How come the U.S. never converted over to the Metric System

I think we are the only country left on earth that hasn't (well.. not completely anyways)!

Because you can't build a house with metric.

The Europeans did it!

I think Myanmar is also still not on metric...

We didn't want foreign rulers...

Because when your entire country is divided up into 1 square mile sections, it's kind of pointless.

Phallic measurements.

A penis measured in centimeters just sounds wrong.

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Its because we are OK with fractions and know how to use them. Those who can't, use metric because you don't have to think and they want to be lazy.

Regarding the metric system, we should adopt it to ward off future hazards in the scientific fields.

After all, an ounce of prevention is worth 453.6 grams of cure (on the Earth's surface, at least).

Fuck the Metric System ! I like what we have and metric just sucks.

Personal experience?

Whatever you're used to makes the most sense. If you were brought up with the Imperial system, its units and conversions come as easily as metric does for someone raised with that system. As an engineering student in the US, I can use both with relative ease.

Not true. How many people do you know who can easily tell you how many pounds of water in a cubic foot? Or how much a gallon of water weighs? Or how many gallons there are in a cubic yard?

Not to mention that the British and the Americans can't even agree on how much liquid is contained in a gallon.

There is nothing rational about the Imperial system. Those who pretend it is as easy to use as the metric system simply show their profound ignorance of the metric system.

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The metric system does seem a superior means of measurement but I can't think of a good enough reason for us everyday US folks to switch to the metric system. Sure the uniformity has its appeal, but it's not that big a deal.

Wouldn't mind if everyone spoke the same language either but I'm not rushing out to learn Esperanto.



Whoever came up with the metric system missed an easy means to insure smooth conversion from standard measurement, they should've made a kilometer equal to a mile. Would've been a done deal. Instead the base metric unit is one-fiftieth of the distance from the equator to either pole. Yeah, way to pull that one out of your ass.

Oh and why hasn't the metric world switched to metric time?

You're closer to it than you realize. English is the simplest major language in the world, and it is the most widely used language. It is thus the closest analogy to the metric system for measurement.

Are you sure? Because the original metric system was based on a mile (a nautical mile, one minute of arc of a great circle of the Earth). That didn't help to get it accepted. It was a long time before the metric system was accepted internationally, and only when its base unit was something other than a nautical mile.

Actually it's one ten-millionth, a decimal subdivision.

It makes more sense when the figure is right (1/10,000,000 instead of 1/50).

Because there is no need to have easy conversions from units of time to units of mass, volume or length. A decimal system would be nicer, but not enough nicer to make the changeover worthwhile. The advantages of the metric system for mass, length and volume, however, are great enough that scientists everywhere have made the change. Even in the U.S.

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Yes but it served a great purpose having 240 pence to the pound. The point was the divisibility of the coinage. You can dvide 240 a lot more ways than 100, you can devide 120 a lot more ways than 50, and so on. 20 can be divided by 20, 10, 5, 4, 2,1. It was just more handy fractionally when a pound was worth a whole lot. In the US past we used Spanish dollars that could be split in 8ths called bits because of its breakdown fractionally.

Actually it would be more analoguos to standard measurement. A chaotic means of communication that would be adopted solely based on popularity.

If a kilometer were equal to a mile the US would already be metric. In my opinion, distance is the toughest measure to grasp. Nobody minds buying soda by the liter, cocaine by the gram and our light bulbs are already measured in kilowatts but a kilometer? There is just no easy frame of reference.

Ah, the 1/50 was the figure Eratosthenes used to determined the Earth's circumference.

Exactly my point regarding us everyday US folk not converting to metric.

Metric time is too difficult or not worthwhile enough to scientists? 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, a random number of days in a month and 12 months in a year is the superior chronology?

And that's not even addressing the whole "before Christ" and "anno domini" means of recording history. Though I will give the scientists credit in that regard, instead making up some new calendar nobody would care about they simply switched B.C. to B.C.E (before the common era) which makes the transition between the terms effortless, much like if the kilometer had been designated the same length as a mile.

I'd say it is more likely, that the regular folks in metric countries don't consider switching to metric time worth it. And I can't say as I blame them.

They still use the nautical mile at sea because if works out so well with time, they don't use Kilometers, its still knots (nautical miles per hour). If we only had 4 fingers and 4 toes, people would be pushing for the Octal system. Think about it, people want base ten because people have 10 fingers. Thats really fucked when you think about it.

Personally, I prefer the 13 month year. 13 months at 28 days= 364 days. The leftover day could be a global holiday to celebrate what makes our individual cultures so grand. The US could have fireworks and barbecues, it'd be awesome.

The only place I ever see Kilometer's used in the US is when you get close to UN bio whatchamacallits, like in the smokey mountains. They have distances in miles, and kilo's.

THANKS BILL CLINTON.

One of our Mars probes crashed because half of it was calculated using metric and the other half imperial. Oops. Standardization is good.

A testament to the diversity of our culture.

Because we don't like being told what to fucking do.

Perhaps the rest of us should try demanding that the US adopt a more militaristic, more abrasive foreign policy in future...

When I was about 10 years old we had a teacher who said "get ready for the metric system! America will be metric by 1975."

We still haven't gone metric, and she's long gone and 182.88 cm under!

And I'm easily able to use both, hurray me. I tend to use metric in engineering or scientific calculations and convert back to Imperial if I have to, but in everyday life I prefer Imperial because it's much easier to visualize.