When will the USA fall to the metric system?

[Gambler]

So, when are you leaving that archaic system of yours?

[Darth Wong]

They love it and won't change.

The problem is simple: everything in the US is done on a profit motive. There is no profit to a unit switch, and there never will be. In fact, it will cost money. The principle of the thing is nice, but there is no profit. Therefore, it won't happen. 50 years from now, people will still be ordering 1/4"-20NC machine screws in the USA.

[Straha]

They love it and won't change.

The problem is simple: everything in the US is done on a profit motive. There is no profit to a unit switch, and there never will be. In fact, it will cost money. The principle of the thing is nice, but there is no profit. Therefore, it won't happen. 50 years from now, people will still be ordering 1/4"-20NC machine screws in the USA.

Best sum up of why we won't switch I've ever heard. Though you left out the part of us opposing the great evil that is the metric system.

[Shaidar Haran]

I don't know about never switching. Some things are getting switched, if only for the sake of internation convenience. But it'll be a long, gradual process.

[General Zod]

it'll take a long damn while before we switch over. switching suddenly would mean re-training everyone who has no grasp on the metric system in that, and the fact it'd be a pain in the ass to switch everything else over that's dependent on it. including tools, vehicles, maps, etc.

[Shaidar Haran]

it'll take a long damn while before we switch over. switching suddenly would mean re-training everyone who has no grasp on the metric system in that, and the fact it'd be a pain in the ass to switch everything else over that's dependent on it. including tools, vehicles, maps, etc.

Yeah, and there's profit in selling that stuff to people after all. As the more common durable goods slide towards meteric (and they are) things will change.


And I don't know about you, but ever since third grade or so I've been taught in both systems. And now at college most of my work is meteric.

[Spyder]

You know, there are plenty of other countries that were using Imperial measurements that managed to switch to metric without taking too much time. There are more difficult things that a country can do when nothing else's going.

[Darth Wong]

And I don't know about you, but ever since third grade or so I've been taught in both systems. And now at college most of my work is meteric.

Wait until you get into industry. There are hundreds of billions of dollars of equipment out there with Imperial specifications, Imperial spare parts, etc. That's a lot of inertia to overcome.

Of course, if the USA were knocked flat and had to rebuild like postwar Europe, they might go Metric. But with all of that hardware out there already, with the huge volume of parts, and with the need for compatibility with existing hardware being more of an issue than compatibility with Europe, it doesn't look too likely to me.

[Captain Cyran]

it'll take a long damn while before we switch over. switching suddenly would mean re-training everyone who has no grasp on the metric system in that, and the fact it'd be a pain in the ass to switch everything else over that's dependent on it. including tools, vehicles, maps, etc.

The thing is, most stuff already has a Metric and an archaic reading on it. I for one love Metric system, it makes conversions SO much easier. 1,000 meters = 1 kilometer. As opposed to 5, blah blah blah feet =1 mile.

[Darth Wong]

I'll give you an example of American industry's unit schizophrenia: GM's Fisher-Guide lighting department designs their parts (headlights, taillights) in metric. However, when they order tooling to make those parts, they order it in Imperial. And they specify that all spare parts (springs, rods, bolts, hydraulic cylinders, etc) be in Imperial. Why? Because it has to work with everything else they already have.

[General Zod]

it'll take a long damn while before we switch over. switching suddenly would mean re-training everyone who has no grasp on the metric system in that, and the fact it'd be a pain in the ass to switch everything else over that's dependent on it. including tools, vehicles, maps, etc.

The thing is, most stuff already has a Metric and an archaic reading on it. I for one love Metric system, it makes conversions SO much easier. 1,000 meters = 1 kilometer. As opposed to 5, blah blah blah feet =1 mile.

just my own personal preferences i guess. was never taught the metric system and the conversions tend to confuse the hell outta me.

[Crayz9000]

As opposed to 5, blah blah blah feet =1 mile.[/i]

5,280 feet to a mile. Or 1,760 yards to a mile.

As for the inertia, you'd better believe it exists. And it's a major headache, especially in the automotive field. GM and the rest of the Detroit automakers have been working with a mix of Metric and Imperial parts for a while now, and it's a serious pain. You might find that the head bolts are Imperial but the bolts holding the air intakes together are metric. Or stuff like that. It's a major pain in the ass, and frankly I'd be happy if they would just finish the job and go all metric instead of leaving us with this half-assed hodgepodge.

Except that all the old-time mechanical people would put up a fuss, since they learned the Imperial system and all their tools are for it. *sigh*

[Darth Wong]

Except that all the old-time mechanical people would put up a fuss, since they learned the Imperial system and all their tools are for it. *sigh*

And new mechanics have to buy Imperial tools too, which they will be protective of in the future. I do not expect to see a Metric USA in my lifetime.

