Yes we tried to build a mental hospital for them but could not find one that where big enough so we sent them to another continent instead. UK was already a loopy island so we could just leave that as is.
@Ali Naqi Rizvi "half use". I'm Polish raised in the UK and yeah, we get taught metric in schools but day to day people use imperial. I don't use imperial. I don't fucking know how. When people ask me how tall I am I tell them 176cm and their answer is always "how much is that in fEeT?" it's like bro we went through the same education system what are you talking about????
The real deal with the metric system is that everything is interconnected. 1cm^3 = 1ml = 1g Multiplied by 1000 you get 1dm^3 = 1l = 1kg Multipied again by 1000 you get 1m^3 = 1kl = 1t To put it simply if you make a water tank that is 1m by 1m by 1m (1m^3) you'll easily know that it has a volume of 1000 litres (1kl) and it will require to be sturdy enough to support 1000kg (a metric ton).
@@morosov4595 well of course. There's no way to make a measuring system that is consistent across liquids of inconsistent weights and volumes. Though I suspect that if you know the differences a liquid has to water, you can work out the numbers.
heres the joke im a engineer and our world is as standardized metric as is... but i know a good bit of conversions by heart making it even more a joke that muricans pretend they wouldnt be able to learn metric because muh hard..but muricans be stubborn
@@UnitedTSR well muricans are stubborn, in effect they signed the metric treaty and also murican tech uses standardized measurements, but at this point it becomes a joke, the imperial system as well as old systems used here of the same vein are just practically inconsistent and factually harder , theres no reason to be patriotic about units, but in the end it beats me because i never hear any argument against it just emotions , whether thats politically sided I dont think so really wouldnt really explain why everywhere else in the world that has never been a question of what political side you fall under, not to mention that the whole system is neolib and neocon and theres nothing "left/right" about any of it since they agree on the main points of their tenure
@@arposkraft3616 the best part of the metric system is that you can explain the basics very easily, you don't need weeks to learn it, it's possible in an hour (or less). Only thing you need to be used to, are the basics like the length of a meter, volume of a liter and the weight of a kilogram, and learn the prefixes.
@@denjo3131 the whole "it takes effort to learn" is a defunct nonsense argument; i was born in a metric country, i use it constantly in my lines of work...I know a lot of conversions by heart to the imperial even though I never use it, I know what a lbs is , i know what a mile is a nautical mile , a foot, an inch , i know these things by heart yet im not a genius... the only reason i know these things is because of 2 facts; 1) muricans are stubborn 2) muricans are to lazy to use google to convert when you tell them something in metric an inch is about 2.54cm, a foot about 30, a lbs is 450 grams not to be confused with our pound thats 500, a landmile is about 1.6kms while a nautical mile defined as 1 second of 1 minute of 1 degree of the earths circumference boils down to about 1.852kms , a quart is 1/4th of a gallon which is about 3.7L ... so every murican going around pretending that its all sooo difficult can royally suck my weener because most metric users know at least some of the most common equivalents in muricanismo
@@arposkraft3616 _"every 'murican going around saying (metric) is sooo difficult can royally suck my weener..."_ Hahahahahaha! 😂 Okay, that was funny. 🙂 But please don't paint all Americans with the same brush. Many of us do know the metric system very well. I also must note, however, that from time to time I see comments from people in metric countries saying they don't know American Customary / Imperial units at all. So that contrasts with your claim that "most metric users know at least some of the common [American] equivalents." Maybe it varies from country to country or from person to person. (?) Speaking of which, what country are you from? Just curious. I noticed that you said "our pound is 500 [grams]", and I know some European countries use the word "pound" (or variations thereof, like "Pfund", "pond", or "pund") to refer to 500 grams. So I was just wondering.
Actually, the *IMPERIAL* system of units were designed around very definite objective quantities -- the Imperial Gallon, for example, is the volume of 10 pounds of ale. The *U.S. CUSTOMARY* units are older, and originally do derive from approximate measurements such as the length of your foot, but today are rigidly defined in terms of Metric units (e.g. a U.S. customary inch is defined as exactly 2.54 centimeters).
There are 5 comments on this video from a year ago, which UA-cam has "hidden as they are probably spam". UA-cam has a new "review comments" feature, visible only to the guy that posted the video (me), which is supposed to let me approve these so that they can be seen. But guess what? There's a bug in it: Checking the little checkbox and clicking the "Approve" button does nothing, probably because the messages are "too old." Remember: These messages were posted BEFORE THIS FEATURE EXISTED. It seems that UA-cam, and their new Google overlords, didn't think this feature roll-out through.
In Norway (and the rest of Scandinavia), where we use metric (and sometimes international inches), we have an additional length metric called "mil" (pronounced like "meal"). This has been defined as equal to 10km. It was derived from about the distance one would be able to walk before resting.
Interesting! Around my workplace, people use "mil" as a shorthand for either millimeter or milliliter. (We work on automated liquid handling platforms for bio labs, so both units appear a lot.) Americans in general also sometimes use "mil" (or "mill") to mean a thousandth of an inch. I understand that in most European countries, in those rare cases where thousandths of an inch need to be discussed, they're often called a "thou".
@@rogermwilcox I've only heard of "thous" in Britain (from a Britt and American blacksmith working together), but they commonly use inches. Elsewhere, in my experience, people resort so smaller metrics or fractions of a millimeter when neseccary. Those that need to deal with thousandths of mms might use micrometers/microns (µm). For me personally, I only really encounter inches in woodworking. The most important thing of course is that everyone understands what measurement and unit you are talking about. You clearly demonstrate the importance of this with your examples of "tons". (In Norway we sadly don't use any kind of convenient short hand like "thou", that I'm aware of. Instead we mostly say the whole phrase. "10 thou (10 thousands of an inch)" = "ti tusendels tomme" = literally " ten thousand parts of a thumb". Though, "thumb" is actually "tommel". This has been today's Norwegian lesson.)
The mil is not used in Denmark. But we still use a “barrel” of land to talk about farming land. What it is…well your guess is as good as mine. Its insane. We need to go all in metric.
One thing I have noted is that on internet forums is to NEVER ask an American to translate their units into metric. They really take it personally - like an attack on their sovereignty.
it's not that I would take it personally, it's that I'd feel like if you want what I wrote in a forum to be converted to some other unit of measure that you should do the conversion yourself, rather than ask me to provide the conversion for you. If you wrote something in metric I wouldn't ask you to please provide that in the US system, I'd just do the conversion myself. Maybe it's that you can't do the conversions, in that case their are converters on the internet, google is your friend.
Good video! I'm Dutch and lucky that I was born in the metric system. At school we learnt about the imperial system and we all got a headache after some time. Converting from one unit to another is seriously a big pain. I think it's the inevitable change that makes many Americans a bit anxious to go metric. But also the fact that it will cost billions of dollars. Equipment, manuals, tools, utensils, devices for measurements, etc. it all should be changed and that will be very expensive. But I think in the long run it will be better to go metric and its certainly easier to learn the system. Good luck my American friends.
Well *_of course_* you're happy to live with the metric system -- with a name like Kerstin Norberg, I can tell that you have lived with the metric system all your life. :-) It's people like me (and there are hundreds of millions of us) who have grown up with the U.S. Customary system that have to deal with the challenge of being able to use and convert between two different systems.
In defense of Reuel T, Anders Celsius's original temperature scale WAS backwards from the Celsius/centigrade temperature scale we use today. He specified 0 as the boiling point of water and 100 as the freezing point of water -- so the lower the number on this temperature scale, the HOTTER the thing being measured. This is a historical artifact, however, and has nothing to do with the Celsius scale in use today. Fahrenheit's original temperature scale, likewise, doesn't match the modern one.
Bravo et merci. My fun as a French is the avoirdupoids set of units which reflects the root cause why the French, during their revolution were having so many measurement units for length, weight, volume and time. Each city then would have its own units. So after the big clean-up the MKSA system was created as a Universal set of measures (does belong to all countries). They even tried to divide time in decimal units and weeks also but it failed because not universal (but linked to political ideas)
For one, ounces troy ARE referred to as simply "ounces" (without the troy) when trading in precious metals. For another ... if you think milligrams, kilograms, and centigrams are "kinds of grams" then you've missed the whole point of the S.I. prefix system. NO ONE calls a kilogram or a milligram a "gram". But they do call a fluid ounce or a troy ounce an "ounce."
I use the metric system for all my life and I can't understand what you are saying. EVERYONE calls 1000 gram a kilogram and one thousand of a gram a milligram.(centigrams are rarely used. They are mostly expressed in tenfolds of milligrams. On the contrary, centimeters are quite commonly used, next to the millimeter) That is the very point of the S.I.prefix system. Why do you think that those prefixes aren't the point of the S.I.system and why do you think that NO ONE uses them in that way? In fact, in the USA the S.I.system is already used within electricity. There we talk about kiloVolts, Volts and milliVolts. The same goes for Amps and Watts. There aren't any troy-Watts of fluid-Watts and NO ONE regrets that.
@@raticide4you i think what he means is that up untill 999 grams its always grams. But then its kg after that until 999 kg. Although we do meassire 1 kg and 400 grams. But most people just say 1.4 kg instead
@@Ramhams1337 Wrong. He is talking about how stupid it is to call every ounce just "ounces". As stupid as calling every gram (kg, mg, etc) just "grams".
@Ashbury2193 For one, as I said, our approach to educating the metric system in the 1970s was backwards. For another, it was hardly our first attempt -- Congress adopted the metric system in either 1898 or 1903, depending on which source you read. I think a good first step this time around would be to allow manufacturers to label products in metric-only units IF THEY SO CHOOSE, so that a 2 liter bottle of soda doesn't also have to say "(67.6 fl oz)".
1. Sure ... but are you asking for a U.S. fluid ounce of water, or a British fluid ounce of water? 2. When you mail "14 ounces" of gold, you'd better not try to tell the mailman it weighs 14 ounces. 3. The 2000 pound short ton is still in widespread use throughout the United States.
If you want to talk about "cheating based on rounding," look no further than the two-by-four. The name is supposed to mean "two inches by four inches", but the actual dimensions of these boards is 1 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches. The lumber industry is notorious for such oddball dimensions standards. It's not because they use decimas for their "1.2 meter" boards that they're not 1200 mm long, it's because it's the lumber industry.
Fortunately, there's no such thing as a Nautical Minute or a Troy Second. But it's funny you should mention the notion of metric time. The French Revolutionaries who first proposed the metric system also used a "decimal calendar" where each month was divided into three 10-day weeks. They also divided the day into 10 decimal hours, divided each decimal hour into 100 decimal minutes, and divided each decimal minute into 100 decimal seconds. Today, scientists just use large numbers of seconds.
Fun fact I just learned: When modern, real life British automobile ads say that a car gets "68.9 mpg", they mean statute miles per IMPERIAL gallon. An American ad for the same car would say it gets "57.4 mpg", because Americans use statute miles per U.S. LIQUID gallon. So there's one real life situation where non-metric units with the same name CAN cause real confusion.
I'm glad Australia went completely metric decades before I was even born, and there was no half-holding on to the old system.. ..well, actually, we still have to deal with Imperial measurements here and there because of other countries (rolls eyes at America) because some 'standard' sizes of things are Imperial. One example is that all my cameras use a 1/4 inch screw to mount onto a tripod. Yuck!
The screw in your camera will not change and it is likely that if a descendant of yours were to buy a camera in 100 years time the mount on the camera would still be the same screw size but would probably be referred to as 6 mm. A similar situation exists with pipes and their fittings. If you now go into a hardware store to buy a pipe fitting you will find them labeled for use on 12 mm, 19 mm, 25 mm, 32 mm pipe etc. However, these items are of EXACTLY the same dimensions as their predecessors, which were labeled 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch, 1 inch, 1 1/4 inch etc., which is a "soft" conversion. This has to be, since you may need the new item to fit the existing old installation. Standard gauge rail lines are 4 Feet, 8 1/2 inches apart. That is 1.435 metres. They have to stay that way!
FrodoOne1 A 'soft conversion' doesn't work for everything though since a 1/4 inch is 6.35mm which means a 6mm tool is too small and a 7mm tool is too big - you can't label it differently and you still need a proper imperial tool unless you want to strip the bolt. I know we have to keep old standards like the rail line gauges, but that's what I find 'yuck' because if we made it up now then instead of 1.435 meters we'd make it a nice round number such as 1.4 or 1.5 meters.
Daniel Jacob The only "tool" that your camera screw needs is the paired Thumb and Forefinger of the human operator against the integral knurled knob, which was designed for this purpose. The specification of the "thread" is immaterial, as long as it fits YOUR camera and all past and future cameras. Whitworth (and other) nuts and bolts are still made to the same specifications as they ever were, except that the manufactures describe these (in-house) in metric terms. However, they are sold in terms of their "Imperial" width but by their metric length. Pipe fittings are made to the same specifications as they ever were, except these specifications have also been translated (in-house) into SI terms. However, they are now sold with the diameter described in the closest metric equivalent to the "Imperial”' diameter. This is a "soft" conversion. If you need to work on equipment manufactured before about 1980 (or in the USA) you may need to obtain/retain the appropriate spanners and sockets. However, for screwdrivers it is probably more important to obtain the appropriate specialised and "tamper-proof" varieties, of which there are many. There is no particular virtue in a "nice round number". The "Standard" rail gauge of 4 foot, 8 1/2 inches (1435 mm) is NOT exactly a "nice round number". You may regard as such the "Victorian" Broad-gauge of 5 foot 3 inches (which now translates to 1600 mm). (Looking at those dimensions, I now wonder if someone back in the 19th Century could see into the future - or was it just dumb luck?) The gauge of 3 foot 6 inches (which you may regard as a “nice round number”) used in some other States, translates as 1067 mm, again, not a "nice round number". I don't think that many people care about the size of a rail gauge, as long as the trains work safely, efficiently and comfortably - in that order. All other considerations being equal, the broader the gauge the more comfortable it is likely to be. However, there are economic considerations and it appears that the world has standardized on 4 Foot, 8 1/2 inches (1435 mm) whether you or I like it or not. Here is something for you to worry about in the future If/when the USA converts to the metric system (SI), it is likely that the different levels at which planes fly will be converted from 1000 feet to 300 metres - which is the nearest "nice round number" However, 1000 feet is actually 304.8 metres. By the time you get to 30,000 feet, the difference between (30 * 1000) 30,000 feet and (30 * 300) 9000 metres is 144 metres (567 Feet). In the unlikely event that a "soft" conversion is used by ALL airlines and Air Forces, there will not be any problem. If there is a "hard" conversion (at EXACTLY the same time) by ALL airlines and Air Forces, there will not be any problem. If there is a combination of either of these scenarios, or miss-timing of the latter, there is likely to be SIGNIFICANT problems for high flying aircraft. Just visualise two aircraft approaching each other from opposite directions separated in height by only about 1.5 the length of the 100 metre track in an Olympic stadium!
It would be far more complex (and costly on the consumers end) for those Imperial "standard sizes" to be changed, like you'r 1/4 screw for your tripod. You could just quit complaining about it and learn the conversions, that's what we Americans do when we have to deal with making things to metric specs.
+FrodoOne1 You'd be surprised how quickly we would abandon inches as a measurement for pipes, screws, tires and TV-screens once America decided to get off their high horse.
There are two units which SOUND like a root vegetable: gemstones are weighed in CARATS, which are equivalent to 200 milligrams, thus 5 carats in a gram. But the PURITY of gold jewelry in measure in KARATS. A karat of gold purity is 1/24 pure gold. Thus, 10 Karat gold, written 10K, means 10/24 gold by weight, so a 10k ring weighing 24 grams contains only 10 grams of gold, alloyed with 14 grams of other metals. And there is another kind of foot, known as the METRICAL foot, in poetry. This is a repetition of a fixed number of syllables containing a fixed stress pattern. A foot of two syllables with the stress on the second syllable is called an IAMB, or IAMBIC foot (if MU-sic BE the FOOD of LOVE, play ON), for example, and a line with 5 iambic feet is called Iambic Pentameter. A decrepit old gasman named Peter, While looking around for the meter, Touched a leak with his light, And rose out of sight, And as anyone who knows anything about poetry can tell you, he also ruined the meter!
Thanks for your explanation. As someone who deals with a lot of Americans, I always have problems understanding the units they say. I know 3.3 ~ 3.4 fl. Oz is about 100mL and how big an inch is (about 2.5cm) but other than that I have issues with things like quarts, US gallons, different types of weights etc. But you've explained that to me. It just amazes me that people find it easy to use all these units.
It all seems very strange if you're not familiar with it, but if you grew up with it, it's not hard to understand and get accustomed to. Is the U.S. Customary system as good as the Metric system? Well, no, but it's not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. It's certainly good enough for everyday, nonscientific measurements. And in many cases, the size of the units in the U.S. Customary system are more convenient than metric units. For example, feet and inches are quite handy for measuring small to medium size objects, while centimeters are a bit too small and meters are a bit too large. Sometimes, inches and feet are "just right". 🙂 And the U.S. Customary system has the advantage of being familiar and universally used within the United States, which is a large country. (Being a very large country, the people who live in the U.S. mostly only deal with other people in the U.S. Thus, the benefits of using an international measurement system don't exist for us Americans.)
Considering how complicated the Imperial System is , it is not a wonder than a lot of Americans fail basic arithmetic, let alone mathematics. Something you forgot to mention amigo : the Metric System was invented by the French after they got rid of the Monarchy, which in turn made the Americans a little uneasy. Greetings from Toronto.
You're right about the second, but not for the whole of time. It's rather weird if you think about it: above second is in base 60 and bellow is in base 10.
I think this was a good video. You were able to keep my attention especially with the added personality to the points and the information you backed up to make your point was helpful. I had to find an example why America needs or does not use the Metric system and I'd say this did help. :)
I agree with you on all points, generally its not that important but in engineering and say pharmacy its quite important to have standardized and easy to use measures... I will disagree with you on one point though and thats the nM the nautical mile... as a sailor I can state that the nautical mile is defined by an absolute measure; the nautical mile namely is 1 second of 1 minute of 1 degree which as you know would be 1/360th of the earths circumference ... this is of vital importance in sailing ... because it links position to distance and you need those to calculate courses and deviations , thats also why in shipping over sea we don't use meters for that specific purpose, we do (or rather milimeters) for everything else though but the nM is actually defined by something sensible unlike most of the other units you name
Einar Andresson In the UK, schools teach imperial mostly in history classes. All teaching is done in metric, then later on, they also learn some simple conversions,
That's exactly the reverse of the way the metric system is taught in American schools. Here in the U.S., we teach the kids about feet and yards and pounds and ounces and pints and gallons, *then* we go back and teach them how to convert these units into these strange alternative measurements called meters and grams and liters. It's no wonder the average American thinks the metric system is for communists.
I have herd of teenagers here in Australia saying how big is an inch when they talk about it on TV and it is very common. If you want to find out talk to an Australian teenager in the imperial. A lot of American teenagers would do this when an Australian family moves to the USA.
When I said "Not to be outdone, the British came up with their own pint, quart, and gallon," I didn't mean to imply that the older pint, quart, and gallon that the U.S. used (and still continues to use) were wholly a U.S. invention. The older units probably date back to the Colonial era.
I once had a discussion with an American who argue that it would be so much easier to just start with one yard, then keep dividing that yard in 10s to however small you needed to measure. I suggested to just go metric, but he insisted metric made no sense and was too confusing...
Yeah, but it's not called a "ton". It's called either a "tonne" (with the extra -ne on the end), or a "metric ton." I suppose some boorish construction-heads could call it a "ton", but they're speaking colloquially -- similar to the way a carpenter can refer to 120 cm as a "board meter".
Yes, paying a little extra than you'd anticipated at the Post Office isn't a very big deal. Putting the wrong amount of fuel in your airliner (e.g. the Gimli Glider), or adding up thrust vectors incorrectly on your space probe (e.g. the Mars Climate Orbiter)? Those are situations where getting the units wrong can be disastrous.
I have always wondered how many mistakes that have happened when building a house in America by reading the plans from the architect designing the house or an apartment building and that would be scary if a trades person that worked on that building that came from a metric country.
In the building construction trades in North America, *_only_* Customary/Imperial units are used. (That is, feet and inches) So there is no risk of errors from unit conversion.
As a danish person, i only use metric for calculating. And to convert from 10 to 100 or 100 to 10. We only need to move the comma. Americans use dot instead, and so americans only need to move the comma. Well. Looking at this video, i realised that i need to calculate in order to do the same trick. That's extremely confusing, not just to deal with it by instinct. U need to calculate in order to get a specific foot in yards. Glad that i only need to move that comma.
According to Merriam-Webster, there are two acceptible ways to pronounce the "root" in "root beer": 1) So that it rhymes with "foot", or 2) So that it rhymes with "boot". I use the "foot" pronunciation when using "root" as a noun or adjective, and the "boot" pronunciation when using "root" as a verb.
@Vot63 Ah, I see your problem now. You seem to have missed the main message of this particular video. You assumed that because it was titled "Why we need the metric system," it was the same rant as all the others. Please watch it again and look for the real message here. The main concern I have is not with the awkwardness of the U.S. customary units system, but with the AMBIGUITY of the old U.S./imperial unit names.
I agree, measuring input power in Watts and output power in Horsepower is bound to cause confusion -- the same kind of confusion we had with the Mars climate orbiter. Because the Horsepower isn't a metric unit, while the Watt is. And there's only one type of Watt.
@rogermwilcox True, but the real base SI unit for temperature is Kelvin, which is defined as 0 degrees at the absolute zero temperature, the temperature at which all thermal motion ceases in the classical description of thermodynamics (quote wikipedia). So the base SI unit for temperature is actually NOT arbitrary. However Celcius is easier for most people to use. Both scales have equal increments, but the zero point is defined differently. An increase of 1 kelvin is an increase of 1 celcius.
By "that system", do you mean the metric/S.I. system of units, or do you mean U.S. Customary Units? 'Cause when I was growing up, I remember doing quite a large number of word problems in feet/inches/miles. Fortunately, when I began to take courses in chemistry and physics, cooler heads prevailed and the Metric System was pretty much the only system in use. (Although chemists still use the "calorie" for heat instead of the Joule.)
Great explanation. I knew that the US gallon and tonnes were different. The three different weights and two difference inches were new to me. I would say also that Fahrenheit is equally pointless as a measure. Don’t get me started on the US custom of writing dates, starting with the Month. I think Liberia in Africa is the only other country that is non metric.
@rogermwilcox I agree that would be a good beginning. However, to get the most efficient metric changeover, it needs planning and commitment from the Government. Otherwise the process will be slow and piecemeal, with no co-ordination.
Well, if you're taking 1.609 kilometers, you CAN'T be taking "all the above", since "the above" includes not only the statute mile (1.609 kilometers), but also the international nautical mile (1.852 kilometers) and the Imperial nautical mile (1.853184 kilometers, unless you're using the post-1970 legal convention of 1.853000 kilometers). Incidentally, both statute miles AND international nautical miles are used in U.S. aviation, much to the confusion of the pilots.
Back in the 1970s, CBC Television occasionally aired cartoon PSAs involving the metric system of temperatures produced by the National Film Board of Canada starring the Flying Metric Head, who zoomed in at the end of every PSA to display the Canada Metric logo in white on a red background, taking nearly the whole screen...I found that part creepy when I was little, even though the cartoons were cute for the most part.
"Avoirdupois" is actually "avoir du poids" which can be translated by "having some weight". I must confess it's the first time I hear about it. In fact, the metric system was invented precisely to get rid of all these old weights and measures in France, who could be different from one city to another or from one trade to another. There were complaints dating back to the middle ages (and probably even sooner).
Yeah, a unit system built around powers of ten is just sooooo horrible. Which is why there are measuring tapes calibrated in tenths of an inch, and why gasoline pumps display thousandths of a gallon....
@yongodharma To be fair, the Celsius temperature scale really isn't that much more usseful -- or less ambiguous -- than the Fahrenheit scale. In both cases, the numbers are more-or-less arbitrary; memosizing "75 degrees Fahrenheit" for room temperature is no different from memorizing "24 degrees Celsius". The only place where Celsius has an advantage is if you want to quickly deduce how close a temperature is to the freezing or boiling point of water.
I actually prefer the SI system to the Metric. It comes in handier when you calculate in chemistry and physics with them. Volume is measured in cubic meters and not liter and all units boil down to the 7 standard units; Meter [m], Second [s], Kelvin [K], Kilogram [kg],Mol [mol], Ampere [A] and Candela [cd]. Energy is mesured in Joules which is equal to kg*m^2*s^-2.
There's a lot of crossover between the SI system and what's become known as the metric system -- just as there's crossover between the CGS system and the metric system. Of course, if you want REALLY fundamental units, you could go for one of those natural measuring systems such as the Planck units. Apparently, the Planck units are used a lot in quantum mechanics, because they make the calculations slightly simpler.
Hello! European guy here! Metric system is part of SI. (In our country we use , as decimal point) 1 Liter is a cube with an edge that is exactly 1 dm in lenght so 1L=0,001m3 Celsius scale is: 0C- freezing af water, 100C- boiling of water. Celsuis is Kelvin scale + 273,15 1 Kilogram is a piece of metal in France and will be a perfect sphere 100% Silicon with fixed amount of atoms in it.
A liter is not a part of the SI system. There are 7 basic units in the SI system and all others can be derived from these. And Kelvin is the Celsius scale + 273.15, and not the other way around.
Also, the defining temperature scale is Kelvin, defined with the triple point of water at 273.16 Kelvin, not Celsius with melting and boiling. Too many factors that can throw off melting and boling by a bit...
Believe it or not, it was the British that "changed their measurements a tiny bit bigger", not the Americans. By the beginning of the 19th century, there were a plethora of different pints, gallons, barrels, etc. in use. Great Britain decided to standardize, and created the Imperial system -- under which an Imperial Gallon was the volume of ale that weighed 10 pounds. (The U.S. liquid gallon is closer to the volume of 8 pounds of water or ale.)
Ken: So then, the bushel used for corn IS the same as the bushel used for wheat and barley. It sounds like the grain producers just convert it into a "bushel weight equivalent for grain X" because it's easier to measure grain by weight than by volume.
As I said hours and minutes are non metric units. It might be more comfortable in most situations to have minutes and hours etc in a base 10 system, but I don't know how well it fits in earths rotational period.
I think you mean 1 inch = 2.54 cm, or 25.4 mm. ... unless you're talking about the Survey Inch (instead of the International Inch), in which case 1 inch = 2.540005 cm.
From what I hear, although the metric system is the "official" system of units in Great Britain, actual British people still use the older units for some things. There are still milestone markers showing distances in statute miles, and people still discuss their weight in stones, pounds, and (in the case of babies) ounces.
Americans are famous for measuring things in non-official units anyway. As in “the ship is as long as 14 statues of Liberty laid end to end and displaces water equivalent to 2 million school backpacks”. Or “the building is as tall as 850 cheerleaders standing on each other’s’ shoulders”
it comes down to the base numbering system. Computers are based on the base 2 , metric is base 10, imperial is base 12. Circle is base on the base 12 . This is why clock are based on the base 12 system. During the French Revolution, the French switched their clocks and calendar to base 10, which was a failure. Divide a a metric system into 3 without going to infinity.
CORRECTION: At 7:08, I say that the British/Imperial nautical mile is 6080 feet. This is misleading. The British nautical mile -- more properly called the "Admiralty measured mile" -- is exactly 6080 *imperial* feet. The imperial foot is ever-so-slightly shorter than the current international foot, by about 1.7 parts per million. In *international feet*, 1 British/Imperial nautical mile works out to 6079.979 feet.
... except for the fact that they actually call it a metric "ton". You know in casual conversation they're just going to abbreviate that to "ton", and at that point you've got the potential for confusion with the U.S. short ton, the Imperial long ton, the Air Conditioning ton, shipping tonnage, etc..
You wrote: "1m can mean 0.56m to 1.49m (rounded). That is very ambiguous!" This is an issue with ANY unit of measurement, not just meters. Inches and feet have exactly the same limitation. It's known in the sciences as "significant digits", and it represents the limits of the precision of your measurements. Something "1 ft" long could be anywhere from 0.51 ft to 1.49 ft long, while something "1.000 ft" long could be anywhere from 0.99951 ft to 1.00049 ft long. (Survey feet or int'l feet?!)
Great video, but when you mentioned the "one kilogram", the "one litre", you should have mentioned that those measurements come from the "one meter" ... A 1m^3 cube will weigh 1,000 Kg (1 Tonne), etc
A 1 m^3 cube *OF WATER* will be *ABOUT* 1000 kg. It's not exact, though. Officially, the kilogram is defined as the mass of a specific cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy in a vault in France. (No, really!)
+rogermwilcox Hello Roger, nice video. You say that "Officially, the kilogram is defined as the mass of a specific cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy in a vault in France" which is true, but this sample was machined on the ground of the original idea which was "One kilogram will be the weight of one dm3 [= litre] of pure water", and it was not possible to keep permanently a volume of one litre of pure water, inside a box of zero weight, to be used as a reference. Anyway, evaporation would quickly mess it all ;-P ;-) . So it was a platinum-iridium cylinder which was carefully machined according to this ground. But even the famous cylinder stored in the "Pavillon de Breteuil, à Sèvres" (as I learned at primary school in the early fifties, and which may well be in another place today !!!! ), even this sample is decaying and must be replaced by another (more accurate) definition, as the spirit of the SI / metric system is to always provide a reference of units in accordance with (or ahead of) the needs of advanced research. A team of Russian + US research group is proposing a sphere of silicium (very stable and geometrical structure) containing an EXACT number of silicium atoms. They propose one kilogram to become 35,6 times the Avogadro Number of silicium atoms. Avogadro Nr = number of atoms of 12 grams of C12 [carbon 12], its definition varies between = 6,022140857 *10^23 mol-1 ["recommended value" in 2014] and 6,02214076 *10^23 mol-1 [definition of SI in 2015], so this value has to be stated officially if this new reference is adopted. New technologies allowing an exact count of atoms has made this new (proposed) definition possible. But you probably knew all this, already. Have a nice day..
How are they going to ensure the isotope ratio of all the silicon atoms in the sphere? Silicon-28, -29, and -30 are all found in nature, in non-trivial amounts, and they all have different atomic masses.
Actually, Reuel T is right -- more or less. Celsius's original scale defined 0 degrees as the temperature of boiling water and (positive) 100 degrees as the freezing point of water. The modern Celsius temperature scale, which is named after him, reverses these numbers and uses 0 as the freezing point and 100 as the boiling point.
I am working with US and german made machines. And it is really confusing, that some data from the german machine are very exact for example 0.51mm and 0.58mm, the US product on the other hand just give me 0.2 inches for both data points. I hate it.
Technically, the plural of "stone" (the unit of weight equal to 14 pound avoirdupois) is "stone." 1 stone, 2 stone, 3 stone, etc.. It gets its name from the fact that big rocks of precise weight were used in the Olden Days [TM] on balance scales, for determining the weights of large objects (like sacks of potatoes). A stone of 14 pounds was used for weighing livestock.
Story about one engineer working in the USA. He worked there for 10 years and once said: I could live with new culture, but that idiotic imperial system is driving me crazy.
You can blame ancient Babylon for their obsession with Base 60. If the ancient Babylonians had been able to measure fractions of a second, you can be sure there'd be a 1/60-second-long time unit called a "third".
I shake my head in disbelief not only at the craziness of those units of measurements, but that Americans have been 'trying' to change over for over a century and still haven't! If I remember correctly the country I'm from changed over in the 1960's and we haven't looked back since. We are a 3rd world country! As for those that say that they will have issues with old instructions (for units of measure) for example baking. Most things we have, are stamped with both measurements, on the things we measure with. (But if it doesn't, there are also conversion charts of the more common measurements.) I have noticed that thier availability has become less in some areas for measuring things over the last few years. But it has now been more than 50 years since converting. Most people do not need them anymore. Also by using the Metric system, that 99% of the rest of the world is using. It will save money due to errors not been made. Like loosing a multi-million dollar probe because somebody got the measurements wrong. The trick is changing over and not going back, no matter who grumbles. It's like going for a swim. Dipping your toes in the water saying that it is too cold and pulling them out again. Will not get you in the water. You need to jump in and let the shock of the cold water hit you for a moment or two. After that your body adjusts and you are able to have an enjoyable swim. It is the same with this change over. Just do it.
-- "If I remember correctly, the country I'm from changed over in the 1960's and we haven't looked back since. We are a 3rd world country!" Well, that may be a big part of the issue. A huge, well-developed nation like the US. has a large population and an enormous amount of infrastructure and industry built on the old units. That makes it harder to change, compared to a small, poorly-developed country that doesn't have all that stuff. Also, because of America's enormous size and its relative geographical isolation (we only share a border with two other countries), most people in the U.S. simply don't have to deal with the measurement systems of other countries. So there just isn't a compelling reason to change -- the old units actually work quite well for everyday use. While at the same time, the inconvenience in trying to change is substantial. So with a large detriment and no great benefit from changing systems, it's no surprise at all that the general population of the U.S. hasn't embraced the metric system. (But note that the fields of science, engineering, and medicine have.) (And yes, I know about the famous Mars orbiter fiasco. Being squarely in the field of science and engineering, Lockheed Martin absolutely *_should_* have been using metric units all along. When I read about that mishap 18 years ago, I was shocked to learn that Lockheed Martin wasn't using metric units for its aerospace designs. WTF??? I couldn't believe it. I can't think of any endeavor where metric units would be more appropriate. Orbital trajectories and rocket thrust is all about math & physics, which is _precisely_ what the SI system is designed for. It's truly mind-boggling that L-M wasn't using SI/metric units for designing and building *_spacecraft,_* of all things. We're not talking about baking loaves of bread here. But that was 18 years ago, and I'm sure they've learned their lesson!) But as for ordinary everyday personal and household use (not international commerce or science or engineering), the old customary units are actually quite handy. I *do* like your "jumping in to the swimming pool" analogy, though. :-)
@@darkiee69 : Yeah, but that doesn't make them metric units. (Also, they weren't always defined that way. Inches and pounds are old units that predate the metric system.)
@@Milesco They're not metric, but they're defined by metric. An inch is 25,400050800mm, no more, no less. A pound is 0,453 592 37kg. It's all defined by the SI system.
You're not the first to suggest that the metric system, while an improvement over the old U.S. customary units, is still lacking. Particle physicists, for example, use a system called "Planck units," in which the basic constants of the universe -- the speed of light, the reduced Planck constant, Newton's gravitational constat, the Coulomb constant, and the Boltzmann constant -- are all set equal to 1. This results in some weird base units; the Planck mass works out to 21.7651 micrograms.
@Ashbury2193 To be fair, the way we were trying to metrify the country in the late 1970s was pretty backward. Especially the changes to education -- we still taught kids about inches and pounds first, then taught them how to CONVERT to metric units. I think Reagan's advisors made the right recommendation to pull the plug on that particular attempt. Next time, maybe we'll do it RIGHT.
Another reason is to make sure no mistakes are made due to the confusion around non-metric systems. -"what's the weight of that precision part again?" -"How much fuel did we need again to get that into orbit?" -"What was the speed we needed again?" No wonder why they scrapped the US/English/Imperial system.
Well, although we will have bigger problems to deal with, that isn't any reason to add to our load. Since we will be changing our system of units later anyways, why change now? The trouble of converting will be almost 50 percent greater in the case of looking back at measurements. I feel no motivation for a switch now.
You're not the first person to bring up this objection to the metric system. It's based around powers of 10, rather than powers of 2 or 6 or 12 or 30, because humans use base 10 for counting -- but only because we happen to have 10 fingers and thumbs. However, most practical applications that call for dividing a unit into thirds are usually only interested in approximations anyway. A recipe that calls for 1/3 of a cup of milk usually works fine with 3/8 cup, for example.
Actually, the time isn't measured within the metric system since it's not based on base 10. They tried to do it, but it never caught on. (I hope this last sentence is correct.)
I had not heard that the U.S. bushel used for corn was different from the U.S. bushel used for wheat or barley. What are the differences? Can you point me to a place where the three are defined?
I declare everybody who doesn't use metric system insane.
Yes we tried to build a mental hospital for them but could not find one that where big enough so we sent them to another continent instead. UK was already a loopy island so we could just leave that as is.
Everybody is on metric system with the 9mm caliber..😋
@@andersstromqvist2211 and here in the UK people already half use metric
@Ali Naqi Rizvi "half use". I'm Polish raised in the UK and yeah, we get taught metric in schools but day to day people use imperial.
I don't use imperial. I don't fucking know how. When people ask me how tall I am I tell them 176cm and their answer is always "how much is that in fEeT?" it's like bro we went through the same education system what are you talking about????
I am 23 bananas tall and weight 94 medium sized potatos
+Marc Andrei still better than the imperial measuring system
Much more exact than the imperial system.
How much is 23 bananas in Football Fields?
I get a headache. I praise the gods for being born in France, with a smart and easy metric system
But are you using Capverdian bananas, Industrial bananas, Ancient Greek bananas or Klingon bananas? Makes all the difference...
It's a miracle Americans can build bridges that last longer than a day.
Is that a mean solar day, or a sidereal day?
or 86.4 kiloseconds?
Why is that? Because the engineers use metric alreay.
America builds the best bridges in the world. America is so great, that it survived 8 years of Obama. Now Trump is putting America on it's feet.
@@jamesmooney8933 You do realise why Barack Obama was re-elected but not the clown Donald Trump?
The real deal with the metric system is that everything is interconnected.
1cm^3 = 1ml = 1g
Multiplied by 1000 you get 1dm^3 = 1l = 1kg
Multipied again by 1000 you get 1m^3 = 1kl = 1t
To put it simply if you make a water tank that is 1m by 1m by 1m (1m^3) you'll easily know that it has a volume of 1000 litres (1kl) and it will require to be sturdy enough to support 1000kg (a metric ton).
Only works for water tho.
@@morosov4595 well of course. There's no way to make a measuring system that is consistent across liquids of inconsistent weights and volumes. Though I suspect that if you know the differences a liquid has to water, you can work out the numbers.
@@skaruts I know, I was just pointing it out.
Excellent video, I hope some day before 2050, US adopt metric system.
They are more likely to declare that the Earth is flat.
The Earth isn't just flat, it's square!
www.rogermwilcox.com/square_earth.html
Or some retard will claim that the metric system causes autism and ADHD.
2021 here. They still havent.
@@whybutwhy Well, technically they already have switched, though... it's complicated ^^. Have a look:
ua-cam.com/video/N0U-XEmKPKg/v-deo.html
That most Americans don't get a headache from this kind of measurement I do not understand
heres the joke im a engineer and our world is as standardized metric as is... but i know a good bit of conversions by heart making it even more a joke that muricans pretend they wouldnt be able to learn metric because muh hard..but muricans be stubborn
@@UnitedTSR well muricans are stubborn, in effect they signed the metric treaty and also murican tech uses standardized measurements, but at this point it becomes a joke, the imperial system as well as old systems used here of the same vein are just practically inconsistent and factually harder , theres no reason to be patriotic about units, but in the end it beats me because i never hear any argument against it just emotions , whether thats politically sided I dont think so really wouldnt really explain why everywhere else in the world that has never been a question of what political side you fall under, not to mention that the whole system is neolib and neocon and theres nothing "left/right" about any of it since they agree on the main points of their tenure
@@arposkraft3616 the best part of the metric system is that you can explain the basics very easily, you don't need weeks to learn it, it's possible in an hour (or less). Only thing you need to be used to, are the basics like the length of a meter, volume of a liter and the weight of a kilogram, and learn the prefixes.
@@denjo3131 the whole "it takes effort to learn" is a defunct nonsense argument; i was born in a metric country, i use it constantly in my lines of work...I know a lot of conversions by heart to the imperial even though I never use it, I know what a lbs is , i know what a mile is a nautical mile , a foot, an inch , i know these things by heart yet im not a genius... the only reason i know these things is because of 2 facts; 1) muricans are stubborn 2) muricans are to lazy to use google to convert when you tell them something in metric
an inch is about 2.54cm, a foot about 30, a lbs is 450 grams not to be confused with our pound thats 500, a landmile is about 1.6kms while a nautical mile defined as 1 second of 1 minute of 1 degree of the earths circumference boils down to about 1.852kms , a quart is 1/4th of a gallon which is about 3.7L ... so every murican going around pretending that its all sooo difficult can royally suck my weener because most metric users know at least some of the most common equivalents in muricanismo
@@arposkraft3616 _"every 'murican going around saying (metric) is sooo difficult can royally suck my weener..."_
Hahahahahaha! 😂 Okay, that was funny. 🙂
But please don't paint all Americans with the same brush. Many of us do know the metric system very well.
I also must note, however, that from time to time I see comments from people in metric countries saying they don't know American Customary / Imperial units at all. So that contrasts with your claim that "most metric users know at least some of the common [American] equivalents." Maybe it varies from country to country or from person to person. (?)
Speaking of which, what country are you from? Just curious. I noticed that you said "our pound is 500 [grams]", and I know some European countries use the word "pound" (or variations thereof, like "Pfund", "pond", or "pund") to refer to 500 grams. So I was just wondering.
holy crap....
no wonder the rest of the world switched to logically structured metric..
Actually, the *IMPERIAL* system of units were designed around very definite objective quantities -- the Imperial Gallon, for example, is the volume of 10 pounds of ale. The *U.S. CUSTOMARY* units are older, and originally do derive from approximate measurements such as the length of your foot, but today are rigidly defined in terms of Metric units (e.g. a U.S. customary inch is defined as exactly 2.54 centimeters).
There are 5 comments on this video from a year ago, which UA-cam has "hidden as they are probably spam". UA-cam has a new "review comments" feature, visible only to the guy that posted the video (me), which is supposed to let me approve these so that they can be seen.
But guess what? There's a bug in it: Checking the little checkbox and clicking the "Approve" button does nothing, probably because the messages are "too old." Remember: These messages were posted BEFORE THIS FEATURE EXISTED. It seems that UA-cam, and their new Google overlords, didn't think this feature roll-out through.
Typical for ScrewTube.
@@Milesco : "ScrewTube" sounds like the name of a porn site.
@@rogermwilcox LOL! 😄 I guess it does!
"Hey, let's name our new unit of volume after a unit of weight." "Why?" "Because I hate you." "Sounds good."
In Norway (and the rest of Scandinavia), where we use metric (and sometimes international inches), we have an additional length metric called "mil" (pronounced like "meal"). This has been defined as equal to 10km. It was derived from about the distance one would be able to walk before resting.
Interesting! Around my workplace, people use "mil" as a shorthand for either millimeter or milliliter. (We work on automated liquid handling platforms for bio labs, so both units appear a lot.)
Americans in general also sometimes use "mil" (or "mill") to mean a thousandth of an inch. I understand that in most European countries, in those rare cases where thousandths of an inch need to be discussed, they're often called a "thou".
@@rogermwilcox I've only heard of "thous" in Britain (from a Britt and American blacksmith working together), but they commonly use inches. Elsewhere, in my experience, people resort so smaller metrics or fractions of a millimeter when neseccary. Those that need to deal with thousandths of mms might use micrometers/microns (µm). For me personally, I only really encounter inches in woodworking.
The most important thing of course is that everyone understands what measurement and unit you are talking about. You clearly demonstrate the importance of this with your examples of "tons".
(In Norway we sadly don't use any kind of convenient short hand like "thou", that I'm aware of. Instead we mostly say the whole phrase. "10 thou (10 thousands of an inch)" = "ti tusendels tomme" = literally " ten thousand parts of a thumb". Though, "thumb" is actually "tommel". This has been today's Norwegian lesson.)
According to BBC2 late 1979, 10km is also known as "metric mile". I take no credit or responsibility.
The mil is not used in Denmark.
But we still use a “barrel” of land to talk about farming land. What it is…well your guess is as good as mine.
Its insane. We need to go all in metric.
Well two different feet makes sense, I have two feet's and they are probably not exactly the same length.
What a thorough explanation of the UK / UK (old) systems. Fortunately decimalisation took place here (South Africa) in the 1970's .
One thing I have noted is that on internet forums is to NEVER ask an American to translate their units into metric. They really take it personally - like an attack on their sovereignty.
it's not that I would take it personally, it's that I'd feel like if you want what I wrote in a forum to be converted to some other unit of measure that you should do the conversion yourself, rather than ask me to provide the conversion for you. If you wrote something in metric I wouldn't ask you to please provide that in the US system, I'd just do the conversion myself. Maybe it's that you can't do the conversions, in that case their are converters on the internet, google is your friend.
Good video! I'm Dutch and lucky that I was born in the metric system. At school we learnt about the imperial system and we all got a headache after some time. Converting from one unit to another is seriously a big pain. I think it's the inevitable change that makes many Americans a bit anxious to go metric. But also the fact that it will cost billions of dollars. Equipment, manuals, tools, utensils, devices for measurements, etc. it all should be changed and that will be very expensive. But I think in the long run it will be better to go metric and its certainly easier to learn the system. Good luck my American friends.
... unless you're doing Quantum Mechanics, in which case you'll probably be using Planck units.
I am happy to live with the metric system. I might get traumatized if I go to the US! lol
Well *_of course_* you're happy to live with the metric system -- with a name like Kerstin Norberg, I can tell that you have lived with the metric system all your life. :-)
It's people like me (and there are hundreds of millions of us) who have grown up with the U.S. Customary system that have to deal with the challenge of being able to use and convert between two different systems.
In defense of Reuel T, Anders Celsius's original temperature scale WAS backwards from the Celsius/centigrade temperature scale we use today. He specified 0 as the boiling point of water and 100 as the freezing point of water -- so the lower the number on this temperature scale, the HOTTER the thing being measured.
This is a historical artifact, however, and has nothing to do with the Celsius scale in use today. Fahrenheit's original temperature scale, likewise, doesn't match the modern one.
the pain in my head is growing while watching this video
Bravo et merci. My fun as a French is the avoirdupoids set of units which reflects the root cause why the French, during their revolution were having so many measurement units for length, weight, volume and time. Each city then would have its own units. So after the big clean-up the MKSA system was created as a Universal set of measures (does belong to all countries). They even tried to divide time in decimal units and weeks also but it failed because not universal (but linked to political ideas)
Amen brother... Amen.
Its ok, the smart people in the US already adopted the metric system.
For one, ounces troy ARE referred to as simply "ounces" (without the troy) when trading in precious metals.
For another ... if you think milligrams, kilograms, and centigrams are "kinds of grams" then you've missed the whole point of the S.I. prefix system. NO ONE calls a kilogram or a milligram a "gram". But they do call a fluid ounce or a troy ounce an "ounce."
I use the metric system for all my life and I can't understand what you are saying. EVERYONE calls 1000 gram a kilogram and one thousand of a gram a milligram.(centigrams are rarely used. They are mostly expressed in tenfolds of milligrams. On the contrary, centimeters are quite commonly used, next to the millimeter) That is the very point of the S.I.prefix system. Why do you think that those prefixes aren't the point of the S.I.system and why do you think that NO ONE uses them in that way? In fact, in the USA the S.I.system is already used within electricity. There we talk about kiloVolts, Volts and milliVolts. The same goes for Amps and Watts. There aren't any troy-Watts of fluid-Watts and NO ONE regrets that.
@@raticide4you i think what he means is that up untill 999 grams its always grams. But then its kg after that until 999 kg. Although we do meassire 1 kg and 400 grams. But most people just say 1.4 kg instead
@@Ramhams1337 OK thank you for the explanation. It is clearer now.
@@Ramhams1337
Wrong.
He is talking about how stupid it is to call every ounce just "ounces".
As stupid as calling every gram (kg, mg, etc) just "grams".
@@xyphos5642 oh fair enough. i mean that is stupid. glad i was born with metric
@Ashbury2193 For one, as I said, our approach to educating the metric system in the 1970s was backwards. For another, it was hardly our first attempt -- Congress adopted the metric system in either 1898 or 1903, depending on which source you read. I think a good first step this time around would be to allow manufacturers to label products in metric-only units IF THEY SO CHOOSE, so that a 2 liter bottle of soda doesn't also have to say "(67.6 fl oz)".
1. Sure ... but are you asking for a U.S. fluid ounce of water, or a British fluid ounce of water?
2. When you mail "14 ounces" of gold, you'd better not try to tell the mailman it weighs 14 ounces.
3. The 2000 pound short ton is still in widespread use throughout the United States.
If you want to talk about "cheating based on rounding," look no further than the two-by-four. The name is supposed to mean "two inches by four inches", but the actual dimensions of these boards is 1 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches. The lumber industry is notorious for such oddball dimensions standards. It's not because they use decimas for their "1.2 meter" boards that they're not 1200 mm long, it's because it's the lumber industry.
Fortunately, there's no such thing as a Nautical Minute or a Troy Second.
But it's funny you should mention the notion of metric time. The French Revolutionaries who first proposed the metric system also used a "decimal calendar" where each month was divided into three 10-day weeks. They also divided the day into 10 decimal hours, divided each decimal hour into 100 decimal minutes, and divided each decimal minute into 100 decimal seconds.
Today, scientists just use large numbers of seconds.
Let God be with metric system.
Silly, everybody knows God uses Planck units.
Fun fact I just learned: When modern, real life British automobile ads say that a car gets "68.9 mpg", they mean statute miles per IMPERIAL gallon. An American ad for the same car would say it gets "57.4 mpg", because Americans use statute miles per U.S. LIQUID gallon.
So there's one real life situation where non-metric units with the same name CAN cause real confusion.
I'm glad Australia went completely metric decades before I was even born, and there was no half-holding on to the old system..
..well, actually, we still have to deal with Imperial measurements here and there because of other countries (rolls eyes at America) because some 'standard' sizes of things are Imperial. One example is that all my cameras use a 1/4 inch screw to mount onto a tripod. Yuck!
The screw in your camera will not change and it is likely that if a descendant of yours were to buy a camera in 100 years time the mount on the camera would still be the same screw size but would probably be referred to as 6 mm.
A similar situation exists with pipes and their fittings. If you now go into a hardware store to buy a pipe fitting you will find them labeled for use on 12 mm, 19 mm, 25 mm, 32 mm pipe etc. However, these items are of EXACTLY the same dimensions as their predecessors, which were labeled 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch, 1 inch, 1 1/4 inch etc., which is a "soft" conversion.
This has to be, since you may need the new item to fit the existing old installation.
Standard gauge rail lines are 4 Feet, 8 1/2 inches apart. That is 1.435 metres. They have to stay that way!
FrodoOne1 A 'soft conversion' doesn't work for everything though since a 1/4 inch is 6.35mm which means a 6mm tool is too small and a 7mm tool is too big - you can't label it differently and you still need a proper imperial tool unless you want to strip the bolt.
I know we have to keep old standards like the rail line gauges, but that's what I find 'yuck' because if we made it up now then instead of 1.435 meters we'd make it a nice round number such as 1.4 or 1.5 meters.
Daniel Jacob The only "tool" that your camera screw needs is the paired Thumb and Forefinger of the human operator against the integral knurled knob, which was designed for this purpose. The specification of the "thread" is immaterial, as long as it fits YOUR camera and all past and future cameras.
Whitworth (and other) nuts and bolts are still made to the same specifications as they ever were, except that the manufactures describe these (in-house) in metric terms. However, they are sold in terms of their "Imperial" width but by their metric length.
Pipe fittings are made to the same specifications as they ever were, except these specifications have also been translated (in-house) into SI terms. However, they are now sold with the diameter described in the closest metric equivalent to the "Imperial”' diameter. This is a "soft" conversion.
If you need to work on equipment manufactured before about 1980 (or in the USA) you may need to obtain/retain the appropriate spanners and sockets. However, for screwdrivers it is probably more important to obtain the appropriate specialised and "tamper-proof" varieties, of which there are many.
There is no particular virtue in a "nice round number". The "Standard" rail gauge of 4 foot, 8 1/2 inches (1435 mm) is NOT exactly a "nice round number".
You may regard as such the "Victorian" Broad-gauge of 5 foot 3 inches (which now translates to 1600 mm).
(Looking at those dimensions, I now wonder if someone back in the 19th Century could see into the future - or was it just dumb luck?)
The gauge of 3 foot 6 inches (which you may regard as a “nice round number”) used in some other States, translates as 1067 mm, again, not a "nice round number".
I don't think that many people care about the size of a rail gauge, as long as the trains work safely, efficiently and comfortably - in that order. All other considerations being equal, the broader the gauge the more comfortable it is likely to be. However, there are economic considerations and it appears that the world has standardized on 4 Foot, 8 1/2 inches (1435 mm) whether you or I like it or not.
Here is something for you to worry about in the future
If/when the USA converts to the metric system (SI), it is likely that the different levels at which planes fly will be converted from 1000 feet to 300 metres - which is the nearest "nice round number" However, 1000 feet is actually 304.8 metres. By the time you get to 30,000 feet, the difference between (30 * 1000) 30,000 feet and (30 * 300) 9000 metres is 144 metres (567 Feet).
In the unlikely event that a "soft" conversion is used by ALL airlines and Air Forces, there will not be any problem.
If there is a "hard" conversion (at EXACTLY the same time) by ALL airlines and Air Forces, there will not be any problem.
If there is a combination of either of these scenarios, or miss-timing of the latter, there is likely to be SIGNIFICANT problems for high flying aircraft.
Just visualise two aircraft approaching each other from opposite directions separated in height by only about 1.5 the length of the 100 metre track in an Olympic stadium!
It would be far more complex (and costly on the consumers end) for those Imperial "standard sizes" to be changed, like you'r 1/4 screw for your tripod. You could just quit complaining about it and learn the conversions, that's what we Americans do when we have to deal with making things to metric specs.
+FrodoOne1 You'd be surprised how quickly we would abandon inches as a measurement for pipes, screws, tires and TV-screens once America decided to get off their high horse.
There are two units which SOUND like a root vegetable: gemstones are weighed in CARATS, which are equivalent to 200 milligrams, thus 5 carats in a gram. But the PURITY of gold jewelry in measure in KARATS. A karat of gold purity is 1/24 pure gold. Thus, 10 Karat gold, written 10K, means 10/24 gold by weight, so a 10k ring weighing 24 grams contains only 10 grams of gold, alloyed with 14 grams of other metals.
And there is another kind of foot, known as the METRICAL foot, in poetry. This is a repetition of a fixed number of syllables containing a fixed stress pattern. A foot of two syllables with the stress on the second syllable is called an IAMB, or IAMBIC foot (if MU-sic BE the FOOD of LOVE, play ON), for example, and a line with 5 iambic feet is called Iambic Pentameter.
A decrepit old gasman named Peter,
While looking around for the meter,
Touched a leak with his light,
And rose out of sight,
And as anyone who knows anything about poetry can tell you, he also ruined the meter!
Thanks for your explanation. As someone who deals with a lot of Americans, I always have problems understanding the units they say. I know 3.3 ~ 3.4 fl. Oz is about 100mL and how big an inch is (about 2.5cm) but other than that I have issues with things like quarts, US gallons, different types of weights etc. But you've explained that to me. It just amazes me that people find it easy to use all these units.
It all seems very strange if you're not familiar with it, but if you grew up with it, it's not hard to understand and get accustomed to.
Is the U.S. Customary system as good as the Metric system? Well, no, but it's not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. It's certainly good enough for everyday, nonscientific measurements. And in many cases, the size of the units in the U.S. Customary system are more convenient than metric units. For example, feet and inches are quite handy for measuring small to medium size objects, while centimeters are a bit too small and meters are a bit too large. Sometimes, inches and feet are "just right". 🙂
And the U.S. Customary system has the advantage of being familiar and universally used within the United States, which is a large country.
(Being a very large country, the people who live in the U.S. mostly only deal with other people in the U.S. Thus, the benefits of using an international measurement system don't exist for us Americans.)
Considering how complicated the Imperial System is , it is not a wonder than a lot of Americans fail basic arithmetic, let alone mathematics.
Something you forgot to mention amigo : the Metric System was invented by the French after they got rid of the Monarchy, which in turn made the Americans a little uneasy.
Greetings from Toronto.
You're right about the second, but not for the whole of time. It's rather weird if you think about it: above second is in base 60 and bellow is in base 10.
I think this was a good video. You were able to keep my attention especially with the added personality to the points and the information you backed up to make your point was helpful. I had to find an example why America needs or does not use the Metric system and I'd say this did help. :)
I agree with you on all points, generally its not that important but in engineering and say pharmacy its quite important to have standardized and easy to use measures... I will disagree with you on one point though and thats the nM the nautical mile... as a sailor I can state that the nautical mile is defined by an absolute measure; the nautical mile namely is 1 second of 1 minute of 1 degree which as you know would be 1/360th of the earths circumference ... this is of vital importance in sailing ... because it links position to distance and you need those to calculate courses and deviations , thats also why in shipping over sea we don't use meters for that specific purpose, we do (or rather milimeters) for everything else though but the nM is actually defined by something sensible unlike most of the other units you name
I feel sorry for the students in America and England to learn this bullshit
Einar Andresson In the UK, schools teach imperial mostly in history classes. All teaching is done in metric, then later on, they also learn some simple conversions,
That's exactly the reverse of the way the metric system is taught in American schools. Here in the U.S., we teach the kids about feet and yards and pounds and ounces and pints and gallons, *then* we go back and teach them how to convert these units into these strange alternative measurements called meters and grams and liters.
It's no wonder the average American thinks the metric system is for communists.
Isnt one kilometer different in Britain?
No, it's still 1000 meters.
1609 meter
Thanks for enlightening this up, I didn't even know US units could be so confusing!
I have herd of teenagers here in Australia saying how big is an inch when they talk about it on TV and it is very common. If you want to find out talk to an Australian teenager in the imperial. A lot of American teenagers would do this when an Australian family moves to the USA.
When I said "Not to be outdone, the British came up with their own pint, quart, and gallon," I didn't mean to imply that the older pint, quart, and gallon that the U.S. used (and still continues to use) were wholly a U.S. invention. The older units probably date back to the Colonial era.
I once had a discussion with an American who argue that it would be so much easier to just start with one yard, then keep dividing that yard in 10s to however small you needed to measure. I suggested to just go metric, but he insisted metric made no sense and was too confusing...
You forgot to mention that the metric system also has a ton 1000kg
Yeah, but it's not called a "ton". It's called either a "tonne" (with the extra -ne on the end), or a "metric ton."
I suppose some boorish construction-heads could call it a "ton", but they're speaking colloquially -- similar to the way a carpenter can refer to 120 cm as a "board meter".
still, i'd prefer to call it a megagram
rogermwilcox Most places in Eurpoe just call it a ton.
* Tonne.
Yes, paying a little extra than you'd anticipated at the Post Office isn't a very big deal. Putting the wrong amount of fuel in your airliner (e.g. the Gimli Glider), or adding up thrust vectors incorrectly on your space probe (e.g. the Mars Climate Orbiter)? Those are situations where getting the units wrong can be disastrous.
I have always wondered how many mistakes that have happened when building a house in America by reading the plans from the architect designing the house or an apartment building and that would be scary if a trades person that worked on that building that came from a metric country.
not much if the measuring tapes were metric
In the building construction trades in North America, *_only_* Customary/Imperial units are used. (That is, feet and inches) So there is no risk of errors from unit conversion.
As a danish person, i only use metric for calculating. And to convert from 10 to 100 or 100 to 10. We only need to move the comma. Americans use dot instead, and so americans only need to move the comma. Well. Looking at this video, i realised that i need to calculate in order to do the same trick. That's extremely confusing, not just to deal with it by instinct. U need to calculate in order to get a specific foot in yards. Glad that i only need to move that comma.
According to Merriam-Webster, there are two acceptible ways to pronounce the "root" in "root beer":
1) So that it rhymes with "foot", or
2) So that it rhymes with "boot".
I use the "foot" pronunciation when using "root" as a noun or adjective, and the "boot" pronunciation when using "root" as a verb.
@Vot63 Ah, I see your problem now. You seem to have missed the main message of this particular video. You assumed that because it was titled "Why we need the metric system," it was the same rant as all the others.
Please watch it again and look for the real message here. The main concern I have is not with the awkwardness of the U.S. customary units system, but with the AMBIGUITY of the old U.S./imperial unit names.
I agree, measuring input power in Watts and output power in Horsepower is bound to cause confusion -- the same kind of confusion we had with the Mars climate orbiter. Because the Horsepower isn't a metric unit, while the Watt is.
And there's only one type of Watt.
@rogermwilcox True, but the real base SI unit for temperature is Kelvin, which is defined as 0 degrees at the absolute zero temperature, the temperature at which all thermal motion ceases in the classical description of thermodynamics (quote wikipedia). So the base SI unit for temperature is actually NOT arbitrary. However Celcius is easier for most people to use. Both scales have equal increments, but the zero point is defined differently. An increase of 1 kelvin is an increase of 1 celcius.
By "that system", do you mean the metric/S.I. system of units, or do you mean U.S. Customary Units? 'Cause when I was growing up, I remember doing quite a large number of word problems in feet/inches/miles.
Fortunately, when I began to take courses in chemistry and physics, cooler heads prevailed and the Metric System was pretty much the only system in use. (Although chemists still use the "calorie" for heat instead of the Joule.)
Great explanation. I knew that the US gallon and tonnes were different. The three different weights and two difference inches were new to me. I would say also that Fahrenheit is equally pointless as a measure. Don’t get me started on the US custom of writing dates, starting with the Month. I think Liberia in Africa is the only other country that is non metric.
@rogermwilcox I agree that would be a good beginning. However, to get the most efficient metric changeover, it needs planning and commitment from the Government. Otherwise the process will be slow and piecemeal, with no co-ordination.
Is that an international foot long board, or a survey foot long board?
"Avoirdupois" is pronounced just like "Avoir du poids" which means "Having a weight"
The Troy OZ of gold is misleading, It's 1 OZ of gold + other metals added in order to harden the coin.
Well, if you're taking 1.609 kilometers, you CAN'T be taking "all the above", since "the above" includes not only the statute mile (1.609 kilometers), but also the international nautical mile (1.852 kilometers) and the Imperial nautical mile (1.853184 kilometers, unless you're using the post-1970 legal convention of 1.853000 kilometers).
Incidentally, both statute miles AND international nautical miles are used in U.S. aviation, much to the confusion of the pilots.
The second is a metric unit, an hour is not. Sometimes in science you can use megaseconds and of course milliseconds, just like any other metric unit.
Back in the 1970s, CBC Television occasionally aired cartoon PSAs involving the metric system of temperatures produced by the National Film Board of Canada starring the Flying Metric Head, who zoomed in at the end of every PSA to display the Canada Metric logo in white on a red background, taking nearly the whole screen...I found that part creepy when I was little, even though the cartoons were cute for the most part.
The moment i heared about measuring in stones, i was out ...
Many Brits still know their weight in stone-and-pounds better than they know it in kilograms.
"Avoirdupois" is actually "avoir du poids" which can be translated by "having some weight". I must confess it's the first time I hear about it.
In fact, the metric system was invented precisely to get rid of all these old weights and measures in France, who could be different from one city to another or from one trade to another. There were complaints dating back to the middle ages (and probably even sooner).
Yeah, a unit system built around powers of ten is just sooooo horrible.
Which is why there are measuring tapes calibrated in tenths of an inch, and why gasoline pumps display thousandths of a gallon....
No no no. It's ROOT beer. Not beer. And it's MUG, not milk.
A&W's slogan in the 1970s-1980s was "A&W Root Beer's got that frosty mug taste."
@yongodharma To be fair, the Celsius temperature scale really isn't that much more usseful -- or less ambiguous -- than the Fahrenheit scale. In both cases, the numbers are more-or-less arbitrary; memosizing "75 degrees Fahrenheit" for room temperature is no different from memorizing "24 degrees Celsius". The only place where Celsius has an advantage is if you want to quickly deduce how close a temperature is to the freezing or boiling point of water.
Absolutely agree... Metric system makes so much more sense...
But my original post wasn't talking about that. I was simply stating a second is the base unit for metric time.
I just loved your video. Perfect.
I actually prefer the SI system to the Metric. It comes in handier when you calculate in chemistry and physics with them. Volume is measured in cubic meters and not liter and all units boil down to the 7 standard units; Meter [m], Second [s], Kelvin [K], Kilogram [kg],Mol [mol], Ampere [A] and Candela [cd]. Energy is mesured in Joules which is equal to kg*m^2*s^-2.
There's a lot of crossover between the SI system and what's become known as the metric system -- just as there's crossover between the CGS system and the metric system.
Of course, if you want REALLY fundamental units, you could go for one of those natural measuring systems such as the Planck units. Apparently, the Planck units are used a lot in quantum mechanics, because they make the calculations slightly simpler.
Hello! European guy here!
Metric system is part of SI.
(In our country we use , as decimal point)
1 Liter is a cube with an edge that is exactly 1 dm in lenght so 1L=0,001m3
Celsius scale is: 0C- freezing af water, 100C- boiling of water.
Celsuis is Kelvin scale + 273,15
1 Kilogram is a piece of metal in France and will be a perfect sphere 100% Silicon with fixed amount of atoms in it.
A liter is not a part of the SI system. There are 7 basic units in the SI system and all others can be derived from these. And Kelvin is the Celsius scale + 273.15, and not the other way around.
Also, the defining temperature scale is Kelvin, defined with the triple point of water at 273.16 Kelvin, not Celsius with melting and boiling. Too many factors that can throw off melting and boling by a bit...
Mikael Jensen Two years late but Cubic Meters and Liters(Litres?) are directly convertible. You are essentially using the same system of volume.
Believe it or not, it was the British that "changed their measurements a tiny bit bigger", not the Americans. By the beginning of the 19th century, there were a plethora of different pints, gallons, barrels, etc. in use. Great Britain decided to standardize, and created the Imperial system -- under which an Imperial Gallon was the volume of ale that weighed 10 pounds. (The U.S. liquid gallon is closer to the volume of 8 pounds of water or ale.)
Ken: So then, the bushel used for corn IS the same as the bushel used for wheat and barley. It sounds like the grain producers just convert it into a "bushel weight equivalent for grain X" because it's easier to measure grain by weight than by volume.
As I said hours and minutes are non metric units. It might be more comfortable in most situations to have minutes and hours etc in a base 10 system, but I don't know how well it fits in earths rotational period.
I'll let the Base-12 advocate fight it out with the Base-16 advocate....
All your base are belong to us.
I think you mean 1 inch = 2.54 cm, or 25.4 mm.
... unless you're talking about the Survey Inch (instead of the International Inch), in which case 1 inch = 2.540005 cm.
From what I hear, although the metric system is the "official" system of units in Great Britain, actual British people still use the older units for some things. There are still milestone markers showing distances in statute miles, and people still discuss their weight in stones, pounds, and (in the case of babies) ounces.
because uk people still dragged by an old royal pussy...
Americans are famous for measuring things in non-official units anyway. As in “the ship is as long as 14 statues of Liberty laid end to end and displaces water equivalent to 2 million school backpacks”. Or “the building is as tall as 850 cheerleaders standing on each other’s’ shoulders”
it comes down to the base numbering system. Computers are based on the base 2 , metric is base 10, imperial is base 12.
Circle is base on the base 12 . This is why clock are based on the base 12 system. During the French Revolution, the French switched their clocks and calendar to base 10, which was a failure.
Divide a a metric system into 3 without going to infinity.
I'm 1.72m tall and my weight is 67Kg; 96% of the world knows if I'm overweight
CORRECTION: At 7:08, I say that the British/Imperial nautical mile is 6080 feet. This is misleading. The British nautical mile -- more properly called the "Admiralty measured mile" -- is exactly 6080 *imperial* feet. The imperial foot is ever-so-slightly shorter than the current international foot, by about 1.7 parts per million.
In *international feet*, 1 British/Imperial nautical mile works out to 6079.979 feet.
... except for the fact that they actually call it a metric "ton". You know in casual conversation they're just going to abbreviate that to "ton", and at that point you've got the potential for confusion with the U.S. short ton, the Imperial long ton, the Air Conditioning ton, shipping tonnage, etc..
You wrote: "1m can mean 0.56m to 1.49m (rounded). That is very ambiguous!"
This is an issue with ANY unit of measurement, not just meters. Inches and feet have exactly the same limitation. It's known in the sciences as "significant digits", and it represents the limits of the precision of your measurements. Something "1 ft" long could be anywhere from 0.51 ft to 1.49 ft long, while something "1.000 ft" long could be anywhere from 0.99951 ft to 1.00049 ft long. (Survey feet or int'l feet?!)
Great video, but when you mentioned the "one kilogram", the "one litre", you should have mentioned that those measurements come from the "one meter" ... A 1m^3 cube will weigh 1,000 Kg (1 Tonne), etc
Not mention the A4 paper grading scale... A0 is 1m^2, A1 is half that, A2 is half A1, etc
A 1 m^3 cube *OF WATER* will be *ABOUT* 1000 kg. It's not exact, though. Officially, the kilogram is defined as the mass of a specific cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy in a vault in France. (No, really!)
+rogermwilcox Hello Roger, nice video. You say that "Officially, the kilogram is defined as the mass of a specific cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy in a vault in France" which is true, but this sample was machined on the ground of the original idea which was "One kilogram will be the weight of one dm3 [= litre] of pure water", and it was not possible to keep permanently a volume of one litre of pure water, inside a box of zero weight, to be used as a reference. Anyway, evaporation would quickly mess it all ;-P ;-) . So it was a platinum-iridium cylinder which was carefully machined according to this ground.
But even the famous cylinder stored in the "Pavillon de Breteuil, à Sèvres" (as I learned at primary school in the early fifties, and which may well be in another place today !!!! ), even this sample is decaying and must be replaced by another (more accurate) definition, as the spirit of the SI / metric system is to always provide a reference of units in accordance with (or ahead of) the needs of advanced research.
A team of Russian + US research group is proposing a sphere of silicium (very stable and geometrical structure) containing an EXACT number of silicium atoms.
They propose one kilogram to become 35,6 times the Avogadro Number of silicium atoms. Avogadro Nr = number of atoms of 12 grams of C12 [carbon 12], its definition varies between = 6,022140857 *10^23 mol-1 ["recommended value" in 2014] and 6,02214076 *10^23 mol-1 [definition of SI in 2015], so this value has to be stated officially if this new reference is adopted. New technologies allowing an exact count of atoms has made this new (proposed) definition possible.
But you probably knew all this, already.
Have a nice day..
How are they going to ensure the isotope ratio of all the silicon atoms in the sphere? Silicon-28, -29, and -30 are all found in nature, in non-trivial amounts, and they all have different atomic masses.
james757live it should be liter, meter and gram not kilogram! Kilogram are just 1000g. So when you say kg its like saying one km, cm or cl.
@gamingwiz24 I think his point was that all the units in metrics are consist an no matter what you're using them for. Cheers to metrics!
Actually, Reuel T is right -- more or less. Celsius's original scale defined 0 degrees as the temperature of boiling water and (positive) 100 degrees as the freezing point of water. The modern Celsius temperature scale, which is named after him, reverses these numbers and uses 0 as the freezing point and 100 as the boiling point.
I am working with US and german made machines. And it is really confusing, that some data from the german machine are very exact for example 0.51mm and 0.58mm, the US product on the other hand just give me 0.2 inches for both data points.
I hate it.
you got me at 5:04 stones^^ why not call it bananas :D
Technically, the plural of "stone" (the unit of weight equal to 14 pound avoirdupois) is "stone." 1 stone, 2 stone, 3 stone, etc.. It gets its name from the fact that big rocks of precise weight were used in the Olden Days [TM] on balance scales, for determining the weights of large objects (like sacks of potatoes). A stone of 14 pounds was used for weighing livestock.
Story about one engineer working in the USA. He worked there for 10 years and once said: I could live with new culture, but that idiotic imperial system is driving me crazy.
nautical kilometer does exist (cause of imperial and flying international) its only used for flight stuff
You can blame ancient Babylon for their obsession with Base 60. If the ancient Babylonians had been able to measure fractions of a second, you can be sure there'd be a 1/60-second-long time unit called a "third".
I shake my head in disbelief not only at the craziness of those units of measurements, but that Americans have been 'trying' to change over for over a century and still haven't!
If I remember correctly the country I'm from changed over in the 1960's and we haven't looked back since. We are a 3rd world country!
As for those that say that they will have issues with old instructions (for units of measure) for example baking. Most things we have, are stamped with both measurements, on the things we measure with. (But if it doesn't, there are also conversion charts of the more common measurements.) I have noticed that thier availability has become less in some areas for measuring things over the last few years. But it has now been more than 50 years since converting. Most people do not need them anymore.
Also by using the Metric system, that 99% of the rest of the world is using. It will save money due to errors not been made. Like loosing a multi-million dollar probe because somebody got the measurements wrong.
The trick is changing over and not going back, no matter who grumbles. It's like going for a swim. Dipping your toes in the water saying that it is too cold and pulling them out again. Will not get you in the water. You need to jump in and let the shock of the cold water hit you for a moment or two. After that your body adjusts and you are able to have an enjoyable swim. It is the same with this change over. Just do it.
-- "If I remember correctly, the country I'm from changed over in the 1960's and we haven't looked back since. We are a 3rd world country!"
Well, that may be a big part of the issue. A huge, well-developed nation like the US. has a large population and an enormous amount of infrastructure and industry built on the old units. That makes it harder to change, compared to a small, poorly-developed country that doesn't have all that stuff. Also, because of America's enormous size and its relative geographical isolation (we only share a border with two other countries), most people in the U.S. simply don't have to deal with the measurement systems of other countries. So there just isn't a compelling reason to change -- the old units actually work quite well for everyday use. While at the same time, the inconvenience in trying to change is substantial. So with a large detriment and no great benefit from changing systems, it's no surprise at all that the general population of the U.S. hasn't embraced the metric system. (But note that the fields of science, engineering, and medicine have.)
(And yes, I know about the famous Mars orbiter fiasco. Being squarely in the field of science and engineering, Lockheed Martin absolutely *_should_* have been using metric units all along. When I read about that mishap 18 years ago, I was shocked to learn that Lockheed Martin wasn't using metric units for its aerospace designs. WTF??? I couldn't believe it. I can't think of any endeavor where metric units would be more appropriate. Orbital trajectories and rocket thrust is all about math & physics, which is _precisely_ what the SI system is designed for. It's truly mind-boggling that L-M wasn't using SI/metric units for designing and building *_spacecraft,_* of all things. We're not talking about baking loaves of bread here. But that was 18 years ago, and I'm sure they've learned their lesson!)
But as for ordinary everyday personal and household use (not international commerce or science or engineering), the old customary units are actually quite handy.
I *do* like your "jumping in to the swimming pool" analogy, though. :-)
@Electronic Adventures But both the inch and the pound is defined using metric.
@@darkiee69 : Yeah, but that doesn't make them metric units. (Also, they weren't always defined that way. Inches and pounds are old units that predate the metric system.)
@@Milesco They're not metric, but they're defined by metric. An inch is 25,400050800mm, no more, no less. A pound is 0,453 592 37kg. It's all defined by the SI system.
@@darkiee69 : Yeah, I know that. 🙂
(But just to be clear, an inch is exactly 25.4 mm.)
It is nog about the length, is it what.you do with it
Is that miles to the Imperial gallon, or miles to the U.S. liquid gallon?
Look it up before you answer. The answer might not be what you think.
metric is so awesome
You're not the first to suggest that the metric system, while an improvement over the old U.S. customary units, is still lacking.
Particle physicists, for example, use a system called "Planck units," in which the basic constants of the universe -- the speed of light, the reduced Planck constant, Newton's gravitational constat, the Coulomb constant, and the Boltzmann constant -- are all set equal to 1. This results in some weird base units; the Planck mass works out to 21.7651 micrograms.
@Ashbury2193 To be fair, the way we were trying to metrify the country in the late 1970s was pretty backward. Especially the changes to education -- we still taught kids about inches and pounds first, then taught them how to CONVERT to metric units. I think Reagan's advisors made the right recommendation to pull the plug on that particular attempt. Next time, maybe we'll do it RIGHT.
Another reason is to make sure no mistakes are made due to the confusion around non-metric systems.
-"what's the weight of that precision part again?"
-"How much fuel did we need again to get that into orbit?"
-"What was the speed we needed again?"
No wonder why they scrapped the US/English/Imperial system.
Well, although we will have bigger problems to deal with, that isn't any reason to add to our load.
Since we will be changing our system of units later anyways, why change now? The trouble of converting will be almost 50 percent greater in the case of looking back at measurements. I feel no motivation for a switch now.
By "obsolete system", do you mean the metric or the imperialist system (I'm not sure if I say that right)?
You're not the first person to bring up this objection to the metric system. It's based around powers of 10, rather than powers of 2 or 6 or 12 or 30, because humans use base 10 for counting -- but only because we happen to have 10 fingers and thumbs.
However, most practical applications that call for dividing a unit into thirds are usually only interested in approximations anyway. A recipe that calls for 1/3 of a cup of milk usually works fine with 3/8 cup, for example.
Actually, the time isn't measured within the metric system since it's not based on base 10. They tried to do it, but it never caught on. (I hope this last sentence is correct.)
I had not heard that the U.S. bushel used for corn was different from the U.S. bushel used for wheat or barley. What are the differences? Can you point me to a place where the three are defined?
In the UK we also have pound as the currency. So things that are sold by weight are priced like "three pounds per pound"
Because the pound used to be a pound of silver.