General > General Technical Chat

why is the US not Metric

<< < (174/291) > >>

vk6zgo:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 14, 2019, 06:05:09 pm ---^vk6zgo, lots of interesting stuff there. I am not going to reply to that, yet. You take it too personally and are sensitive, and your post isn't completely wrong. Let's just say making steel and welders don't care cm or inches, and America was among the first of the former Commonwealth to start teaching and learning the metric system, before Australia.

Great you mine ore. Look at the machines you use to mine it. Look at the machines you use for agriculture. Tell me they are all made in Australia?
--- End quote ---

Fewer & fewer are made in the USA.
If you think you are still the "workshop of the world", have a look at all the "American" cars made in Mexico, or the Toyota "assembly plant" in the USA, you were so proud of some posts back.

--- Quote ---
 I dunno. You guys trade more with EU and China. Maybe the are buying your Australian tractors and tunnel digging machines. We just get your metric glass bottles filled with wine. So are you exporting mining and agricultural technology? Or are you exporting the raw materials and simple products obtained by using pre-existing technology which you imported? Cuz the latter would be much smarter for your country.

--- End quote ---
My point was that you were completely wrong in your assertion that the GMH plant in Australia was "just an assembly plant".
I pointed out that it made cars "from scratch".
I also pointed out,that during WW2, Australia was largely "left to its own devices", & had to industrialise fast to keep up with the need for war materials.
The fact that this was done, in the majority by people ineligible for military service, many of them being ex soldiers from WW!, with various injuries resulting from that conflict.(My father was one such person, who did double & triple shifts, under the "manpower" legislation of the time, which didn't do his injured leg a lot of good) is quite astounding.

We built ships, planes, Electronics (some of which was supplied to the USA under "Reverse Lend Lease"), guns, munitions, as well as providing our military & your own with food & other services.

Up until the 1980s, Australia produced the vast majority of its everyday products, such as ships, cars, refrigerators, airconditioners & so on, but following the push for 'free trade", local manufacturing was rolled back, until, now, we don't make much at all.
The pioneers of Australian manufacturing would be turning over in their graves!

It's happening to you, too, even if you don't want to recognise the fact.

--- Quote ---
bsfeechannel:

--- Quote ---This argument can be easily refuted by the fact that European countries, Japan, China and other industrialized economies adopted the metric system successfully, but not the US.
--- End quote ---
Dear genius of geniuses.  Germany adopted the metric system in the late 1800's, relatively early in this ascension in tech. Around the same time most of Europe also adopted metric. It might have had something to do with a short French guy consolidating the continent; but he didn't make it to America (apparently, horses don't swim that well). What was high tech in the late 1800's? Britain still ruled the seas with steam engines (that and the sewing machine were two of Britains most important technological achievements). Combustion engines were invented 1876... 4 years after Germany adopted metric. They essentially build their tech in mm. And other countries like Japan, where to you think they traded and bought and copied these tools from? They didn't reinvent wheels in shinto units; they advanced the already metric wheels. (Japan has a lot to do with the advancement in manufacturing of combustion engines esp in the mid-late 1900's... which we know they did this in metric. Back then. They didn't switch after the fact.) Even in America we buy German and Japanese heavy industrial tools and tech. But we also developed these things and have always made these things in America.

A lot of things happened between 1870 and 1960. In Australia a lot of this change was imported; I don't know history that great, maybe you can tell me when Australia was the tip of the technology spear?
--- End quote ---

We have had our few moments:-
Howard Florey, along with Sir Alexander Fleming, & Ernst Boris Chain jointly received the Nobel Prize in 1945 for the discovery of Penicillin.
Florey was an Australian, but it probably doesn't count as the work was done in another of rstofer's "low rent " countries.

A trifle more recent was the 2005 Nobel prize for medicine which  was received by J Robin Warren & Barry J Marshall for the discovery that peptic ulcers are caused by a bacteria, Heliobacter pylori
Their research was carried out in my home city of Perth, Western Australia.

In 2011 the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) developed the Equivac vaccine to protect horses against the deadly Hendra virus.(note that Commonwealth" here refers to the "Commonwealth of Australia"--- not the "British Commonwealth")

CSIRO also holds vital patents  for the WIFI  technology.

Just a few of the top of my head,----- no "moonshots", but very useful research at top levels.

In characteristic fashion, the Government's reaction was to cut funding to CSIRO.

