General > General Technical Chat
why is the US not Metric
SiliconWizard:
Yeah, I agree. Americans can be pretty stubborn, but they are usually pragmatic people. So if they don't do it, there's a good pragmatic reason. It's probably still not worth it at the moment. As many have said, the US has migrated, or at least embraced the metric system in an increasing number of domains. They still don't see the point of making a complete switch, which would cost a lot, and would probably make americans feel like they are forced to embrace something that's not theirs, feel like they are losing ground somehow, which I can understand. If they eventually get there, that'll be very gradually.
As long as they are not forcing others to use their own system, it's all good. It's their business. We can mind our own. (Americans here are of course more legitimate to be opiniated about it one way or the other.) It's not like it's really hindering any work with US companies these days - that works fairly well all in all.
I do think it may have an impact as to how americans, I mean the average joe, perceives science (as science uses the metric system) compared to other countries that are metric, and it could be an interesting topic to elaborate on. But that's just a question/discussion, and again, nothing but their own business in the end. ;D
tooki:
Hah, speak of the devil, this is what a friend just posted to Facebook. He and the friend who commented are both millennial Americans:
vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: tooki on November 11, 2019, 01:32:15 am ---
--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on November 11, 2019, 12:01:32 am ---
--- Quote from: tooki on November 09, 2019, 11:22:24 am ---(One issue I take with Customary critics is that they criticize a system they’ve never really used, so their smugness is based on theories, not practical experience.)
--- End quote ---
Does not compute. If I didn't have to use imperial, I wouldn't be criticizing it.
--- Quote ---Well, it is an organically evolved system. But in many cases, those old units made sense in isolation. And regardless, there’s often no advantage to changing, but real costs and risks, so you just don’t until the balance of pros and cons changes.
--- End quote ---
We can only regret that a small percentage of the world's population can't see benefits, but only costs and risks.
--- Quote ---Anyhow, make sure you’re not going all rstofer again.
--- End quote ---
Poor rstofer has become the intemperance unit of the imperial system.
--- End quote ---
You don’t have a country set. Are you American? Or are you in a fundamentally metric country, and only deal with a small amount of Customary? (If the latter, then you’re still within the group of people that don’t really use Customary, and thus aren’t comfortable with it the way someone is who grew up with it.)
--- End quote ---
There are still a large number of Australians who were brought up & spent a fair number of years of their working lives working with Imperial measures.
We finally completely switched over in 1974, following piecemeal changes in some industries from about 1970.
I picked up a mistake in an early posting because I know, & have worked with Imperial regularly in the past.
Seriously, though, except in a school maths problem, how many people would need to use the number of feet in a mile (5280), anyway.
I had it drummed into me, as did many of my generation.
As the saying, often but probably wrongly, attributed to the Jesuits, puts it "Give me the child for the first seven years, & I will give you the man".
(No, I didn't go to Catholic School).
All that said, my generation seamlessly adopted Metric measures.
--- Quote ---
I didn’t say that Americans ONLY see costs and risks. As I and others have said repeatedly in this thread: changes do involve costs and risks, and so one will only accept those when the benefits exceed them. At no point did anyone say that Americans see NO benefits. It’s simply that one has to weigh the benefits against the costs and risks. Do I have to spell out this basic logic in any more excruciating detail, or will me typing it out for the tenth time finally break through that noggin? ;)
--- End quote ---
forrestc:
--- Quote from: Altair8800 on November 10, 2019, 09:55:36 pm ---I can see other countries saying to Boeing, hey, you want to continue selling aircraft to us, a minimum requirement would be you have to sell aircraft in our measuring system (which is metric). Then and only then would Boeing think about changing to metric. Same goes for other businesses that export to the rest of the world.
--- End quote ---
How about getting Airbus to switch to metric first?
This is a good example of the effect of inertia on a measurement system. Nuts and bolts in large commercial aircraft have traditionally been imperial, and there are lots of imperial-dimensioned parts that are certified to Aviation standards. When Airbus started up, they elected to continue along the same path to avoid the costs of having different parts just for their aircraft. So a European aerospace manufacturer is producing an aircraft that uses non-metric fasteners.
tooki:
Much more than metric vs customary fasteners, I just wish we could switch everything to Torx and eliminate all the other driver types.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version