The US should switch to metric

[Paul Hanson]

I use both, but when I use imperial for distances I always work it out in metric terms, if you see what I mean; I can tell if something is 3 feet away, but that's only because I know that a foot is roughly 30 centimetres. Likewise, I know that an inch is about 2.5 centimetres, making it fairly easy for me to calculate things like that.

[lightblue]

I have lived in the UK for 7 years now, and though i got a good handle on miles/yards/feet/inches I still can't deal with stones (lbs is easier to convert to kgs: -10% and /2). I think they are about 6.2kgs but I hear variable stuff

[Buck Birdseed]

The reason things seem easier to express in Imperial is because the measurements are so ingrained in the language. It takes a while for relevant idioms to develop around the metric system, but it does happen, eventually... I mean, if I gave my height in swedish as "sex fot två tum" it'd sound insane compared to "en och åttinio".

[CerberusIV]

I am surprised that no-one has mentioned the Mars probe NASA lost because someone forgot to convert kilometres to miles. It would be easier if everyone used the same system. I would say it should be whichever system most people use but I don't know what units they measure in in China and if it isn't metric that would be too difficult for europeans as well as americans.

In the UK it is crazy. We drag people who sell fruit and vegetables weighed in pounds to court and fine them yet our speed limit and distance signs on the roads are still in miles not kilometres.

[Dauphin]

Both systems seem perfectly natural to me. Metric is obviously far easier to actually calculate anything with.

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
Both systems seem perfectly natural to me. Metric is obviously far easier to actually calculate anything with.

Of course, if the Americans want to make their lives much harder then it doesn't bother me.

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by lightblue
I have lived in the UK for 7 years now, and though i got a good handle on miles/yards/feet/inches I still can't deal with stones (lbs is easier to convert to kgs: -10% and /2). I think they are about 6.2kgs but I hear variable stuff

One stone is 14 pounds. A hundredweight is actually 112 pounds (8 stone) and a ton is 20 hundredweight or 2240 pounds.

That is my memory feat for the day. Not bad for something I learnt in school back in 1968.

Oh yes, and there are approximately 4.5 litres in an imperial gallon, which is not the same as a US gallon.

[Sava]

IIRC, England, the country that spawned the dreaded English Standard system, has switched to metric. IT'S TIME TO SWITCH!

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Sava
IIRC, England, the country that spawned the dreaded English Standard system, has switched to metric. IT'S TIME TO SWITCH!

We've switched to impetrical system. A cross between the two.

[Sava]

How does that work?

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Sava
IIRC, England, the country that spawned the dreaded English Standard system, has switched to metric. IT'S TIME TO SWITCH!

What the hell's the English Standard system? We used to use imperial which has different volume measurements to your system

[Sava]

In the US, they blame our system on the English.

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by Asher
I actually agree with Horsie on this one.

It's easier to describe a person's height in feet and inches rather than meters or centimeters.

Likewise for weight in pounds rather than kilograms.

Metric is easier for academia, but much of the measurements are a pain in the ass in the real world.

I don't have a problem with kilometers though...

Only to you and the others who learned it first. The ones who learn the metric first, think metric is easier even for height.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by tinyp3nis

Only to you and the others who learned it first. The ones who learn the metric first, think metric is easier even for height.

What I've always wondered about, though, is why there's no popular use of decimeters. To my American mind, a unit of measure that's about 4 inches long seems far more useful in everyday life than a unit of measure that's less than half an inch long (i.e., the centimeter). Whatever became of the decimeter?

[MikeH]

It never vanished it's just not commonly used. You might as well just use meters.

In engineering terms everything is measured in millimeters or meters. Decimeter is just .1 meters.