General > General Technical Chat
why is the US not Metric
<< < (175/291) > >>
bsfeechannel:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 15, 2019, 06:32:46 pm ---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 (much) more important than Americans using only metric in their daily life.
--- End quote ---

We are exactly discussing why people don't use metric in their daily lives in the US when all other countries do. I am pointing out to you that your very government is working actively to change that, sooner or later.


--- Quote ---That wasn't my argument. I have nothing against France or Germany. I don't care if metric is French.
--- End quote ---

That was rstofer's argument. But I decided to comment on that on my reply to you, anyway.


--- Quote ---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!"
--- End quote ---

The first committee to create the metric system had Legendre, Laplace, Lagrange, Lavoisier and other La-people as members. You might have heard of them.

In 1796, Laplace wrote:

The prodigious number of measures in use, not only among different people, but in the same nation; their whimsical divisions, inconvenient for calculation, and the difficulty of knowing and comparing them; finally, the embarrassments and frauds which they produce in commerce, cannot be observed without acknowledging that the adoption of a system of measures, of which the uniform divisions are easily subjected to calculation, and which are derived in a manner the least arbitrary, from a fundamental measure, indicated by nature itself, would be one of the most important services which any government could confer on society. A nation which would originate such a system of measures, would combine the advantage of gathering the first fruits of it with that of seeing its example followed by other nations, of which it would thus become the benefactor; for the slow but irresistible empire of reason predominates at length over all national jealousies, and surmounts all the obstacles which oppose themselves to an advantage, which would be universally felt.

So, the metric system was invented not because of the "prodigious number of measures in use, not only among different people, but in the same nation", not because of "their whimsical divisions, inconvenient for calculation, and the difficulty of knowing and comparing them", and not because of "the embarrassments and frauds which they produce in commerce".

It was invented because "the adoption of a system of measures, of which the uniform divisions are easily subjected to calculation, and which are derived in a manner the least arbitrary, from a fundamental measure, indicated by nature itself, would be one of the most important services which any government could confer on society."

The prodigious number of measures, the inconvenient calculations and the frauds were just a consequence of not having a consistent, streamlined and universal system of measures. This problem continues today in the US. Just for measuring length, the imperial system offers: the thou, the inch, the foot, the survey foot, the mile, the yard, the chain, the furlong, the league, the fathom, the nautical mile, the link and the rod. They are all arbitrarily related, inconvenient for a lot of modern measurements and absolutely not universal.

The metric system offers just the meter, which you can use for subatomic or astronomical measurements, as well as for screws, doors, houses, cars, motors, roads, bridge clearances, furniture, whatever. And people actually do use it for those applications.

Metric was created and further developed by the brightest minds in the recent centuries, and it continues to evolve as science and technology advances and becomes ingrained in the every day life of the common citizen.  Imperial on the other hand is frozen in time and has its origins in a bunch of ancient Roman rednecks. I can't believe someone would prefer it to metric.

Since you are surrounded by imperial in the US, you might think that it is going strong in the world  and has a future. I'm trying to show you a different perspective. It is moribund, if not DEAD. The US system of measures looks like a sinking imperial island in a sea of metric.

As Laplace puts it very well, the empire of reason may be slow but it is irresistible. And that's the main compelling force behind metric.
KL27x:
^Well said. And quite wordy, yourself.

--- Quote ---I can't believe someone would prefer it to metric.
--- End quote ---
It's not about preference. Its about practicality of changing standards; the reason Russia changed it's upper airspace to feet. The reason we have JIS and phillips. The reason if you created a complex program with complex algorithms that are calculated in feet, you wouldn't rewrite the entire thing to turn it into meters. You would just add a couple lines of code to convert the end result. Kinda like how the surveying foot is preserved in order to save a boatload of paperwork. To save time and money; not spend it. (Lot of countries have a version of this, like still using acres for deeds, etc, but surveying foot is unique because Americans "metricized" their old system to save trouble in the general usage of customary).


--- Quote ---We are exactly discussing why people don't use metric in their daily lives in the US
--- End quote ---
Because they don't understand all this money that they will save. This USMA hasn't explained it very well. Neither has anyone else in this thread.


--- Quote ---Since you are surrounded by imperial in the US, you might think that it is going strong in the world  and has a future. I'm trying to show you a different perspective. It is moribund, if not DEAD. The US system of measures looks like a sinking imperial island in a see of metric.
--- End quote ---

You don't understand that we know it's dead in countries that were never imperial. And it is apparently dead in Australia, due to how they implemented it. We know it's completely, utterly dead (other than for the majority of the population in much of their daily usage  :)) in UK and Canada. We know this, but we don't CARE. The swedes knew they were driving their cars on the wrong side of the road, and the majority did not care. 

If I moved to another country where everything I own and see and use is marked in metric, I'm sure I would calibrate to metric in a couple of months and not even think in imperial. And I would not care what Americans are using. If I moved back to the US and everything I own and see and use is mostly imperial, I'm sure I would get used to imperial again in a couple months and not give a care that imperial is "dead." I can't say for sure, but I bet the majority of people under 50 who were to move to and live in America for a few months would also be quite indifferent to changing back to metric. 


