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It would cost US public and private sectors billions, maybe trillions to switch over...so I just don't see someone making a successful case for this regardless of politics.
Think about all the tools and mechanical items that are all currently non-metric...cars, trucks tractors, washing machine couplings, sink fittings Then the street signs at probably $200 a pop to replace x how many hundred million signs?
Maybe while we're at it we can get all the countries that drive on the left to switch to driving on the right for consistency.
I don't know about trillions. I see no reason to make the switch. But vehicles coming from Europe and Asia have had metric parts all along. I have metric tools just for my own vehicles.
I don't know about trillions. I see no reason to make the switch. But vehicles coming from Europe and Asia have had metric parts all along. I have metric tools just for my own vehicles.
This is an area where metric makes a ton (lol) of sense. Its much easier to know that a 9mm socket is smaller then a 10mm. Which is bigger, 11/32 or 5/8?
The metric system is logical and easy to use. So of course, the US will never adopt it.
I'm curious why we switched to metric in just a few instances. For example, car engine displacement is always given in liters, not in cubic inches any more. Wine is sold in either 3L or 750 mL bottles. Camera lenses are 35 mm, not 1 inch. Running events are 5k or 10k. Doses of medicine are in mL or mg. Illegal drugs are sold by the gram or the kilo.
It seems that we accepted all those with no problem, yet nobody can figure out if 100 km/hr is too fast?
Not every other country uses it, and this was tried in the '70s.
We use it here, you know. We also use the imperial system. It just depends on what we're measuring. I guarantee that you've got 10mm nuts attached to bolts on a ton of the things you own, for instance.
Only 3 use imperial but there are a mix of systems all over. We are truly a mix depending on what- like mentioned- medical and mechanical fields
The metric system is logical and easy to use. So of course, the US will never adopt it.
I'm curious why we switched to metric in just a few instances. For example, car engine displacement is always given in liters, not in cubic inches any more. Wine is sold in either 3L or 750 mL bottles. Camera lenses are 35 mm, not 1 inch. Running events are 5k or 10k. Doses of medicine are in mL or mg. Illegal drugs are sold by the gram or the kilo.
It seems that we accepted all those with no problem, yet nobody can figure out if 100 km/hr is too fast?
People in the illegal drug trade know their metric I suppose.
If you take hwy 19 South of Tucson its in km/hr and distance is in km. Its the highway to Nogales, Mexico. You sometimes see people with Mexican plates on the highways north in Tucson driving 45mph where the limit is 65 or 70. I assume they are driving 65km assuming that is the speed limit.
I understand that the metric system is actually easier to understand and more logical, but I don’t mind using imperial units. Not sure it’s worth the time and effort to mandate some type of move toward the metric system in the US. We seem to be getting by just fine using a combination of units.
Every other country uses it. So do you think it would even be possible?
We've tried it before and it didn't work. My city even had speed limits in km/hr at one time (along with mph), so they eventually removed them.
I worked in a technical field for many years and it was very hard to get engineers to work with the metric system. Scientists would to a certain extent, but it wasn't widespread. Remember when one of the Mars missions failed because the US engineers used English units but the European partners used metric?
Canada has made the conversion, successfully at least on the surface. It's going to pretty much be a generational thing where kids are exposed to it from the start. When I took physics in high school, we worked in the metric system but in college they taught it using English units. It was pretty confusing at first because I was used to gravitational acceleration being 9.8 m/(sec squared) instead of 32.2 ft/(sec squared).
I don't know about trillions. I see no reason to make the switch. But vehicles coming from Europe and Asia have had metric parts all along. I have metric tools just for my own vehicles.
Presumably foreign owned vehicle companies (like Toyota, Mercedes) use metric nuts and bolts even though some of their vehicles are made in the US.
Canadian here. I'm the generation that started out with the American system (inches, Fahrenheit etc.).....Canadians have adapted -- even the old people -- to complete metric.
It took me -- one trip to the grocery store to figure out that I needed 400 grams of sliced turkey or 1 kg. of beef.
It should be easier in today's world of phones and easy conversion charts.
But no Americans won't do it.....they can't.
I'm being a bit of a stickler there, but Canada never used " the American system ". The Canadian Imperial System was almost the same as the British one, except we didn't use stone for a weight measurement.
There is a difference between a US gallon and the former Canadian one, a difference in fluid ounces as well.
Same with a pint. A US pint is 16 US ounces, a Canadian pint is 20 Imperial ounces.
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