[fgalkin]

They love it and won't change.

The problem is simple: everything in the US is done on a profit motive. There is no profit to a unit switch, and there never will be. In fact, it will cost money. The principle of the thing is nice, but there is no profit. Therefore, it won't happen. 50 years from now, people will still be ordering 1/4"-20NC machine screws in the USA.

Best sum up of why we won't switch I've ever heard. Though you left out the part of us opposing the great evil that is the metric system.

Evil? It's easy and convinient, unlike the Imperial system. I've tried to make sense out of all the feet and inches when I got here, but I'm nost sure I've suceeded.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Gil Hamilton]

As Mike has been saying, the problem is economic. We can't just up and switch to metric, most of our industry and tools are imperial. We'd have to re-train people, change markings all over the place, et cetera. Eventually, English Imperial will fade away, but not in the foreseeable future. It's a long change.

[Mayabird]

Down with the tyranny of the Imperial system of measurements! Down with the tyranny of the Imperial system of measurements!

If I say it enough, somebody will finally start believing it! (I have managed to get two of my friends to call it the "imperial" system instead of the English system, but I've yet to get them to say it with a connotation of the evil empire...but I will continue to try.)

I hate measuring mass in slugs. Having to calculate and scale stuff in Imperial units is evil.

[Crayz9000]

And new mechanics have to buy Imperial tools too, which they will be protective of in the future. I do not expect to see a Metric USA in my lifetime.

Well, I have a set of metric wrenches, and a set of Imperial wrenches. I find it highly irritating to have to process fractions in my head while I'm working; while I'm not fractionally challenged like a lot of people I tutored while working at my old college's math lab, it's just more calculations that I find unnecessary.

With metric wrenches, it's just a matter of finding the right millimeter size, and I'm pretty good at guessing metric size. Plus there aren't crazy fraction-of-fraction conversion factors; everything is scaled in a uniform fashion.

I'm beginning to see why they needed slide rules; it was so they wouldn't go insane from all these conversions.

[Darth Wong]

No, what's evil is having the same unit for both force and mass (lb) and having to know the fractional equivalent for numbers such as 0.09375 off the top of your head (it's 3/32 in case you're wondering).

[Shaidar Haran]

Wait until you get into industry. There are hundreds of billions of dollars of equipment out there with Imperial specifications, Imperial spare parts, etc. That's a lot of inertia to overcome.

Of course, if the USA were knocked flat and had to rebuild like postwar Europe, they might go Metric. But with all of that hardware out there already, with the huge volume of parts, and with the need for compatibility with existing hardware being more of an issue than compatibility with Europe, it doesn't look too likely to me.

Yeah, that is a big issue and not something I said would go away easily. But more and more goods are coming in a sort of double standard fashion these days. If nothing else things are being converted to metric notations even if they're imperial sizes.

The machinery that makes it might not, but machine gets replaced eventually. And of course the decline of US manufacturing and the trend towards outsourcing might well speed up the conversion.


But the last paragraph was mostly intended as a counter of Zod's no one knows meteric arguement. After my schooling I know the meteric system better than the Imperial.

[Worlds Spanner]

I don't think it will fade out. It would require a massive, simultaneous switch to get the infrastructure in place on the scale it would be needed.

[arctic_series]

just my own personal preferences i guess. was never taught the metric system and the conversions tend to confuse the hell outta me.

er metric is supposed to be as easy as abc

1km = 1000m
1m = 100cm
1cm = 10mm

1L = 1000mL

1t = 1000kg
1kg = 1000g

water boils at 100C
water freezes at 0C

saying that the metric system is difficult is like saying after you've done calculus, you're having problems with arithmetics

[Worlds Spanner]

saying that the metric system is difficult is like saying after you've done calculus, you're having problems with arithmetics

Or like saying a MAC is hard after you've used Windows.

It's not a matter of difficulty - it's a matter of familiarity.

[General Zod]

it's trying to make conversions between the two that's a pain, not the system in and of itself.

[Mayabird]

No, **technically** (and I use that word with great sarcasm) pounds are just for force and buying stuff in England, and slugs are the Imperial units of mass. A slug is the mass of 32.2 pounds of material in Earth gravity.

I spent my entire Intro to Aerospace Engineering class trying to keep from throwing a handful of salt at my professor and screaming, "I melt your evil slugs!" He had been teaching for several times longer than I had been alive and didn't know the metric system at all. Fortunately I held back, because the poor old guy probably would have had a heart attack and they probably would have made me sweep the salt off the floor.

Trivia question: anybody else here know what 'rankine' means in the Imperial system?

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

The USA will switch to metric when they stop worshiping the Almighty Dollar wholesale, bar anything else (including basic human rights too). In other words: Never. The USA will die as a civilization first.