Would the USA ever adopt the metric system, realisticly?

[kelpdiver 2]

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So, you see, there is nothing...not one single little bit...that was or is arbitrary.
Except in Quadeland.

Or kelpland.

You can wave your hands about and insist it's not arbitrary, but repeating it over and over doesn't change the fact that the meter could have been derived from an infinite number of ways.

1/100th the height of Versaille

the length of the arm of king Louie - not permament, but they could make a standard, like the kilogram mass.

1/x the distance from Buckingham Palace to the Eifle Tower

.....

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Is calling the engine a 3.0 liter really a reflection of the metric system or just easier than advertising a .7917 gallon engine? 5.7 liter V-8 sounds nicer than 1.5024 gallon V-8.

No, we call it a 350 Chevy as in cubic inches. Unless you're a Ford guy in which case it would be a 351 Windsor, Cleavland, or Midland. Or some sort of GM weirdo with a 350 Buick. 350 Oldsmobile, or 350 Pontiac. Different GM divisions with tooling to produce completely different implementations of the same product probably have something to do with where they are now.

1978 Trans Ams had a T/A 6.6 decal on the shaker, but we just called the engine a 400 Pontiac (A wholly different beast from the 400 Chevy. The Chevy is a small block, the Pontiac a big block)

[shropshire 0]

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So, you see, there is nothing...not one single little bit...that was or is arbitrary.
Except in Quadeland.

Or kelpland.

You can wave your hands about and insist it's not arbitrary, but repeating it over and over doesn't change the fact that the meter could have been derived from an infinite number of ways.

1/100th the height of Versaille

the length of the arm of king Louie - not permament, but they could make a standard, like the kilogram mass.

1/x the distance from Buckingham Palace to the Eifle Tower

.....

Problem is those are not constants and so would not be of use - funny, but useless. The reference to the speed of light makes the definition of a Metre, as is the current definition, way more useful

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Baksteen 84]

This is SC right?
Hm.. I can sooner imagine the rest of the world convering to US Imperial to please the USA.
It sometimes seems it's already like that with any other issue, if I hear Dutch politicians talk..

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Whoops

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She put blame at the feet of Congress that she said has squeezed NASA's budget to the point that it has no funds to completely convert its operations to metric.

Nothing this link and a little creative "CTRL+H"-ing in Excel won't fix.

"That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport."
~mom

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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Using a base 10 system makes it easy because that is what everyone used then anyway, and we still do.

Uh huh . . . please divide a meter into exactly 3 equal parts.

Base 10 is just as arbitrary as anything and in some cases less useful.

Easy. 3 parts, each 333 1/3 mm.
Regardless of what base number is used, there would still be instances where rational numbers are the only way to get an exact calculation. Has nothing to do with whether or not the system is based on arbitrary units.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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So, you see, there is nothing...not one single little bit...that was or is arbitrary.
Except in Quadeland.

Or kelpland.

You can wave your hands about and insist it's not arbitrary, but repeating it over and over doesn't change the fact that the meter could have been derived from an infinite number of ways.

1/100th the height of Versaille

the length of the arm of king Louie - not permament, but they could make a standard, like the kilogram mass.

1/x the distance from Buckingham Palace to the Eifle Tower

.....

Go read the definition of "arbitrary".
Then do some research into the how the length of the meter was derived and why.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[billvon 3,116]

>Problem is those are not constants

Neither is a "foot." But you can make it a constant if you like.

[pirana 0]

Only thing I have against metric is the naming convention. Very clumsy off the tongue. Way too many redundant syllables.

We have nice simple stuff like inch, foot, yard. Metric you have to say millimeter, centimeter, decimeter. You could get rid of the assininely redundant suffix and shorten them up to mill, cent and deck; but the problem is the units for volume (and damn near everything else) use the same root words.

I'm not joking; this is a huge cultural barrier that our government never took into account. When I say inch, I don't have to say inchimeter to make sure you know I am talking length instead of volume. When I say cup, I don't have to say cupileter to make sure you know I am talking volume instead of length.

That is the problem with metrics. Regardless of how much simpler it makes the lives of mathemeticians and lab technicians; it is pain in the ass terminology to speak for everyday stuff compared to gallon, mile, and acre.

That said, simply due to the ever-increasing integration of goods and services; we will eventually complete the switch.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[shropshire 0]

psst milli, centi etc is NOT the root, it's the prefix that provides scale to the measure.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Andrewwhyte 1]

Right. You don't have to say millimetre. You could say 'thousanth of a metre' (or 'thou' like people do for thousanth of an inch).
People rarely say gigagrams; they say tonnes.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Problem is those are not constants and so would not be of use - funny, but useless. The reference to the speed of light makes the definition of a Metre, as is the current definition, way more useful

They're constant enough, versus 1/10 millionth the distance from the pole. And as I said, you can make a standard benchmark, like the kilogram mass. All you need a a gold yardstick and a labeler that can print OFFICIAL METER.

[billvon 3,116]

> You could get rid of the assininely redundant suffix and shorten them up to
>mill, cent and deck . . .

A mil is 1/1000 of an inch; that's why they don't "get rid of the suffix." A cent is a unit of money in the US. Deck would probably be OK.

> When I say cup, I don't have to say cupileter to make sure you know I
>am talking volume instead of length.

And when someone refers to a kilo of meat, no one asks if they want a kilogram or a kilometer of it. When someone says he's two klicks from base, no one asks if he's approximately 4.4 pounds away from base. If someone asks for a 750 ml bottle (spoken "em ell") no one wonders what he's talking about.

On the other hand, if you ask for an ounce of flour, how much will you get? You might get 28 grams (51 milliliters) or you might get 30 milliliters. It depends on whether you are using the weight measure called an ounce or the volume measure called an ounce.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Go read the definition of "arbitrary".
Then do some research into the how the length of the meter was derived and why.

It's like talking to a wall!

There's nothing special about 39.xx inches as the length for the meter. It could have been twice as long, or half as long, and worked out just as well. (the mass of a gram would change, of course)

And this is why is it arbitrary.

[shropshire 0]

[replyIf someone asks for a 750 ml bottle (spoken "em ell")

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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Go read the definition of "arbitrary".
Then do some research into the how the length of the meter was derived and why.

It's like talking to a wall!

There's nothing special about 39.xx inches as the length for the meter. It could have been twice as long, or half as long, and worked out just as well. (the mass of a gram would change, of course)

And this is why is it arbitrary.

You are correct. The metre is arbitrary. Nothing else in the metric system is. On the other hand the arbitrary units of the imperial system include the inch, foot, yard, mile, ounce, pound, ton, fluid ounce, cup, horsepower,.... the list goes on.

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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Go read the definition of "arbitrary".
Then do some research into the how the length of the meter was derived and why.

It's like talking to a wall!

There's nothing special about 39.xx inches as the length for the meter. It could have been twice as long, or half as long, and worked out just as well. (the mass of a gram would change, of course)

And this is why is it arbitrary.

You didn't do the research, did you?
Like I said before, if it was arbitrary there would have been no reason whatsoever for having chosen 1/10,000,00 the distance from the NP to the equator. But there was. There were lots of reasons and the decision wasn't made by one man, it was made by a group of scientists. The decision was not made lightly.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[hwt 0]

Uh huh . . . please divide a meter into exactly 3 equal parts.



1/3 a millimeter = .0131233333333333 in inches and a meter is 13.123333333333333 inches
one reason we haven't switched, Is our machinery still have in cremates in inches .the modern machines are doing both. slow is best way to do this.

[kelpdiver 2]

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They assumed the earth was perfectly round, which it isn't, and they were off on the length of a metre by 1/5 of a millimeter. That's .0002% of a metre. I did the calculation for you since it is so hard.

BTW, your math is wrong here.

[kelpdiver 2]

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You didn't do the research, did you?
Like I said before, if it was arbitrary there would have been no reason whatsoever for having chosen 1/10,000,00 the distance from the NP to the equator. But there was. There were lots of reasons and the decision wasn't made by one man, it was made by a group of scientists. The decision was not made lightly.

It's comical seeing you continue to try to come up with reasons that this definition is meaningful. You said yourself, there was nothing special about 39.3 inches.

And it's not exactly the most useful definition out there - the marks on the platinum bar were much more convenient than having to remeasure from the pole to the equator (huge potential for error here)

[Capt.Slog 0]

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The point is the entire system is based upon one arbitrary metric, the number of digits on our hands, and the properties of water.
The American system is a collection of arbitrary measurements.

Oh? Really? Where's your metric time? Still 24 hours each made of 60 minutes each made of 60 seconds the last time I looked. What, exactly, makes radians superior? Just two examples.

You've been brainwashed into thinking it's a superior system when, in fact, it's just as arbitrary as anything.

The SI system only uses seconds, and standard multiples (MILLI, NANO, ETC). Minutes and hours are not SI units.

The SI system is superior because it is rational (in the technical sense).

Other everyday SI units we use are volts, amperes, and ohms. Anyone know the Imperial unit of electric current?

[wmw999 2,588]

As Bill said, it is based on a single arbitrary measurement. Rather than a whole rafterload of them.

Having grown up with both, metric in incredibly easier to remember and work with. You get used to British, but people get used to daytime TV, too.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[kelpdiver 2]

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As Bill said, it is based on a single arbitrary measurement. Rather than a whole rafterload of them.

oh, I don't discount the value of the intertwining units, particularly for science work.

But for daily life, the gains are minimal. The meter seems just as arbitrary as a foot, the kilo as a pound or stone, the kilometer versus the mile.

Biggest gain would be in cooking, where you could replace the ridiculous volume sizes teaspoon, tablespoon, peck, smidge, "measure", etc, though I believe the better cooks do it more by feel than by exact sizing.

[pirana 0]

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Right. You don't have to say millimetre. You could say 'thousanth of a metre' (or 'thou' like people do for thousanth of an inch).
People rarely say gigagrams; they say tonnes.

OH YEAH, THAT'S EASIER. That would be like saying one-five thousand two hundred eightyeth of a mile instead of sayibg one foot.fiftySo instead of saying foot.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[SkyDekker 1,465]

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Biggest gain would be in cooking, where you could replace the ridiculous volume sizes teaspoon, tablespoon, peck, smidge, "measure", etc, though I believe the better cooks do it more by feel than by exact sizing.

Yeah but at least I wouldn't have to guess anymore whether I should use volume or weight

[pirana 0]

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Uh huh . . . please divide a meter into exactly 3 equal parts.



1/3 a millimeter = .0131233333333333 in inches and a meter is 13.123333333333333 inches
one reason we haven't switched, Is our machinery still have in cremates in inches .the modern machines are doing both. slow is best way to do this.

And how would building trades deal with this?

Are all of our material dimensions going to have to change?

No more 2X4's, no 4X8 sheets of plywood. If I'm doing repairs on my old farm house will I have to buy metric sized materials and cut them down? Studs will go to half a meter on center?

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley