General > General Technical Chat
why is the US not Metric
KL27x:
Going all the way back to the OP from Australia, I think the presumption is wrong. That everything in Australia is metric.
I've had conversation with Aussie, and per him, routers are usually in imperial, quarter inch or half inch. In China and some/most of EU, they use 6 and 12 mm. I've purchased metric collets for my routers so I can use metric end mills (cuz they're cheaper), so there's an example of adapting to metric TO SAVE MONEY vs spending money just be metric. In one case, the seller was in East Europe, I received the OEM collet from that region. In other case, I purchased from a domestic machine shop.
CatalinaWOW:
--- Quote from: tooki on November 02, 2019, 08:47:17 pm ---
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on November 02, 2019, 05:34:01 pm ---The comments on recipes are intriguing. In the US virtually all units are volume (cups, fluid ounces, teaspoons and tablespoons). The exceptions are usually for things marketed in a standard size, the 1lb can for example. My experience with European cookbooks, confirmed by the examples given above show a mixture of volume and mass units. Do cooks resort to scales or balances for these?
--- End quote ---
As someone who first learned to cook in USA and then moved to Europe, it also seemed odd to me at first to go by weight. But having become a very good cook, I’ve come to appreciate accurate measuring for the things where it’s critical (read: baking, candy, etc). It makes absolutely no sense to measure compressible powders (like flour) and ingredients with significant density variation between manufacturers (like salt) by volume, since the measurement can be off by a HUGE amount. (For example, when a recipe says to add salt, it absolutely matters what kind of salt it is: Diamond Crystal kosher salt, for instance, is HALF as dense as Morton’s kosher salt or regular granulated salt. For Europeans: it’s like comparing the same volume of fleur de sel vs. table salt vs. coarse pretzel salt.) And some ingredients, like honey and shortening, are just a pain in the butt to measure by volume, even if they can be measured accurately that way.
Cooking is one area where I have more or less abandoned US customary measurements, because weighing is just so damned convenient, and grams are great for doing it because a digital kitchen scale’s dynamic range is enough to measure both large and small amounts accurately. The fact that water weighs 1g per ml also means that you can just weigh the water too, without even having to change units. (Less measuring cups to clean!) When I make bulgur, for example, I put a glass bowl on the scale and tare it, put in 200g of bulgur, add water to 600g, and then add bouillon powder to 615g. (Black pepper and olive oil added by eye, then it goes in the microwave for 11 mins at 1000W and then another 5 mins at 400W.) Tablespoons and teaspoons are the only non-metric measures I use, since even European recipes use those regularly. However, since most of my favorite cookbooks and cooking channels are in US units, I remain fully comfortable using them.
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I can see the benefits. But am surprised that the dynamic range isn't a problem. Sitting next to me is a food scale, obviously for worldwide use since it has the obligatory g/oz button. Resolution is 1 gram, good enough for the small amounts like spices. But this one limits at 2 kg, so if you are using glass cookware maybe only 1500-1800 g for food. Fine when cooking for one or two, but pretty limiting when cooking for a large family or making a winter supply of sausage. Oh well. First world problem.
One the same general subject, what does the world use for evaluating food intake? Calories are thoroughly entrenched here in the US. Does the rest of the world use ergs or Joules? I might just agree with rstofer on how long it will be before American women give up calories.
bsfeechannel:
So I think we can pretty much answer the OP's question.
The US are not fully metric because their industry betted on the wrong horse. They didn't see the obvious advantages of a system of measures based on the latest technological and scientific achievements and decided to cling to tradition. While the other nations are now reaping the benefits of this move, the US will have to pay a high price to switch to modernity. That's why they are doing it peacemeal. The whole world is über patiently waiting for them to take the plunge but, meanwhile, can only shrug and go on with their lives.
My hunch is that the US will be metricated to a satisfactory extent in the next 50 years, or when California decides to change. What happens first.
bsfeechannel:
--- Quote from: KL27x on November 02, 2019, 09:53:04 pm ---Going all the way back to the OP from Australia, I think the presumption is wrong. That everything in Australia is metric.
I've had conversation with Aussie, and per him, routers are usually in imperial, quarter inch or half inch. In China and some/most of EU, they use 6 and 12 mm. I've purchased metric collets for my routers so I can use metric end mills (cuz they're cheaper), so there's an example of adapting to metric TO SAVE MONEY vs spending money just be metric. In one case, the seller was in East Europe, I received the OEM collet from that region. In other case, I purchased from a domestic machine shop.
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My Chinese router came with both collets, metric and imperial. Router bits are more easily found in metric for the shaft and cutting diameter, but you can also find some of the most common dimensions in imperial.
KL27x:
^I don't know where you are from, but I have yet to find any router bit in metric, here in the US. I'm sure they are available on alibaba or somesuch. On eBay/Amazon, all the router bits I have seen have imperial shank. It's only endmills and engraving bits, burrs, hardpoints... basically metal-working stuff, that I find flooded with cheap metric imports.
Probably every router bit I have was shipped from China and has an imperial shank.
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