Move to metric system

Straight forward. Its such a joke snl made a skit. Bring back common sense and common science.

Especially for food, fuel, distance, temperature, socket sizes, and everything else.

Eventually it can go to all the more challenging places such as building code. Im now rambiling for length. Approximately 6cm of length. In a decentralized word its important americans can actually comprehend what everyone else is talking about. Why must we use archaic measurements of feet and tons? We should the math of the best physicists.

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Nope.

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Yep to Nope. Metric sucks

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Yes!

Having had a lengthy education in structural engineering this was the bain of my existence!

Regardless this would be incredibly difficult to actually implement and take over a century to fully adopt but providing a dual system for the foreseeable future would be ideal. But after a decade or 2 we should mandate governments to accept only Metric like for drawings for building departments.

Also, Metric mass and weight units are much clearer than SAE, most people don’t even know what a slug is or even what the difference is between mass and weight.


But admittedly, it’s not perfect…

One problem I have with Metric is that there is no foot or really inch equivalent in metric. For example, 6ft would be 182.88cm and something like 10in would be 25.4cm. In summary, they use cm to cover too large of a section of the length spectrum :nauseated_face: :face_vomiting:.


This idea is similar to the argument to keep DLS. Just because it’s the status quo does not make it the best solution.


Even NASA currently uses metric because it is far better than SAE. And if others used Metric we wouldn’t have issue like this :point_right: How NASA Lost Its Mars Climate Orbiter From a Metric Error


The conversion is trivial in most cases, especially in software, but the uniformity this adoption would provide would be HUGE!

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NASA hasn’t been to the moon since the adoption of metric.

The Mars Orbiter wasn’t a mistake of Standard units, it was a failure of communication.

Anytime someone uses metric, I assume they don’t really know what they’re talking about.

So many things are printed in duel languages, formats. The first step could be as simple as printing instructions, maps, measurements for cooking and such in both. That way the people could start to see, side by side the equivalents.

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We all know that the move to metric is inevitable. We just need to stop the excuses for delay. Go through the discomfort and get it done. Most people who resist don’t realize how much they use the metric system already.

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We all know anything but the metric system is ridiculous.

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Most people who resist don’t realize how much they use the metric system already.

Agreed!

Also, most people are reluctant to adopt things that are completely foreign to them, but once they make the jump they love it. Just look at Apple – when people switch from a PC to a mac they don’t go back, same for the iPhone.

People grow stagnat when they get comfortable. Sometimes change and especially new knowledge is great

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:laughing:

Let’s be real – NASA hasn’t done much for space exploration in a while, apart from funding SpaceX in the early days.

The Mars Orbiter wasn’t a mistake of Standard units, it was a failure of communication.

Yeah because Lockheed Martin used SAE while JPL used Metric, if there was a standard there would be no failure of communication.

Anytime someone uses metric, I assume they don’t really know what they’re talking about.

:laughing: Maybe in everyday life, I could see your point but not in engineering.

Exactly. And to further the example, people who think they don’t want a Mac may not realize how much they are using Mac already.
Common metric uses:
Calories
Sports (track, cross country, swimming, diving, rugby, etc)
Drinks (soda, wine, beer)
Car parts
Science
Engineering
“K” for 1 thousand
Electricity (kilowatt hours)
Photography
Firearms (9mm ammo)

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“And what will 1000 pounds be called sir?”
“Nothing”

We commonly use a kip in engineering to define 1000 pounds which is short for Kilopound. A blatant bastardization of the Metric system. But we only go that far no Megapounds so we are left to use 1000 kips for 1 million lbs. :cry:

No. I prefer the system we have now where we use both. SI for formal international work, but I still use Imperial for visualizing inches, feet, yards, gallons, etc.

Additionally, the imperial system has no consistent pattern for increments between units. Instead, it has evolved from historical, practical or cultural significance at the time of their creation. For example…

Lengths:

  • 12 inches (in) = 1 foot (ft)
  • 3 feet (ft) = 1 yard (yd)
  • 1760 yards (yd) = 1 mile (mi)
  • 5280 feet (ft) = 1 mile (mi)

There’s no uniform multiplier here, each conversion is unique.

Weights:

  • 16 ounces (oz) = 1 pound (lb)
  • 2000 pounds (lb) = 1 short ton (in the U.S.)
  • 2240 pounds (lb) = 1 long ton (used in the UK, less common in everyday US usage)

Here, the ounce-to-pound ratio is consistent, but ton measurements differ based on regional definitions.

Volumes:

  • 8 fluid ounces (fl oz) = 1 cup
  • 2 cups = 1 pint (pt)
  • 2 pints = 1 quart (qt)
  • 4 quarts = 1 gallon (gal)

This subset has a pattern in that it uses all binary increments, but is mostly inconsistent across units (i.e. 2^1, 2^2, 2^3).

Areas:

  • 1 acre = 43,560 square feet
  • 640 acres = 1 square mile

An acre, originally defined as the area a yoke of oxen could plow in a day, doesn’t follow a simple numeric increment in relation to other units like square feet or square miles.


The system was poorly designed and the lack of adoption across the world is pretty good evidence of this! If not for the large presence and influence of the US on the world stage, this system would have been killed a long time ago. :smile:

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Though to be a bit funny we are one of the only countries that measure things by size comparison too

That building is as tall as seven elephants!
That storm could have fit 20 jumbo jets!
Meh it was only a small scratch, this size of a thimbal…

:joy::joy::joy:

That’s why the rest of the world should switch over to the U.S. system

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Why not shift to visualizing centimeters, meters, liters, etc?

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I’m happy with both, but centimeters are harder to visualize because they are too precise. A good example is someone’s height.