Pirates! - Why the US doesn't use the metric system.

Honestly having learned both Metric and Imperial I have to say the metric system is MUCH easier to learn and remember. Just multiple and divide by 10. Nothing could be easier than adding or removing a trailing zero. :)

-Denzil
 
Honestly having learned both Metric and Imperial I have to say the metric system is MUCH easier to learn and remember. Just multiple and divide by 10. Nothing could be easier than adding or removing a trailing zero. :)

-Denzil
Yeah, but you have to admit, “453.592 grams of flesh” just doesn’t have the same zing to it.

Tom
 
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!
 
I work with both systems every day at work and at home. What I can't figure out is why the question still pops up randomly about once a year. That ship sailed in the 70's. The USA won't ever officially change.
 
My only issue with our system is the silly fractions used in linear measurement. Fractions? Really?

When I started using metal working machines I started thinking of everything in yards/feet/inches/tenths/hundredths/thousandths/ten thousandths. I've saved quite a number of brain cells over the years. Or at least I think I have... ;)
 
I like fractions when sawing or cutting paper, wood, cloth, etc. I find that intervals of 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, etc., are easier to make out on a rule or scale than 100ths of an inch. It's only going to be as accurate as a pencil lead width anyway.

BUT, for lathe and mill work where I get to cheat with digital calipers, mics, DTIs, etc., with direct readouts, gimme thousandths of an inch every time. (Or hundredths of a millimeter if I'm working from a drawing generated in one of the more advanced civilizations, like the 18th century French, who are confused by such complex terms as 1/8".)

Tom
 
One of the biggest things 'bout the Metric system that our petroleum companies (and others, I'm sure) have taken advantage of is the Litre; in my humble opinion. In the U.S. you may get cheezed because the cost of gas is up 10 cents per gallon on the long weekend; up here in Canada it goes up 10 cents per litre. That's 40 cents per gallon. Wonder why antidepressants are so popular these days. Makes it easier when you realize that you're being made a fool of.
 
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