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There are only three countries in the world that do not use SI, (in common usage). The economic powerhouses of The United States, Liberia, and Myanmar, (Burma). In the past, we had the economic power to where we did not have to convert. In the future, maybe not.
I've used the SI system long enough in work that I understand it fairly well and can almost go effortlessly from one to the other. Except for temperature. Still struggling with that.
There are only three countries in the world that do not use SI, (in common usage). The economic powerhouses of The United States, Liberia, and Myanmar, (Burma). In the past, we had the economic power to where we did not have to convert. In the future, maybe not.
I've used the SI system long enough in work that I understand it fairly well and can almost go effortlessly from one to the other. Except for temperature. Still struggling with that.
The big three is 32 F is 0c and 212 F is 100c. -40 is -40 it doesn’t matter which scale you use.
The world is a weird place.
Tires - inches and metric on a single item
TVs - inches diagonally
Nuclear weapons - kilo and mega tons. Even for ‘Murica.
The US military is mostly metric. Except, submariners measure distance to target in yards.
Shipping containers are measured in TEUs. Twenty foot equivalent units.
Ships’ speeds are measured in knots.
Look up zerk fitting.
Pipe fittings are NPT nominal inches all over the world - note that a 1" nominal pipe has no dimension that's 1.000"...
Socket wrenches are 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 drive all over the world.
Wire gauges are used all over the world.
There are many other examples. The idea that all the rest of the world inhabits some kind of SI pureness and it's only the benighted Americans that use this weird system of rods and furlongs, simply isn't true.
Pipe fittings are NPT nominal inches all over the world - note that a 1" nominal pipe has no dimension that's 1.000"...
Socket wrenches are 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 drive all over the world.
Wire gauges are used all over the world.
There are many other examples. The idea that all the rest of the world inhabits some kind of SI pureness and it's only the benighted Americans that use this weird system of rods and furlongs, simply isn't true.
Interesting. I was just reading that Canadian construction supplies are the same sizes as US supplies. Going to the European metric sizes would be a major change. Older homes & home plans would all become obsolete.
I spent my working career in environmental testing laboratories, where everything is metric. However, at home, nearly everything is in US measurements. I have both US & metric tools, of course.
The much-hyped difficulty of going back and forth is also much over-hyped.
The only difficulty I ever experience is in designing products, you have to set out at the beginning whether you're going to design in "hard metric" - all dimensions and stock are even metric values - or "soft metric" - dimensions and stock sizes are English but the dimensions are presented in mm and threaded fasteners are metric.
At this point in time every competent machinist, repair person, and engineer has tools in both systems and knows how to move back and forth.
Curious, have any USA state ever put height and weight on Drivers License in Metric?
Also, the height weight of athletes in sports? Has any sport used solely metric for them?
There is so much inflation of height in certain sports I wonder if using metric would make it any better or worse.
Interestingly one would think from psychological aspect that females would like metric since the inverse relationship of value of CM / KG to inch and pound would "sound" better. I.E. make one sound taller (more Cm per inches) and sound less heftier (less kg per pounds)
F 5'4 140
F 163cm 64kg
Think of all the overweight people who could now say they only weight 150 (Kg)
The "6" foot height would now sound "taller" 184 cm
It would ruin some songs like 101 pounds of fun....that's my little honey bun
Imagine saying kilos of fun? Makes me think of drug busts...
I like buying a pound of apples. There is an intuitive feel for the amount. Buying a kilo of apples - that's just wrong. I wind up buying waaaaaay tooooo much. About 2.2 times as much as I need. Who wants to buy a half kilo?
A handy ditty for the Americans who travel and need to know the weather in C, not F:
Zero is freezing. 10 is not. 20 is warm. and 30 is hot!
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