  A day when you would start to think about ice skating would be 718 mDegm.  And for those in desert climates those scorching hot days would be about 850 mDegm.

Why isn't the whole world attacking such a logical improvement?

[SilverSolder]

[...]
Fundamentally the only thing is comes down to is arrogance.  We don't want to switch, why should we switch.

I don't think that applies to most Americans -  they go to the store and buy milk in quarts because that's what's there.  If the milk was in liter sized containers, they would buy that instead without giving it a second thought, quickly getting used to it.

Basically, this is down to the government at some point deciding that America needs a modernisation effort - and metrification would be a great "flagship project" as part of a package of various STEM initiatives to make the country more competitive.

Politicians generally lack imagination everywhere (except when it comes to getting into the panties of their secretaries etc.).