If people wanted to switch, they would. It works just fine.
Pilots use metric, but this can cause confusion if you are not aware of the system in use with regards to the readings. See the Gimli glider for more.
Yeah, I remember being taught the metric system in the 6th grade (1973-4) and being told that it would soon be the only system used....
AFAIK Liberia and the US are the only ones left. Myanmar has annouced to switch to the metric system. But we should be glad that the US government didn't invent imperial versions for A, V and Ohms
AFAIK Liberia and the US are the only ones left. Myanmar has annouced to switch to the metric system.
The worst part: Once the U.S. is the only country left, that will only serve to make the Imperial* system even more Ahmurrican. We'll
never be able to get rid of it...
*Shh... don't tell them which Empire the Imperial system is from...
But we should be glad that the US goverment didn't invent imperial versions for A, V and Ohms
They need it bad then
Let make some proposals......
Imperial A, V, Ohm? That's simple. All you need to do is relate electricity to the hydraulic analogy. Electric potential will be measured in Pounds / PSI equivalent water pressure, current in Gallons per Minute equivalent water flow, resistivity in Inches (squared) equivalent resistive pipe diameter, or alternatively using a scaled version of AWG, and resistance in Feet resistive pipe length at a standardized diameter (standards vary by state).
Anyone want to take a shot at capacitance?
I'm off to bleach and boil my brain now.
Pilots use metric, but this can cause confusion if you are not aware of the system in use with regards to the readings. See the Gimli glider for more.
Not for altitude or speed they don't. Feet and knots. (yes, I know knots are scaled to metric units, they're still not kilometres per hour)
*Shh... don't tell them which Empire the Imperial system is from...
The metric system is a child of the French Revolution. Vive la révolution! :-)
Yes, created by the French and used by various types of Socialists and Commies.</sarcasm> We'll never be able to switch...
The reason we don't give up the ghost over here can be summed up in one word. Construction! Every building, every plumbing fitting and fixture, every conduit of bulk cable, etc has been based on imperial measures for a couple hundred years. Nothing would work and nothing would fit together properly. It's one thing for say the auto mfg's to change tap sizes and use different bolts. It's another matter entirely when you're talking about 1000 sheets of drywall, $10,000.00 worth of kitchen and bathroom fixtures, reengineering roof trusses, stud spacing on walls, mating up with existing infrastructure, and the list goes on. That's just for one moderately sized house. Multiply that by maybe 100 million and include industrial/commercial buildings. Now figure in the amount of redundant stock all the contractors and retailers would need to carry. The costs would run into the trillions if not hundreds of trillions. With that kind of money on the line nobody is going to change a damn thing over here when we have a system that works fine as is. I guarantee if you owned a home in the states for 5 years you'd be cursing the metric system in no time flat!
Yes, created by the French and used by various types of Socialists and Commies.</sarcasm> We'll never be able to switch...
Long time ago length was measured in cubits, and how long a cubit was differed from town to town. At old town halls over here you can find special stones fixed in the buildings wall showing the official length of the local cubit. That was done to mitigate discussions at the market place when sellers or buyers came from another town. The metric system saved us from that nightmare.
PS: NASA uses the metric system.
The Imperial system has been standardized since 1842.
Anyway, only folks who can't seem to do base 12 math have a problem with it.
Not only this, our guns are measured in inches too.
The reason we don't give up the ghost over here can be summed up in one word. Construction! Every building, every plumbing fitting and fixture, every conduit of bulk cable, etc has been based on imperial measures for a couple hundred years.
I'll tell you something funny. We still use Zoll, which is the same as inch, quite often for metal tubing instead of the nice metric specifications for those. And it becomes even more weird. For the first tubing Zoll meant the inner diameter of the tube but the important thing for plumbing is the outer diameter to make the tubes fit together. The old tubes had thick metal and were about 33mm in diameter (1 Zoll tube). Later tubes had better metal so the thickness decreased and the inner diameter increased. A current 1 Zoll tube has still an outer diameter of 33mm but an inner of about 30mm.
PS: NASA uses the metric system.
Of course. The metric system is common in the worldwide scientific community. Outside the scientific community is quite different.
At the risk of diverting a perfectly good "General Chat" thread into EE regions, I remember how confused I was when while designing my first PCB, I learned that you can get these screw terminals (and a whole metric ton of other components) both in "imperial" (2.54 mm pin spacing) and normal, civilized (
) versions (2.5 mm spacing). Chances are, I'd probably manage to order and use the "wrong" one, happily unaware of the issue, hadn't I needed longer than 2-3 pin terminals.
Pilots use metric, but this can cause confusion if you are not aware of the system in use with regards to the readings. See the Gimli glider for more.
Not for altitude or speed they don't. Feet and knots. (yes, I know knots are scaled to metric units, they're still not kilometres per hour)
How are knots scaled to metric units? Knots are nautical miles per hour, and a nautical mile was based on one minute of longitude at the equator. Where does the metric system come into it?
At least with the 2.54 and 2.5 versions a 3-6 way connector used in the other system becomes self locking before soldering.
The Imperial system has been standardized since 1842.
Anyway, only folks who can't seem to do base 12 math have a problem with it.
Actually, it is not quite 12 based. Gallon, Quart, Pint is really binary. Weight is base 16 which is binary^4. Even American football play time is divided in to half, than divided into quarter.
Metric is nice for certain things, but the decimal-base breaks down when used for certain other units: year, month, day, hour, seconds. However much you juggle the arithmetic, you wont get year as 10 month, month as 10 days...
Unit conversion will be a fact of iife.