--- Quote ---
Was metrication your shining moment of technological progress, is changing their road signs? Of course Australia has little use for imperial anymore. Esp Britain's version. Not just Australia, but the entire rest of the world has not been buying British steam engines and sewing machines for a long time.
--- End quote ---

Most of the Singer sewing machines I saw growing up were made in the USA---in fact, Isaac Merritt Singer built the first practical & efficient sewing machine in New York, patenting it in 1851.
Singers are probably made in Taiwan, now!

Once the Brits sold a few steam engines, "the genie was out of the bottle", & client countries started making their own.

--- Quote ---
 Australia is buying from metric EU.
--- End quote ---
Probably much more from "Metric China!"

--- Quote ---In America, this century of change happened in inches. They continue to use them, yet America embraced metric before Australia did. They just kept it practical, not symbolic. Americans can buy a pound of butter and still use metric.

Even in UK, people still use a lot of imperial. Australia was kinda unique in how they could completely forget imperial and have no significant effect in their industries/workplaces. They were already buying metric commodities.

If America started changing to 40mm drain pipes and 1 meter wide doors, we be paying cost of  market inefficiencies in America for the next 100 years, before it might save a few cents a year. Changing road signs is dead cost, only.


;;;;;;;;;;;;
Our existing technology is important. If we destroyed all of it, today, all the oil wells, all the machinery. All the nuclear power plants. But we kept metric? We would be in the dark ages for centuries. All the easily accessible fossil fuels are gone. We need highly advanced technology to even reach what is left or to re-create nuclear power.

--- End quote ---

Why would you have to do that?
Metric isn't this "dark god" which is going to, in one fell swoop take away all your equipment made with your "customary measures", but, slowly, over time, new stuff will be made using  Metric units.

bsfeechannel:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 14, 2019, 11:41:45 pm ---Surely the world doesn't care if Americans buy gallons of gas in their own country while the world celebrates the death of the inch.
--- End quote ---

That's the essence of establishing a standard: favor some units and deprecate all the others. By the way, since 1878 the US is a full member of the General Conference on Weights and Measures, the supreme authority of the inter-governmental organization established under the terms of the Meter Convention. So the US is an active player in the promotion of the meter and the demise of the inch.

If you don't like that, do like the Brits, elect politicians willing to promote an Amexit.


--- Quote ---Well, that's the start of making imperial a thought crime?
--- End quote ---

Not a bad idea. However, that's not how it is done in metricated countries. You can express things in other units as long as you show the equivalent in metric. The idea of course is to eventually do away with the old system.


--- Quote ---Well, it's apparently so easy even rstopher can make you look stupid. It's like you're asking for it.
--- End quote ---

Yeah. Ad hominem fallacies are democratic. Anyone can make free use of them without discrimination. The downside is that it makes your arguments automatically invalid.


--- Quote ---Also, this rod is important. This IS the standard. It is shared internationally by 17 countries by a contract. Or do you think your country measures thing with light and a stopwatch?
--- End quote ---


Nope. As of 2018, no metric unit is defined by any human artifact. Heck, even aliens can use the metric system. It shows how advanced it is, yet it makes life easier for mechanics, carpenters, bricklayers, cooks, bakers, plumbers, shopkeepers, housewives the world over every single day.

Of course you can fabricate standard rods using this definition. But the rod doesn't define the unit, and it is not in the possession of any particular nation. So the argument that, by adopting metric, the US is being somehow Gallicized is sheer bullshit. The US can replicate the standard at any time anywhere even if said aliens decide to abduct the whole France.

SparkyFX:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 14, 2019, 06:05:09 pm ---Germany adopted the metric system in the late 1800's, relatively early in this ascension in tech.
--- End quote ---
70 years after mediatization of the many princedoms and coming from ~300 different definitions for units of area alone. Because they all used different definitions more or less for hidden tax raises, sometimes using the same name for a unit, sometimes different names, depending on the local government. That is a very good reason to switch to such a system, far from what this discussion is about.

KL27x:
Bsfeechannel:
--- Quote ---Of course you can fabricate standard rods using this definition. But the rod doesn't define the unit, and it is not in the possession of any particular nation. So the argument that, by adopting metric, the US is being somehow Gallicized is sheer bullshit. The US can replicate the standard at any time anywhere even if said aliens decide to abduct the whole France.
--- End quote ---
I am the one that has continually pointed out to YOU that America is part of this pact with 17 other nations. That we are all calibrated to the same standard. By these prototypes. This is arguably ("obviously," in my opinion; but you can agree "arguably?") more important than Americans using only metric in their daily life.


