I was in elementary school in the US when there was a big push to switch to the metric system. We were taught the metric system in just a few hours over a week. Super easy! I remember going home and explaining it to my mom ( who came from Italy) . A sweet smile came over her face and she said, “Finally, you learn something good in an American school!” And then it suddenly disappeared never to be heard about again. 😂
Same for me. One year we were learning the metric system, the next there wasn't a mention of it. Based on what grade I was in, it must have been the Carter Administration that initiated it and the Reagan Administration that dropped it.
In 1972 when I was 12 years old my family got a brand new Chevrolet Vega as a second car. On the speedometer it had big numbers that indicated miles per hour. But it also had little smaller numbers for kilometers. They told us the USA was in the process of converting to the metric system so they put those little smaller numbers so when the change finally happened we could still drive the car and use the speedometer . That 72 Vega is long gone and the switch to metric is still in process. Give it another fifty years and they might finally get it done.
before retiring, my father worked for a company that makes precision items (for example metal mini locks and studs for gucci and such). There were an order from the US that sended specifics in imperial. So they converted in metric (we are talking about measures in less than millimiters and those machines didn't work in imperial) and produced. After that they shipped the items with documents in metric. The us company complained that they didn't the job in imperial and shipped it back, ordering a remake and menacing of sueing. The company simply waited a month and reprinted the documents in imperial and shipped back (cheaper than fighting in tribunal i think)
I heard a similar story about a shipment of condoms shipped to Italy that were returned for “being to small for the average Italian male” and returned. The company then sent a shipment of extra large condoms in return marked American medium with apologies for the first shipment !
So in short, the US decided to do something sensible and rich companies used their money and influence to stop that. To me over here in Europe this sounds like 90% of US policy making in the last 100 years so no surprises here
No, actually many companies do use Metric units. The entire automotive industry switched to Metric hardware. The wine industry uses Metric bottles. Medicine is almost entirely Metric.
I was in school in Canada when we switched over, the only thing that changed at first was labels. Ice cream still came in a gallon or a quart but it had a metric number on it with some decimal places in it. Once these companies retooled over the next few years for upgraded machinery, which they would do in any case, they simply switched to litres. In the end there is very little actual cost. The public backlash was a much bigger deal, different is always bad. It would be the same for the US. I look at it like a bandaid rip it off and move on.
Most of the Canadians I know use the imperial measurement system still. They work on classic cars and they say that is all they have ever known. So it must just be with younger Canadians?
@@torekristoffersen176 If you work on something old that item will naturally be made with the measurements used when it was produced. In a car that means nuts and bolts etc. When you go for new things, like household items, food, cloths etc you change quickly. Some things will take a generation or so to change. A few things might be cultural and even harder to change, like the British still serving a beer pint 50+ years after the change to metric. Speed limits are one of the tricker things to change. You want to change all signs and all speedometers at once, and that is not practically possible.
I lived in Montreal in 1967 and 1968. I had previously lived in both the USofA and Germany so I was familiar with both systems. Moved back to the USofA and then in 1971 back to Canada. All of a sudden everything was metric, but as you explain, the containers were still imperial, just labelled in metric. So the Canadians were complaining "What is 0.113 kg supposed to mean? I want my simple 4 oz back!" Eventually they changed the containers, and now people would go "100 grams is way more simple than 3.53 oz. Metric is so much easier!" In the USofA, they made the first change but not the second. So USofAians still think metric is complicated.
As a little kid in the 1970's, I remember the whole "we're converting the country to metric" push. In grade school we learned all the units of measure for both the metric and imperial systems. But the metric system never fully caught on here. Currently in the U.S., we have a mix of both systems. You can drive a mile to the store and buy a liter of Coka-Cola. Or put a gallon of gas (petrol) in your car and drive to the start of a 10 K run. When I was in the military, we had 81mm mortars. Want to know how much each mortar round weighed? About 15 pounds.
german here, i remember my grandma uses "Pfund" (pound)" and "unze" (ounce) to measure something and nowadays we measure the size of our TV in "zoll" (inch)..
@@ClaudiaG.1979 Two "Pfund" was one "Kilogramm", so it was kind-a metric, I never have encountered "Unze" in recipes nor my grandmother using it (except for dealing with precious metals). I have indeed encountered "Deka" but that relates to my family's origins. And yes, I'm old enough for that since both of my grandmothers were born before World War I. But what always amuses me: A "Gliedermaßstab" is still called a "Zollstock".
Cups and teaspoons still make more sense in the kitchen. No one questions the strange relationships of the milliliters on metric measuring cups, but they are actually based on measurements to come to the nearest cup, half cup, tablespoon, and so forth.
Some trivia: in 1793 the french botanist Joseph Dombey was sent to the US. He should support Thomas Jefferson to convince the congress establishing the metric system. He had a copper bar of one meter and a cylinder of one kilogramm in his baggage. Unfortunately there was a storm and his ship drifted into the caribbean sea. There he got caught by pirates who arrested him and destroyed his equipment. One year later he died there in captivity. The french sent another envoy who arrived but Jefferson wasn't US Secretary of State anymore and his successor was no friend of changing the system. Who knows how the story would have ended without the pirates ;-)
It's always the same with those pirates. Imagine Jean Lafitte wouldn't have joined forces with the New Orleans Militia stopping British reinforcments in the swamps of Louisiana...
I still wonder why you at least use the metric system with money, wouldn't it be much more fun if you have something like : 97 Ronnie Reagens = 1 Abe Lincoln and 113 Abe = 1 George Washington or whatever ? Together with the funny fact that you also always need a calculator for real prices, since taxes are not included, that must be really fun 😄
It would be a better analogy if there were 12 Lincolns in a Washington and 12 Reagans in a Lincoln. Then taxes would likely be in 12ths or 24ths and would be easy to figure out.
We don't use metric money, and most likely, neither do you. We write using decimal and we do have a some metric cross over, centidollar (one cent) and decidollar (dime); but the half, quarter, and twentieth dollar units are commonly used, as well as the 2, 5, 20, and 50 times dollar bills. If you wanted to make something more inspired by real US customary units, you shouldn't pick large primes. As @More Fiction suggested 12 would be a good number. Easily divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. So easy to make common splits. We literally use a 12x system for eggs and some other products, dozen (12) and gross (12x12=144). If you want something uglier try 7, 14, 28, 364; call them: dies, furts, moes, and yars. Maybe do some rounding drop those 7s and add some 3s to make 360 the top number, lots of small prime factors, call them degrees. Just a little short of that we can cover halves, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths with just 60, call those splits minutes, and do it a second time to get seconds.
@@barongerhardt you just split it at 100 to get quarter or dime it is still metric as its 1/100 which is base 10 which humans calculate very easy in. So yes your money is metric
The reason for added sales taxes are that there are 50 states and within each states, many counties except Alaska and Louisiana, which charge different amounts of sales taxes, or in some cases none at all.
Its such a hodge podge here. Almost everything in grocery stores lists the weight or amount in imperial and then metric. All medications are in metric. The dimensions of computer hardware (fans) is in metric. Plus if you watch or read news from anywhere in the world most of what they report concerning any measurement is in metric. I really wish that the US had gone metric in the 70s (like Canada did) so I wouldn't have to deal with it.
The (spacial) dimensions of computer hardware (or especially the classification of devices according to their size) are usually stated primarily in inches (not cm), even here in Germany: Over a few decades, we went from using 5.25" floppy drives to 3.5" floppy drives to 3.5" HDDs and 2.5" HDDs ... computer displays are categorized according to their diagonal in inches, the same with laptops, tablets and smartphones... all these things are named according to their sizes in inch - in Germany. this probably shows how the USA have been dominating the computer hardware industry for decades
@Jeff I grew up with the metric system. I like to watch UA-cam channels with content about sewing, crafting, converting, building. It turned out that most of them are in English and a lot of them from the US. So I have the same problem vice-versa, constantly checking on the phone, what Fahrenheit is in Celsius and inch foot feet whatsoever is in centimeters or meters, what a gallon is in liters. But then Wikipedia says: The gallon is a unit of volume in imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use: the imperial gallon (imp gal), defined as 4.54609 litres, which is or was used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and some Caribbean countries; the US gallon (US gal) defined as 231 cubic inches (exactly 3.785411784 L), which is used in the US and some Latin American and Caribbean countries; and the US dry gallon ("usdrygal"), defined as 1⁄8 US bushel (exactly 4.40488377086 L). A one-US-gallon gas can showing "U.S. Gallon" marking (for US use), imperial gallons (for Canadian use), and litres There are four quarts in a gallon and eight pints in a gallon, which have different volumes in different systems. 🤯😳😱 Something like that can only go wrong.
