| General > General Technical Chat |
| why is the US not Metric |
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| Simon:
Now is that a proper imperial gallon or a whimpy american one? ;) |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: rstofer on October 29, 2019, 08:53:38 pm ---Outstanding! Yet the largest economy in the world isn't metric. I wonder if causality applies... For all the discussion above, and elsewhere, nothing is going to change. The US will never convert and folks might as well get used to it. --- End quote --- I bet we will eventually, at least to a greater degree than we already have. Younger generations are more familiar with metric and have less attachment to the imperial units. Manufacturing is globalized, with less and less physical goods produced in the US there is less of an issue converting. Even a lot of domestic products now use metric fasteners. I don't really care one way or another but I would not be the least bit surprised to see more and more of the goods we buy specified in metric units as the world market increases and there is less and less reason to cater specifically to the American market. I would bet that very few people would refuse to buy a TV simply because the screen is only measured in centimeters vs inches on the box. Ultimately we will probably end up like Canada or the UK with an odd mix of metric and other units applied to different things depending on context, and people will get by just fine. |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: Simon on October 29, 2019, 09:17:41 pm ---Now is that a proper imperial gallon or a whimpy american one? ;) --- End quote --- Neither! I honestly don't remember what the true size is anymore but it's significantly smaller than the already small American gallon. How we ended up with two units called a "gallon" that are not the same size I will likely never grasp. I mean pick one or the other, I don't care, but let's not have both. |
| rstofer:
We seem to be getting plywood that is not only in metric for thickness but also in exterior dimensions. No problem! I just set my 5 HP tablesaw to inches and cut it to fit. The sheets are a little bigger than 4'x8' as I recall. Anyway, instant conversion! But, still, I have to use a metric router bit to cut the dado. No worries, I can afford router bits! I agree, most industry will slowly convert over the next 100 years or so. Those that do a lot of off-shoring will convert sooner rather than later. Things measured in bushels probably won't change at all. Pork bellies will still sell in 40,000 pound frozen slabs known as a 'unit'. Why in the world would farmers care about metric? There land is measured in acres - thousands of them. |
| soldar:
--- Quote from: AG6QR on October 25, 2019, 05:40:40 pm ---It's not just the US. Virtually every Japanese camera made in the past 40 years has a tripod socket with a 1/4-20 thread. That's 1/4 inch, 20 threads per inch. Why? So they can fit on Italian and French tripods, which use 1/4-20 threads. --- End quote --- The original tripod thread was 1/4-20 British thread (55º) and then it shifted to 1/4-20 UTS American (60º) which is close enough that screws with one thread will work with receptacle threads of the other standard. So the reason is that historically the British started with 1/4-20 and that spread to the rest of the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripod_(photography)#Screw_thread |
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