Metrication

[Poiponen13]

Should US metricate? I think that this should be done because most other countries use metric system and US shouldn't be outlier. Do you think that US will have been fully metricated by 2038?

[Rothman]

Anything but metric.

[GaryV]

I believe the Smoot is a very useful unit of measure. All nations should Smooticise.

[MikeTheActuary]

Should the US go metric?  Yes.

Will the US go metric?  No.

[hotdogPi]

The US should absolutely go metric.

[Max Rockatansky]

I know how to use metric conversions, that's good enough for me.  I don't care what anyone else does, or at least not enough to advocate metric use being standardized.

[Scott5114]

I wouldn't mind if we went metric, so long as we don't have to use Celsius. Degrees Celsius are large enough that you don't get enough precision without using decimals.

Or, put another way, the "40s" in Celsius cover everything from 104°F (a typical Oklahoma summer day) to 120°F (Death Valley temperatures). That's a ridiculous range of temperatures, covered in only a 9°C spread.

[hotdogPi]

I've found that Celsius increments are better. People talk of setting their thermostat to 68° or 70° or 72°, meaning that 2°F is the smallest meaningful difference.

I will note that we use the metric system for very small amounts (e.g. grams in nutrition labels, 0.7 mm pencil leads, and as a coin collector, millimeters and grams for coin diameter and weight), plus 2L sodas. Conversely, when I was in Quebec City, everything was metric except for picture frame sizes, which were in inches, and "355 mL" soda cans, which are labeled in metric but are really just a conversion from 12 fl oz.

[Scott5114]

Sure, but in the United States people tend to quote outdoor air temperatures in a 10°F range. "Highs in the 70s" is a lot easier to say than "Highs between 20 and 25 degrees" (or something like "highs around 23°", which implies a level of precision that may not be intended).

You could say "Highs in the lower 20s" with Celsius, but when you do that with Fahrenheit, you get something that's a lot closer to your 2° range when accounting for forecast uncertainty.

[1995hoo]

My thoughts on this issue are somewhat nuanced. First, I don't think the US will fully convert in my lifetime (which may or may not last beyond 2038).

In general, I favor using metric because I find the US system of measurement largely incomprehensible. No doubt my opinion on that issue reflects when I grew up–during my early grade-school years when you learn measurement, it was the Carter years when the US was supposedly going to be switching soon, so the curriculum was more focused on teaching metric measurement.

A second consideration is commerce and global competition. Some years back, the EU was considering legislation that would ban the sale of products in packaging other than standard metric sizes. For example, a cereal box could contain 500 g of cereal but could not contain a pound of cereal because that's nonstandard (453.59 g). I believe I read that legislation didn't pass. If it had passed, I would have strongly favored the US standardizing consumer packaging using metric units for the simple reason that it would cost American companies more to produce two sizes of every product (a European size and an American size) and I figured it would be reasonable to assume that it would be US consumers who would ultimately bear the cost of the dual sizes–the American producers surely wouldn't make their products less competitive in Europe by charging more due to this issue.

There is no reason, however, why the US standardizing on metric for product sales and the like should have any significant impact on the average consumer's activity at home. If your recipe is in US units, there's no reason to change that. Your existing measuring spoons will continue to work perfectly well. (The measuring cups and spoons we have all have both US and metric units on them anyway, other than one set of dry measuring cups.) Would it be mildly frustrating that the package size you buy at the grocery store doesn't sync up with the units you use at home? Maybe. But on the other hand, (1) most of us are already used to the idea that there's always something left in the package (no doubt intentional to cause you to need to buy some more; or consider the common complaint about the hot dog package containing a different number of hot dogs from the number of buns in the hot dog bun package), and (2) the packaging at the store already doesn't match the units the recipe specifies (produce is not sold by the "cup" or the "tablespoon," for example). It's frustrating how so many US recipes are written by volume, rather than mass, even as to dry ingredients, and switching to metric packaging wouldn't likely change that.

In terms of, say, buying a pound of ground beef at the grocery store, if the deli counter's scale used grams, you can be reasonably certain they'd have a conversion chart posted somewhere (the employees would quickly learn the conversions in their head anyway). Most grocery stores I've visited in Canada over the years have such charts, not just for dealing with American visitors but also for dealing with Canadian customers who grew up using the old measurements and continue to do so.

When it comes to things like the weather forecast on TV, it likewise doesn't much matter. Some industries–the medical industry being a big one–already use metric units to a substantial degree. Your doctor's office most likely uses a Celsius thermometer to take your temperature. If you prefer to use Fahrenheit at home, who cares? Most likely TV weathermen would continue to use whatever their viewers say they prefer. Bear in mind that the government cannot dictate to private broadcasters which units they use on the air because that's a First Amendment issue. I have no idea whether any US TV stations along the Canadian border use dual units in their forecasts due to having a fair number of Canadian viewers, but it's relatively trivial to program your graphics software to display both units. (Regarding learning Celsius gradations, BTW, I heard an old poem that's useful: "0 is freezing, 10 is not. 20 is room temperature and 30 is hot." I might quibble that 30 is "hot"–it's 86°F–but the principle is reasonable on the whole.)

In short, changing over would likely have relatively little impact on most individuals' day-to-day activities UNLESS road signs also changed over. Regarding road signs, once upon a time I favored switching, but the cost of changing the huge number of signs in the US has caused me to rethink that. I've read that Canada changed every speed limit sign in the country over Labour Day weekend in 1977. I can't fathom that being practical nor even possible in the US in such a short amount of time. We simply have too many signs to make that logistically realistic. Another issue has to do with the huge number of overhead signs and whether they would need to be relocated to reflect accurate distances. Using weird distances on signs (1.6 km, etc.) would turn a lot of people off, but moving signs to allow for even distances (2 km) would involve massive expense and disruption. The alternative of relocating signs, and changing the units, when they need replacement would likely be even less reasonable because it would just aggravate what would likely already be a frustrating process for a lot of people.

With that said, the single dumbest argument I ever heard against metric speed limits was from my former boss's secretary. I was just back from a trip to Mont-Tremblant and she said something about she hates driving in Canada: "How do you know how fast you're going?" I replied, "Well, there's this sign on the road. It says 'Maximum 100.' You look at the inner ring on your speedometer and when the needle is pointing at 100 km/h, you're going 100 km/h and you're doing the speed limit." I don't think she was amused, although the other people who heard the comment burst out laughing. She was thinking in the wrong terms by trying to think exclusively in mph. The better way to approach it is, what is the distance in km, what is the prevailing speed limit in km/h for most of your route, and how long will it take you at that speed. In that respect, I definitely concede that miles per hour are more convenient because the use of 60 mph (one mile per minute) is a very convenient way to calculate travel times. I usually estimate travel times based on 60 mph even when I know I'll be going faster than that for most of the trip–it's just too convenient a way to calculate. I suppose with metric you could use 120 km/h to estimate 2 km per minute, but that's somewhat less convenient and it's probably unrealistic in at least the eastern half of the US (not because it's illegal to go 120 km/h in most of the eastern US–while it is, I'm thinking more in terms of there simply being too much traffic in many places to allow you to sustain that speed because sooner or later you either encounter slow-moving trucks or left-lane hogs).

[hotdogPi]

For example, a cereal box could contain 500 g of cereal but could not contain a pound of cereal because that's nonstandard (453.59 g).

How exactly does this law work? A few years ago, Triscuits "shrinkflation"ed their family size packages from 13 oz to 12.5 oz. Their flavored ones are currently 11.5 oz. A 0.5 ounce difference is a 14 gram difference. Would the EU prohibit this tiny size change entirely, force it to be twice as large (e.g. 375g to 350g), or what?

It's frustrating how so many US recipes are written by volume, rather than mass, even as to dry ingredients, and switching to metric packaging wouldn't likely change that.

Switching requires knowing the density.

[1995hoo]

For example, a cereal box could contain 500 g of cereal but could not contain a pound of cereal because that's nonstandard (453.59 g).

How exactly does this law work? A few years ago, Triscuits "shrinkflation"ed their family size packages from 13 oz to 12.5 oz. Their flavored ones are currently 11.5 oz. A 0.5 ounce difference is a 14 gram difference. Would the EU prohibit this tiny size change entirely, force it to be twice as large (e.g. 375g to 350g), or what?

Insofar as I know, they didn't pass it, so any answer would be purely hypothetical.

[Big John]

There was a requirement that starting in 1996, all highway plans were to be done in metric with the expectation that signs were going to change in the future.  Metric plans were made before the mandate was repealed a couple years later. Then the 2009 MUTCD removed the metric option for signage.

[MikeTheActuary]

I usually estimate travel times based on 60 mph even when I know I'll be going faster than that for most of the trip–it's just too convenient a way to calculate. I suppose with metric you could use 120 km/h to estimate 2 km per minute, but that's somewhat less convenient and it's probably unrealistic in at least the eastern half of the US.