@@tobyk.4911 Nobody uses drives anymore, so whatever. And stuff like power supplies, size of graphic cards, etc are in metric. The only inches we still use are screens. And it sucks. It is basically a label, nothing you really understand. Yeah, I know that a 32'' is kinda big (PC monitor) and obviously bigger than a 30'' monitor... but that's it. I have no idea how big it really is. If it would have been marked as 81cm, it would be so much more comfortable (even though I know that 1 inch is 2.54cm, I still had to use google to make the conversion so I can get a grasp of the size)
We've been metric in my country for about 50 years and I was around to see the change. Metrics are definitely easier, and once your mind shifts to visualising real-world objects in the new units, you stop caring about the old ones. Having said that, I was measuring a piece of wood last month and on my dual-unit rule is just happened to be exactly 4.5". I hadn't used imperial for decades, but on that day I just went with the easy option. A number is just a number.
Imperial aka Inferior: Imperial: So you have 5/16 and need to add a foot to that and divide that by 2 to find the center: 1 foot = 12 inches + 0.3125 gives = 12 5/16 divided by 2 = 6 5/32 converted to inches 6.15625 Metric: 8 + 30 = 38 and 38 / 2 = 19 cm
Well, measuring lengths is really complicated when it comes to fractions. I saw an example for a kitchen countertop once; at first, it had to be 6 feet. Then, after measuring again, it had to be longer, first by 3/8", then another 7/16" and finally another 3/32" more. In metric, that would be 1830mm + 9mm + 11mm + 2mm - very easy. ;-) Also, there are thousands of cases of misconverting doses of medicin each year.
Base 12 divides much better when your doing construction. There's a reason our forefathers used base 12 not base 10, THEY WEREN'T STUPID. It made building things easier. They used metric when it was useful (like money), and Imperial when useful. The rest of the world can bugger off.
@@kevinmarsh8922 "Base 12 divides much better when your doing construction." When and where? And how do you even come to a base of 12? This base is only used for conversion from inch to foot. For all other conversions hte bases are all over the place. I've read a sentence quite some time ago that sums up your comment quite nicely: "imperial units are only good for measuring, but not for calculation" "There's a reason our forefathers" Which forefathers do you mean? Based on your "the rest of the world can bugger off" I have to assume that you are one of the Americans that think that this was all invented for good reasons by the founding fathers. Surprise: it's not. BTW: you know how many definitions of a mile exist? I guess not. "The rest of the world can bugger off." No problem to bugger of from closed minded people like you, who simply don't want to understand. Greetings for showing the world how much of a cliché American your are.
@@kevinmarsh8922 what forefathers, dude? The imperial system was invented by the British Empire and you guy had to adopt it because you were their bitch.
@@johnscaramis2515 I've spent forty years doing construction in the US. I never used yards, miles or much of any thing but feet,(except when poring cement). I get the idea of simplifying the system, but that doesn't make it inherently better. The Egyptions and the Romans, didn't have the concept of an empty set (0) but they built pyramids and aquaducts. Europians built the great cathedrals using undefined measuring sticks, and strings for compasses. I understand the need for standards in measurements and Weights, but try programming ing base 10. Metric isn't inherently better, it's just easier to teach.
It’s even more complicated in Britain, since although we’re supposed to be ‘all metric’ there are still some anomalies. We buy our petrol (gas) in litres but a lot of people still work out their miles per gallon. We still buy our beer in pubs in pints, although we buy our milk in litres. Our car’s speedometers still show Miles per Hour (mph), roadsigns still show miles, and a lot of people still measure their weight in Stones and Pounds NOT Kilos. However our money is now metric based (although NOT in Euros), and our temperature is now °C not °F. A lot of younger people were brought up on the metric system, and the anomalies are more due to the older generation not wanting (or understanding) the change, so given time metric will become the norm.
As a draftsman in the U.S., most jobs are drawn in imperial. However, I've drawn some projects in metric. A federal courthouse in Louisiana was a metric project and a bascule bridge in Mississippi was a metric project. There were a few others over the last 35 years. It's not a big deal. However, it's best not to mix the two systems. Rounding errors accumulate. If you need to build something using metric, just buy a metric tape measure from the hardware store.
Doesn’t the US military work in metric? “I was 30 clicks into the hills, blah blah blah“ Isn’t military ammunition in metric? I was told a long time ago that a 1 inch ID bearing on a Ford or Chevy is in fact built as a metric bearing but renamed in imperial for the peace of mind of the average American. Is this true? Nick
In the US you can't buy a measuring tape in metric at most stores. Believe me I have tried. You have to buy one online. I now buy ones with both measurements online since things like 3D printers, CNC tools and more are only in metric measurements. I am older and have resisted the change but am slowly converting.
@@MrNetnic standard ball bearings are metric, at least bore, O D. and thickness. The races can be made thicker or thinner to produce inch dimensions. Shell bearings ( crankshaft, pjston rod, etc ) are produced fitted to whatever the original diameter of the journal was. Regrinding metric crankshafts used to be done in .020( 20 thousandths, of an inch, ALMOST 1/2 mm. ) That "almost"used to cause headaches. Things fit up either too tight or too loose.
I still remember how at some point in the 1990s Time magazine tried (ultimately unsuccessfully) to go metric. Their reporters would write their articles still using Imperial measurements, then a text editing computer program ran over the whole thing and converted the figures to metric. The result was such howlers as 'the rebel stronghold is situated roughly about 1.604 kilometers to the north of the village'.
I worked in Germany for Opel ( car manufacturer) n the development department . Opel was a Part of the GM Group. Together we developed our stuff. The only thing that was not metric for my work was the date format (mdy). In the engineering, nobody uses imperial. This thing is much to crazy to work with.
fun fact the imperial system in the us is nowadays defined by the metric system. Also most us industrial companys (car companys, pharma, food etc) uses the metric system today. Started with the car industry they realized that using metric is much cheaper for them than using imperial.
less mistakes , who wants to do fractures every day . same goes for carpenters, any idiot can built a cabinet in metric , a math wizard is needed to do it in imperial
Here in the UK we still haven't fully adopted metric.Beer from the pump in pubs is still sold by the pint(something which I believe was fought for on entry to the then EEC)but bottled beer in litres or half litres.Road signs are still in miles and yards which of course means that speedometers have to be in MPH.These though do tend to be switchable which makes driving abroad slightly easier.
I found that funny many years ago that our neighbors to the north in Canada use kilometers as well as Mexico. Interstate 19 A 102 kilometer (63-mile) stretch of highway in from Tucson, Arizona to Nogales near the Mexican border is the only metric highway in the United States. Why is Interstate 19 the only complete highway in the U.S. to have signs using the metric system? Interstate 19, which was first open to traffic in 1962 but not fully completed until 1975, was chosen by the Metric Board to be the first highway with only metric signage as a pilot project for converting all of the U.S. interstate system to the metric system.
US Pints gallons Barrels (of oil) etc aren't imperial, they are smaller than true Imperial UK units, is a PITA if you work in the Oil and Gas industry and you work with companies across the pond
Due to the necessities of creating printed circuit boards and integrated circuits, in the US there has been a special metric system established within the Imperial System: The Mil!. Since most of the lengths, widths and distances are much smaller than one inch, the inch got not divided into fractions the imperial way like 1/2, /1/4, 1/8, but in the metric way into decimal numbers like 1000, 100, 10.
