General > General Technical Chat
why is the US not Metric
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SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: daqq on October 25, 2019, 10:33:31 am ---Mix of history, price of changing stuff, pride and stubbornness.

--- End quote ---

Yup, probably! And even though I find this a bit retarded (but that's just an opinion, certainly not a fact), I have nothing against having a "cultural" exception of some sort. Excessive uniformity is uninteresting and not a goal in itself.

The only thing I find "weird" with this subbornness is the link with the old british empire. Obviously the "imperial" in the imperial system is the BRITISH empire, which the USA has become independent from a long time ago. That's the oddity IMO. I guess they should have had the "pride" of getting rid of it after they got independent. But they also wanted to clearly separate themselves from the rest of Europe. So that were difficult times.

But now... I think it's a bit too late. The more you wait, and the harder it would become to switch to a different system. Had they done that before, or just at the start of the "industrial revolution", that would have been possible. After that, it would become increasingly hard. These days, the cost of switching (just considering the financial cost) would probably be gigantic.
Sal Ammoniac:

--- Quote from: NivagSwerdna on October 25, 2019, 10:47:03 am ---In the UK we still have road distances and speed limits in miles despite having most other things in SI units... strange really.
... and when it is really hot the tabloid papers say... "Oooo what a scorcher <big number>F"... I seriously doubt many people understand F in the UK now... not me anyway.  :)

--- End quote ---

At least in the US we're all Imperial. The UK has a bastardized mix--like you said, road distances and speed limits in miles/MPH, temperatures in C. Food weights in grams, but people weight in stone (talk about a bizarre unit). Drinks in pints (and not even the same pint we have in the US).
Simon:
yes but we don't have mixed measurements in the same industry like the US space industry did ;)
richard.cs:
You might as well ask when North America will join the 230 V world :-D Lots of advantages there (~3 kW available for common domestic appliances, lower final circuit currents leading to fewer fires and higher energy efficiency, eventual death of split-phase and weird stuff like high leg delta).

Saudi Arabia is currently in progress, approaching the end of the 10 year preparatory stage and soon to enter the 15 year implementation stage: https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/saudi-arabia-switches-electricity-voltage-to-gulf-standard-1.511391 They are moving from 127 V P-N / 220 V P-P to 230/400.

xrunner:
Because a football field would be 91.44 meters long and would sound dumb.
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