The simpler metric approximation is to assume 100km/h.

Going 100km will take an hour.
Going 50km will take a half-hour
Going 25km will take a quarter-hour.

It's still not as convenient as the simplicity of 1 mile = 1minute, but since my mental day planner works in quarter-hour increments....it works.

[MikeTheActuary]

For example, a cereal box could contain 500 g of cereal but could not contain a pound of cereal because that's nonstandard (453.59 g).

How exactly does this law work? A few years ago, Triscuits "shrinkflation"ed their family size packages from 13 oz to 12.5 oz. Their flavored ones are currently 11.5 oz. A 0.5 ounce difference is a 14 gram difference. Would the EU prohibit this tiny size change entirely, force it to be twice as large (e.g. 375g to 350g), or what?

I assume that it would have been an extension of this sort of logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_metric_sizes

[mgk920]

Maybe then I should stop buying my regular supply of Diet Mountain Dew in 2L bottles or paying my power bills in multiples of joules (1 kilowatt hour is 1000 watts of power over one hour of time, one joule is one watt-second of energy - all 'metric' units).


Mike

[Takumi]

We're waiting for the UK to fully metricate first.

[davewiecking]

You can pry a 4' X 8' sheet of plywood from my cold dead hands.

[bandit957]

It helps Big Business but hurts the average person.

So no.

[zzcarp]

I'm of two minds on this. Is metric logical-yes. Is it practical? Sometimes. Is it better-that's subjective.

In engineering school I learned both conventional and metric terms and conversions. Only a handful of times in the last 23 years have I even been adjacent to metric in construction documents.

To me and many, miles, feet, and inches are more useful than decimal meters, centimeters, and millimeters for day-to-day activity. And the Fahrenheit scale seems to express the gradations of temperature better from a feeling basis. The Celsius scale, in my view, would have worked better had the degree not been calibrated at 1.8 of a Fahrenheit degree. And the original metric time (now called decimal time) died stillborn during the French revolutionary period.

The reason Canada changed to metric was because they forced the conversions with laws. And even in metricized Canada, people still speak colloquially in miles, inches, and feet. Recipes are often printed using cups and ounces. You can still get 2x4s, etc. Temperature seems to be a mixed bag with both Fahrenheit and Celsius being used colloquially.

Here in the US, while science tends to use metric, use of it is optional. That's why we can have 2L bottles of soda along with 12 oz. cans. Mike makes a good point on power where the watt/kilowatt made more sense for electricity and electrical calculations while horsepower is still used for mechanical engines.

Now the US Survey foot and International foot are technically pegged to the international definition of the meter (the US survey foot being 1200/3937m and the international foot being 0.3048m) so there's no getting away from that. But there's no groundswell of people wanting to pass laws to force metrification here which is as it should be in a free society.

[NWI_Irish96]

Just thinking from a road standpoint, it should have been done 50 years ago. Now there's so much more mileage and accompanying signage that it would be cost- and time-prohibitive.

[Life in Paradise]

I've been dealing with the old English form of measurement for six decades now and still have to remind myself what an acre, rod, etc is.  We would get used to the metric system, but unfortunately to really get a transition that occurs, you would have to change everything at once, which forces everyone to get used to the new normal.  Just putting a sign like they did on the interstate in the late 70s that says "Louisville- 100km" makes you think "that's nice" but they you get to the next exit to figure out just how far you are from Louisville.  That doesn't make you learn it any deeper than some obscure head knowledge.

[LilianaUwU]

Anything but metric.

Hell yea, brother! Now let's get to the shooting range so we can test our new 9mm pistols!

[corco]

I'm pro metrication for everything but temperature because Celsius is stupid- the relative freezing and boiling temperature of water is just as arbitrary as anything else and having actual lived temperatures generally be between 0 and 100 both makes more sense than -20 to 40 and offers more precision.

[zzcarp]

I've been dealing with the old English form of measurement for six decades now and still have to remind myself what an acre, rod, etc is.  We would get used to the metric system, but unfortunately to really get a transition that occurs, you would have to change everything at once, which forces everyone to get used to the new normal.  Just putting a sign like they did on the interstate in the late 70s that says "Louisville- 100km" makes you think "that's nice" but they you get to the next exit to figure out just how far you are from Louisville.  That doesn't make you learn it any deeper than some obscure head knowledge.

An acre is simple-it's an area of 1 chain by 10 chains. A rod is 1/4 of a chain.