--- Quote ---the thou, the inch, the foot, the survey foot, the mile, the yard, the chain, the furlong, the league, the fathom, the nautical mile, the link and the rod.
--- End quote ---
I read that school kids chanted stuff about rods and furlongs and chains in Australian shools in the 60's. I don't know if and when that was ever the case in America. I can assure you Americans learn metric and only use metric beyond middle school. An average American would use inches, feet, or miles to express these distances and not even know that they are looking at a furlong or a chain. Average Americans don't need these units, because they can express anything in any one unit, just like in metric. ATC flight levels are basically hectofeet, for instance. This is, FYI, what a strawman argument is. Take a note, please, so you can use it correctly, in the future.  >:D

And if a US civil engineer uses some of these weird units to lay out a street grid, it's because of experience of how far apart the streets should be. I suppose it might be convenient for them to talk and think in those units, in this specific context. Like selecting a good sized grid in PCB CAD, but for buildings and roads and parking lots. Same way two scientists might be casually discussing some phenomenon in petameters or whatnot in a very specific context (or how machinists might often find thous useful). I mean, when it comes to planning out a city, I think experience counts for something. You don't have to build entire new cities very often, and you might use previous city layouts as a template of what you have in mind. And furlongs or chains (and decimal inches, which are exactly sensible here in combo with furlongs which are whole multiples of feet) might happen to be good sizes for this specific work. Like blue lines on butter work great when they are 25 grams each... not a factor of 10. US civil engineers are basically using blue lines of feet, feet, and tenths or feet. Essentially a single unit with a specific grid size in feet. I hope anyone competent enough to get work as a civil engineer will be able to adapt and use any measuring system and will hopefully not be designing a city structure alone, in a vacuum, fresh out of school, without any prior experience.
vk6zgo:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 15, 2019, 07:46:09 pm ---
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.

--- End quote ---

I am probably much older than you, so my image of "a very long time" is considerably longer than yours.
The USA, Japan, & Germany, amongst others, during that time period, also built from scratch, apart from, in many cases, importing the raw materials.

If you build the whole thing, you are not subject to the vagaries of travel times for parts from "the other side of the world".
To a large extent, standardisation of such things as electrical equipment over models, & even between manufacturers, makes local sourcing more attractive.

GMH were not the only company producing cars in Australia--following the success of GMH, Ford started complete local production in 1960, Chrysler in the mid 1960s (bought out by Mitsubishi in 1980), Toyota, from 1987, Leyland, from 1969 to 1975, VW for a short time from 1967 to 1968, till reverting to assembling CKD only.

Many other car firms only assembled cars here, but in many cases, made extensive use of Australian sourced parts, made by the companies which had grown up to supply the large manufacturers.
For instance, my 1972 Renault R12 had Bosch electricals made in Australia.
This was convenient, as the distributor points were identical to those of a 6 cylinder Holden.

Once GMH decided to stop making cars here, the "writing was pretty much on the wall" for all the makers of auto equipment, as well as the other car makers, so when they all closed, so did the their suppliers.

By the way, on the subject of obtaining assemblies from overseas, the 4 cylinder SOHC "Camtech" engines for all of GM's small "world cars" of the mid to late 1980s were made in Australia.
vk6zgo:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 16, 2019, 01:03:02 am ---



I read that school kids chanted stuff about rods and furlongs and chains in Australian shools in the 60's. I don't know if and when that was ever the case in America.

--- End quote ---

I wasn't at school in the 1960s, but they certainly didn't do so in the 1950s, when I was!
Feet, inches, yards, miles were what you learnt about.

Chains were occasionally mentioned in Maths problems, but conversions weren't commonly required.
Rods, Poles, or Perches (all names for the same thing), were not part of the curriculum, neither were Furlongs.

Such things were on the back cover of the "Exercise books" we did our work in, & the "Table Books" we had in Primary school, along with the Metric system, Troy weight, & such doggerel as "A Pint of clear water weighs a Pound & a Quarter" ("Real red-blooded Imperial Pints").
vk6zgo:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 15, 2019, 06:32:46 pm ---



--- 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.

--- End quote ---
And that is how it used to be done, but there are problems:-
Metal shrinks & contracts with temperature, & even, ever so slightly corrodes, changing its absolute length.
All those pieces of metal will have to be kept in exactly the same temperature & atmospheric conditions while the "comparison" is taking place.

--- Quote --- 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.

--- End quote ---
They don't do that at all!

--- Quote --- 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"

--- End quote ---
But that is pretty much how it is determined!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre

--- Quote --- (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.

--- End quote ---

You can't have your "conclave of Nations all crosschecking", & your "france just passed out a leaflet" at the same time.
In reality, there was no just "ok, got it" amongst the countries involved in the early days of Metrics.

Could you really imagine Germany saying "That's cool, the French are smart cookies, they must be right?"

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

--- End quote ---

It was really nice of you to provide a perfect example in your posting above.

Navigation
Message Index
Next page
Previous page
There was an error while thanking
Thanking...

Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod