Here's a map of countries that have not yet adopted the metric system

@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

I have no problem with the metric system, I have no problem with the British Engineering system (feet and pounds). My only point is that the metric system doesn't have magical properties.

I suppose, you meant by that the "British Imperial System" (which is a "force-mass-length-time system" as opposed to the International System of Units (aka 'metric system'), which is a "mass-length-time system".

But I must admit that I prefer 1 knot instead of saying 0.514444444 m/s or 1.852 kilometers per hour or 1.1515 miles per hour Surprised

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@Walter Hinteler,

When describing British Engineering units, one usually refers to pounds rather than slugs. The fundamental units are mass (slugs), length (feet), and time (seconds).

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@Brandon9000,

I'm no expert at all expert - I was just using the definition as published in the (British) Institution of Civil Engineers' "Toolbox".

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@Brandon9000,

If you have no problem with it, and see a benefit in the system then what exactly is your qualm then? If it's better the US wouldn't be being "forced" to choose it, it'd simply be a good decision that the US should make on its own.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

I'm no expert at all expert - I was just using the definition as published in the (British) Institution of Civil Engineers' "Toolbox".

Didn't mean to post the second 'expert' above. Sorry.

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@Joe Nation,

joe wrote :

Quote:

Nicholsen said "no way." and, after buying about fifty metric measuring tapes and metal rules from WWGRAINGER, he went out to the shop and met with each welder and told them :
1) he wanted all their English tapes and rules
and 2) showed them all they had to do was read.

that nicholsen : what a dictator !
we don't want his kind on a2k telling us how do do things !!!

oh , a2k has just been changed , i hear !

ALERT !!
------------
nicholsen has invaded a2k !

hbg - WAILING and sobbing

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@Walter Hinteler,

walter wrote :

Quote:

I'm no expert at all expert

that is a title that's EXCLUSIVELY reserved for me .
you are free to call yourself a "no expert" anytime - GRIN !
hbg

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@dlowan,

Quote:

Blimey. Autarkic....I learned a new word!

Yeah! Me, too!

Hanburgboy wrote, pathetically:

Quote:

ALERT !!
------------
nicholsen has invaded a2k !

hbg - WAILING and sobbing

Pull yourself together, lad!!! Confused

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@Robert Gentel,

I have no qualm, but I think people attribute more benefit to the metric system than it deserves. It gives you the factors of ten and compatibility with most other countries, but that's it. We probably should change, but I don't want people to believe that there is some other magical gain.

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@Robert Gentel,

Exactly right. This issue came up when SealPoet was an active member. Seems like they can convert stored English prints to metric with a push of a button. When I was a machinist some 20 years ago, I was working with fairly old machinery with dual calibrations.

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@Brandon9000,

Who is saying or reporting that there is any magical about metric measurement? Only those who wish to distract the conversation away from the fact that the system is far more utilitarian than the English and is a major factor in achieving footholds in the world economy. If any US company insists that their overseas clients accept only English measurements for their shipments I think you will find plenty of parking space in front of their shipping areas because no one will be loading up any trucks.

Joe(good luck with that)Nation

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@Joe Nation,

Nobody is saying it, but many people are acting like there is more advantage to the metric system than there is, as when you say it is more utilitarian. It is, as you say, but only in the sense that it's based on powers of 10, and not in any other. Actually, now that I think of it, at my company, we had a manager who stated, in a casual conversation, that the metric system is more accurate than hours, which is nonsense. It's only advantage is the powers of 10 thing. I think that it wouldn't be a bad idea to adopt it, but I want it viewed in perspective.

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@Brandon9000,

Crap example Brandon. I could nominate any number of idiots who support an idea for the wrong reason - it doesn't mean the idea is wrong. Metric is more than a power of 10 thing - what's the standard measurement for a foot? Metric has strict, replicable, definitions for how long a metre or a gram.

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@hingehead,

Thank you for proving my point. A meter is no more inherently replicable than the foot. In 1893, the U.S. customary units were redefined in terms of the metric units. One inch is defined to be 2.54 centimeters exactly. A meter is defined to be the distance travelled by light in absolute vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. The foot is just as replicable in terms of this definition as the meter. Don't talk about what you don't know about.

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@Brandon9000,

So the only way to accurately replicate an imperial measurement is to convert it to metric first?

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It's not just the powers of 10 thing, though. It's also easy to go from length to volume to weight in the metric system...

For example, take a cube with an edge length of 1 metre. Fill it up with water. It will weigh one tonne, 1000 kilogrammes. You'll have 1000 litres of water.

A cube with an edge length of 10 centimetres, filled up with water, weighs 1 kilogramme and has a volume of 1 litre.

---

Now, try to convert from tablespoons to cubic yards to gallons. How many pints of water would fit into a cube with an edge length of 1 mile? How many barrels would that be? How many fluid ounces would that equal? How many cubic inches to a barrel?

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@Robert Gentel,

Slightly off-topic, but I really wish binary measurements would have used their own naming convention. Instead they decided it was 'close enough' to metric, and adopted its.

1kilobyte = 1024 bits, so why did they use the 'kilo' prefix? Because I work with binary more often then metric, I often forget that a kilometer is not 1024 meters.

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@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

Thank you for proving my point. A meter is no more inherently replicable than the foot. In 1893, the U.S. customary units were redefined in terms of the metric units. One inch is defined to be 2.54 centimeters exactly. A meter is defined to be the distance travelled by light in absolute vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. The foot is just as replicable in terms of this definition as the meter. Don't talk about what you don't know about.

I'm glad that the US knew in 1893 exactly how to measure the distance travelled by light in absolute vacuum.
In those days, we stupid people with the metric system (which surprisingly includes more than the length of 2.54 centimeters for an inch) had to believe what the International Bureau of Weights and Measures said in 1889: the international prototype metre has the distance between two lines on a standard bar of 90 percent platinum and 10 percent iridium.
We got that light<>vacuum definition only since the 1980's (before the metre was equal to 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red line in the spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum).

The metric system includes not only length and area, volume, weight, capacity, temperature, but its bases and prefixes have been applied to many other units, such as decibel (0.1 bel), kilowatt (1,000 watts), megahertz (1,000,000 hertz), and microhm (one-millionth of an ohm) ...

1 Reply

@Nick Ashley,

Not at all. It simply happens that, by convention, British Engineering units were defined this way long ago. The foot could easily be defined directly in terms of the distance travelled by light in a given time. Meters are no more easy to measure in terms of basic, reproducible physical quantities than feet. The only inherent advantage to the metric system is the powers of 10 thing. The confusion and misunderstanding being shown is making my point very clearly, in terms of an illusion that the metric system possesses some other advantage.

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@old europe,

Agreed, this is another advantage, but a very minor one. I don't spend a lot of time measuring water.

1 Reply

Here's a map of countries that have not yet adopted the metric system

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