The metric system and its lack of adoption in the US

[catty-cb 4,413]

In New Zealand the decision to change over to the metric system was started in 1969 when the government established the Metric Advisory Board (MAB) and it was considered that metrication had been completed on the 14 December 1976 when the Weights and Measures Amendment Act become law, it was updated again in 1987 and it outlines how traders must use the metric system and what exemptions to the metric system are permitted, but people to this day use a mix of the two systems and there are oddities in the system.

 

wiki quote "The aviation industry is one of the last major users of the old imperial system: altitude and airport elevation is measured in feet. All other aspects (fuel quantity, aircraft weight, runway length, etc.) use metric"

 

There was more trauma when we changed our currency and got rid of all the 1c, 2c and 5 coins and also made all the 1d and 2 dollar notes coins instead.

 

-catty

[flatron 83]

I find it interesting that so many people think that the metre was chosen just for fun(or sth. like that...) I guess they simply took a length that doesn't change over time. Take any part of the human body for example: If they had taken for example an average man's biceps' length, the metre would have become longer until now as the average body-length has increased(in develloped countries). And much more important, feminists would be complaining about the fact that a male biceps was taken... This could result in a switch towards a gender-neutral measurement system omg.

 

Metric units do mean something for me by the way: 20ml/2dl is the size of a glass of schnaps, you put 4dl of Aperol into a glass of spritz, 200ml is a small glass of water, 400ml is a big glass of coke, 500ml is a Glass of wheat beer, 750ml is a bottle of mineral water, 1l is a glass of beer, 10l is a bucket.

doors are usually 1m wide and 2m high, sprint is 50m for kids, 100m/200m/400m for adults, men run 1000m, women 800m,

a normal flat for 4 persons has 100m² or 120m².

[SimCoug 5,977]

page 4!  

 

 

But seriously though... "I'll have a pint" sounds so much better than "500ml please" 

[MandelSoft 2,775]

^^ We solve that by linking sizes to these volumes. For instance, say that 500ml is a large glass, you can say "I'd like to have a large glass of beer." Similar thing apply to other metric things. We find other names for common uses

Speaking about alcoholic drinks: here it's a custom to use different glasses (and therefore different volumes) for different alcoholic drinks. Why? So each of these glasses will have 10ml alcohol in it when filled with the drink it's meant for. Since a rule of thumb is that it takes one hour for your liver to get 10ml out of your system, you can estimate when it's legal to drive again when you have one glass of wine or something like that.

[mrbisonm 1,622]

True, that 500 ml sounds a little strange or complicated to ask in a bar or restaurant. Here in Quebec/ Canada we sell wine (and almost all other liquids) by ml and liters (l) and when we ask for 500 ml, we simply say, half a liter........But when we go to the paintstore, we still ask for a gallon of paint, although it is 4 liters.

I think it will stay for a generation or two that some things (like construction lengths and gallons etc) will still stick around., but finally one day we will look at the imperial measures as history worldwide, the same happened to the European money which has become one unit today, the Euro.

 

It is not a matter of who has the right or best measures, but what is the easiest and most likely to become the most utilized measurements in the world. A simple matter of practical use and logic.

 

Question: Does anyone know why an Imperial Gallon is smaller than a Canadian Gallon?? I really never understood this.

 

Btw, NMUSpidey, I do NOT see an argument in this interesting discussion (thread), nor any insults to anyone.....!

 

mrb

[astronelson 339]

Question: Does anyone know why an Imperial Gallon is smaller than a Canadian Gallon?? I really never understood this.

Because Canada's big and requires more paint in its tins?

 

[T Wrecks 10,210]

@ SimCoug: You'd never say "I'll have 500 ml of beer". In areas in Germany where such a glass size is popular (and Germany is VERY diverse in that matter!!), you'd order eine Halbe (literally: "a half"), and that's it. Just like you order eine Maß (= a 1 litre glass of beer) in Bavaria.

 

Where I live, we have a special beer called Kölsch that turns stale very quickly. Hence the glasses are tall, narrow (=least contact to air!) and rather small in size, holding only 0.2 litres. Or 200 ml. But of course, everybody would simply order a Kölsch and know what they'd get. Some bars sell big and small ones, so you'd order accordingly.

 

I repeat: Nobody here will ever order a drink by a unit of measure. At the most, when different sizes are available, the waiter may ask something like ".2 or .3?" to make sure, but that's it.