--- Quote --- So the argument that, by adopting metric, the US is being somehow Gallicized is sheer bullshit.
--- End quote ---
That wasn't my argument. I have nothing against France or Germany. I don't care if metric is French. I am trying to show you why metric spread when it did, and as fast as it did, in Europe. So think about that before you say "but everyone else did it!" The conditions and historical context are not the same between 1870 Germany and modern US. The entire world is also different.


--- Quote --- The US can replicate the standard at any time anywhere even if said aliens decide to abduct the whole France.
--- End quote ---
If the prototype were lost or damaged, these 17 nations would convene and bring their pieces of metal and other calibration stuff to the party, and one set of new prototypes would be passed around and certified by scientists/metricists from all 17 nations. These 17 nations might convene periodically to make sure all varieties of meters (not metres) are in agreement. Scales and thermometers, etc. to make sure they get calibrated to the same prototypes in the same place at the same time under the same conditions. Not just to pass around their pieces of metal. How do you know your DMM is calibrated? Because you send it somewhere, and they put a sticker on it. But ultimately it goes all the way up to this contract of 17 nations and this calibration party.

But that's cute you think France just passed out a leaflet that said "a meter is how far light goes in a jazillinth of a second" (or some fraction of the circumference of the earth back then) and a nation on the other side of the pond would say "ok, got it. I'm outlawing the old measuring system as we speak."

BTW, you don't seem to understand what a strawman argument means. And the various ways you use it makes the term meaningless.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
On another note, I discovered that Russia ATC changed in 2017 from meters to feet for flight levels above 29000 feet. Not only this is because their neighbors do it and it makes air travel easier across Russia, but due to Russia's previous standards causing pilots to have to change altitude slightly as they cross into this airspace, plus this allows almost 50% more flight lanes per air space. Something about Russia previously rounding their flight lanes to whole numbers in meters, whereas China makes their flight levels in meters to match more or less exactly with the rest of the worlds fight levels in feet, but I could be wrong. 

Also, it would appear that knots and nautical miles are used by all nations. So the argument of "different vertical vs horizontal units" applies to even China and North Korea and Russia. (Even if they used km/hr, the ascend/descend rate is stated/measured in meters per minute, so the time base is different by a factor of 60. No shifting decimal points, here, lol. As if you would control a plane better in metric, like you are in the metric "matrix" seeing 10's and 1000's in your mind). Gravity works in one direction, so there is a fundamental difference between horizontal and vertical where planes are concerned.

KL27x:
vk6zgo:

--- Quote ---Fewer & fewer are made in the USA.
If you think you are still the "workshop of the world", have a look at all the "American" cars made in Mexico, or the Toyota "assembly plant" in the USA, you were so proud of some posts back.
--- End quote ---
Indeed, America and Australia both qualify as "post-industrialized" nations. Just remember that technology spreads quickly once it has been invented. America was doing a lot of the advancement in the last century. When a "x" factory/company arises in another country, it is often someone with with capital and some knowledge that will license and/or hire the engineers who have done this, already, to start this company in a new country. Or to at least reverse engineer the existing products. IOW, development in the first place might have used more physical tech/tooling/capital and quite likely more sweat and tears (some of which may have been in fluid ozs).

In terms of earth moving equipment and heavy machinery, America is still spending and advancing that tech. It takes some tech to build floating oil wells in the oceans off the coasts of Alaska. These are very inhospitable and dangerous conditions. This has nothing to do with an average American. I'm as clueless as anyone how to do that. I think I'd have a better chance to get a rocket to Mars. And for all I know it was 99% French, German, Indian, Chinese, and Australian engineers and scientists who made this tech all in metric. But American companies are the ones that hired them and are active leaders in some areas such as this, still. No matter if some backwards American management decided these engineers would make the pieces in inches, measure depth by foot, and output by barrels, I don't think these engineers thought "Well, drilling a hole and putting a pipe in the middle of the ocean floor is easy, enough, but those barrels and feet? That sounds complicated."

It is the technology why other countries license or employ these companies to help build this kind of things. Each piece is part of a whole, and they are made out of steel, not numbers; not the metric. I think the customer can convert this wee bit of imperial to metric in order to grasp/understand these numbers to their own internal calibration in a fraction of the time and cost of redesigning and re-creating this technology.

US still has large global marketshare for such kinds of equipment for agriculture and infrastructure and mining, too.

I am surprised to learn that Australia had produced GM cars "entirely from scratch," domestically, as you say. Including everything from trim to engines. It has been a very long time since cars were build that way and I just think that would not necessarily be efficient when we can trade things fairly easily. But I apologize if I made incorrect and possibly offensive assumptions; no insult was intended.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod