Good article, but not entirely true, as the UK have only partially accepted the metric system, and even that was under pressure from them thare ferringers fra Europe!! The system used in the USA is the earlier English system of weights and measures which were in use in England up to 1824, when they were all revised by the Weights And Measures act . The USA carried on using the old system. I can work quite happily in both, and even when using a tape measure, always pick the system that gives me the easiest to remember round figures. My two lathes are imperial, My Harrison H/V mill is metric, My Raglan mill is imperial. I have micrometers in both, but my large range micrometers are imperial. TBH I find more problems in the metric system, because of anomalies like different pitches on the same diameter bolt, and different types of metric thread, like ISOmetric. I don't really think either of the systems is better than the other! We are now leaving EC, and what will happen when we do is anybodies guess, but we have had cases of shopkeepers being heavily fined for using the imperial system of weight to sell goods, a system which was used in this country for many years without a problem. All the prosecutions achieved was a very high level of bad publicity for the EC and the government that were promoting the change. In my own field of electrical engineering, when cable sizes were metricated, the equivalent cable to out old 7/029 (7 strands twisted together, each strand .029" thick) was 2.5mm, which is a single core 2.5mmcsa. It carries less current than the stranded cable, is much more rigid, and harder to handle and install neatly, but of course, it is a lot cheaper to make!