 

[O/T: In fact, this discussion reminds me a bit of an old Looney Tunes propaganda cartoon from WWII, where Daffy Duck was in Germany, and one of the jokes was to speak ridiculously complicated German sentences and blend in very short English subtitles to show just how unnecessarily complicated and stupid the enemy's language is. For example, at a coin-operated phone someone would ask Entschuldingung, hätten sie vielleicht ein Zehn-Pfennig-Stück?, and the subtitles would say "Got a nickel, bud?". Actually, the German phrase was highly formal and artificial (possible, but not idiomatic), whereas the English one could hardly be more informal. A true equivalent in German would have been someting like Haste mal 'nen Groschen?.]

 

@ Odainsaker: Man, you always have so interesting stuff to tell. So what was that ancient measurement system from the Tang Dynasty based on? How did you figure it out? I'd really like to read some more about it.

[SimCoug 5,977]

^^ We solve that by linking sizes to these volumes. For instance, say that 500ml is a large glass, you can say "I'd like to have a large glass of beer."

 

And this is why I think there are uses for both systems.  Essentially, when you are asking for a large glass you are using the Imperial system... when you re-live your night on the town, you don't say to your friends "I had 2000ml of beer last night" (or 2 liters) ... you would probably say "I had 4 glasses" (I assume)

 

Sometimes it's handy to relate measurements to everyday objects (Imperial).  Other times, it's important to be exact, or easily scale-able (metric).  

 

But now I have a question... how do they measure hole distance on golf courses in metric countries?  "500 meter Par 5" just sounds weird 

[T Wrecks 10,210]

 

And this is why I think there are uses for both systems.  Essentially, when you are asking for a large glass you are using the Imperial system... when you re-live your night on the town, you don't say to your friends "I had 2000ml of beer last night" (or 2 liters) ... you would probably say "I had 4 glasses" (I assume)

 

Actually, I'd either say an approximate amount of litres (as in "I must have guzzled 3 litres last night, but surprisingly no hangover"), or if the glass size is unambiguous, I'd say something like "I had 5 [beer type/glass name] yesterday". For example, where I live, I might say 12 Kölsch, and everyone would understand I mean those standard 0.2 litre glasses of this particular beer. In Bavaria, I might say I had 4 Maß (= four 1-litre glasses of beer).

 

I agree that it's sometimes handy to relate measurements to everyday objects, and I guess that's why some leftovers of the imperial system have survived in the metric world. It's reserved to informal, everyday use, though.

 

As for your golf question, I had to look it up because I don't know jack about golf, but apparently it is a "500 Meter Par 5". Check this, for example. What's so weird about it?

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

I believe in France or something, they invented a thing called a metric pound which is an approximation of the imperial pound, or 500g exactly.

Also in a way, it's like defining a ton to equal 1000kg. We may like the base 10 units, but we also like the words and we kept them in our new system.

One could hypothetically define a foot as 30cm exact or a gallon as 4 litres?

[TekindusT 3,809]

One could hypothetically define a foot as 30cm exact or a gallon as 4 litres?

 

Not bad as a rule of thumb when watching American movies for Europeans...

 

 

 

^^ We solve that by linking sizes to these volumes. For instance, say that 500ml is a large glass, you can say "I'd like to have a large glass of beer."

 

And this is why I think there are uses for both systems.  Essentially, when you are asking for a large glass you are using the Imperial system... when you re-live your night on the town, you don't say to your friends "I had 2000ml of beer last night" (or 2 liters) ... you would probably say "I had 4 glasses" (I assume)

 

You can also say you had 2 "litronas" or 4 "jarras" or 6 "medianas" or 8 "quintos" in Spain. What sounds weird to me sounds normal for others and viceversa... And yeah, they sound as practical to me as to you American guys sound that yards, feet, miles, gallons that I find so annoying in engineering textbooks.

 

I don't know how golf distances are measured around here, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't in meters.

 

What I mean is that, all that 4 pages discussion, in my very humble opinion, just hides lazyness for change. If I was forced to go Imperial, I'd do the revolution by myself, just because it is very comfy to live metric. And way beyond if Imperial is handy or not, or if metric is good for engineering (the Americans put a man on the moon half a century ago with Imperial units, I assume); I think that at the end of everything is that nobody would be easily in favour of chaning their very own measuring system.

[SimCoug 5,977]

What's so weird about it?

I'm just trying to be funny

(The British/Scottish invented the game... I was curious if any 'imperialness' rubbed off elsewhere)

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Interestingly, my country is entirely metric EXCEPT for tire pressure, we're we still use pounds per square inch.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Far as I know a Canadian gallon is an Imperial Gallon.  Defined as the volume of 10 pounds of fresh water at STP.

 

So far, even though metric is required under the Weights and Measures Act, I don't see anyone really pushing hard to enforce it on the general public.  I'd say another five decades for the old system to be finally phased out.  A total of three generations should do it.

[Jasoncw 12,060]

One way of looking at it is to look at decimal time, which the french tried to switch to around the same time when decimalizing everything was fashionable. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

 

So how do we feel about decimal time?  Traditional time has the same issues as imperial units.  Time goes base 60, base 60, then shifts to base 24, then shifts again to base 365. 

[MandelSoft 2,775]

The problem with time is while you can decimalize the day, you can't decimalize a year, since a year has a set length of 365.2425 days. Decimalization of a day could work, but we would need to get used to it. And to quote Numberphile again:

"Now, they had two choices: or they could decimalize everything, or they could've changed the way we count (base 10 to base 12). Perhaps they've made the wrong decision".

But unlike the imperial system, time is not as inconsistent as it looks: all subdivisions of a day are base 12: There go 24 hours in a day (2×12) and 60 minutes in an hour (5×12) and 60 seconds in a minute (again, 5×12). 60 is also an useful number because it can be divided by so many different numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 15, 20 and 30). And making both minutes and seconds divisions of 60 does make it easy to calculate them and it does bring in some extra consistency.

Funny enough, I've made a little program on my graphical calculator that does just that: converting any time to a decimal time (and unixtime!). On the same calculator I have made a metric<>imperial converter.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

The equation of time gives 1 day = 360 degrees or 1 hour = 15 degrees.  Ever wonder how the time-zones were originally calibrated by Sir Sanford Fleming? 

 

If you want to be metric about it you can start with 1 day = 400 grads.  Division by 24 hours gets you a non-terminal 16 2/3 grads per zone.  Not very neat.  French revolution notwithstanding, the day is not going to be some neat multiple of 10 for hours.  When it comes to reality everything is approximate.

[Bdub01 201]

Now talking about time I see nothing wrong with military time. I have to use it in nursing. I even have my phone set for military time. I like it better. Don't have to worry bout am and pm.

[mrbisonm 1,622]

Far as I know a Canadian gallon is an Imperial Gallon.  Defined as the volume of 10 pounds of fresh water at STP.

 

So far, even though metric is required under the Weights and Measures Act, I don't see anyone really pushing hard to enforce it on the general public.  I'd say another five decades for the old system to be finally phased out.  A total of three generations should do it.

 

 So, the American Gallon is NOT an Imperial Gallon, right? It's somewhat smaller than a Canadian Gallon. What is an American Gallon called then ?

 

mrb

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

^ a mistake.  It is 4 32-oz quarts.  The logic of it escapes me.  It is almost a litre.

[hym 358]

What is an American Gallon called then ?

 

To my knowledge, it is called a "gallon."

[mrbisonm 1,622]

lol to both of you last posters......of course, why didn't I think of that.

 

mrb

[MandelSoft 2,775]

Oddly enough, there are TWO gallons: the British one and the American one. a British gallon is 4.546 liters, but a American gallon is 3.7853 liters! That's quite a difference.

[Duke87 1,070]

The gallon question often causes confusion because a "gallon" generally means a British (Imperial) gallon to people in every country other than the US (the only country that uses the "US gallon"), and many people are not aware there is a difference. I have more than once seen someone from Europe convert a fuel economy statistic from L/100km to MPG ostensibly for the convenience of American readers only to use the wrong gallon and thus only create more confusion.

 

An imperial gallon is the volume occupied by 10 pounds of water at STP, as was previously mentioned. A US gallon is defined as exactly 231 cubic inches. The exact origin of why this amount is not known but if Wikipedia is to be believed it is most likely related to the volume occupied by a specific weight of wine which was a round number in archaic units (8 merchant pounds).

 

Conveniently, at least, the two gallons differ by a factor of almost exactly 1.2.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

mrbisonm, that is because my comment worked beautifully to that effect. This thread is now full of fascinating, civil discourse.