That's just decimal. A "Mil" is one thousandth of an inch, or .001". Look at plastic garbage bags the next time you buy them. The thickness is measured thousandths of an inch. Plastic that is .004" is 4 mils thick. Machine shops have always used decimals instead of fractions. This system has been around as long as industry.
@@threynolds2 The same is true in small caliper rounds. Thus is realized, that the Imperial system is unfit for technical use. In electronics there is a parallel set of parts available with pure metric sizes, that is the distance between Pins is not 100mil, but 2mm, which is slightly smaller.
It’s just the same old US Customary system. We have long used decimal fractions of US units when it suits us. My bathroom scale gives weight in pounds and tenths. Decimal does not imply Metric.
@@GH-oi2jf How come, that for smaller and more precise measurements decimal fractions are considered useful, but not the conversion between inches, feet, miles, gallons, stones and so on? Metric means decimal fractions for all measurements, no matter of volume, weight, force, length and more. The basis of that system, the "Urmeter" is just of arbitrarily size, it could be anything, but it is important, that it is exactly the same everywhere.
At this point I'm just glad you still use seconds, minutes and hours. Just imagine you would call them something like blinks, yawns, farts. 4 blinks equal a yawn. 2 yawns are a fart, and 49 farts - or also called megafart, are what the rest of the world would call 25 minutes.
When you think about it, seconds, minutes, and hours are pretty convoluted with their mixture of base 60 and 24/12, expressed decimally. But, they were already pretty universal (or remained unimportant to trade), so metric time didn't catch on, even though it was proposed. The main impetus of the metric system was standardization, not ease of calculation.
In Canada, meteorological data is in metric units, road distances and speed limits (along with speedometers and odometers) are metric as well. Gasoline, diesel, etc. are sold in liters. Building materials however are in US customary, natural gas meters are still in cubic feet, oven temperatures are in fahrenheit and railroads still use miles and mph. Produce can still be sold by the pound, but also in grams/kilograms.
The adoption of the "new French metric system" throughout continental Europe probably had some association with Napoleon's control over most of the continent in the early 1800s. During this time, Napoleon essentially redefined legal and scientific criteria to assure conformation, improve Continental System trade, and exclude trade with Great Britain. Oh, the Celsius (or Centigrade) measure of temperature is not part of the metric system; that would be Kelvin, a system only used in science. Celsius was developed by a Swedish scientist much earlier in the 18th century.
Indeed Kelvin is the real temperature meassure, but Celsius isnt a totally different thing. One Kelvin in difference is the same as 1 Degree Celsius in difference, it's pretty much the same measure with a different baseline. - 273,xx C = 0 K
@@reen_oderso yup, 1 degree Kelvin = 1 degree Celsius - only difference between the two is where it begins. In Kelvin, 0° is absolute Zero (so there’s no such thing as a negative temperature in Kelvin), in Celcius, it’s the freezing point of water. They just shifted the 0 mark to something relatable to humans.
I grew up in the UK, then Australia using the Imperial system for measurements and money, after the introduction of the Metric system in the 1960's, I finally found out I didn't need an advanced degree in higher mathematics just to work out how far it was to the nearest shopping centre or work out how much change I should have from my shopping, I just multiplied or divided by 10. Simple. Switching to Metric is a no brainer.
Don't even get me started on the American Wire Gauge (AWG) instead of the metric mm2 for the cross section of a wire. 13 kV systems even use bird names for each size. Like Falcon and Hawk. It's mind boggling.
AWG is far more convenient than using the cross section. We don’t specify the cross section when we buy wire, we just give the name: #12 for most common household wiring. Electrical engineers might be concerned with cross sectional measurement, not laymen.
@@stephanweinberger The big difference is that the namn 3,5 specifies the area - you never need a table or an internet connection to know what you are holding in you're hand.
I'm an engineer in the UK and when I was an apprentice in 1982 we did everything in imperial. Then one Monday, we started doing everything in metric. So we had to learn both, all new projects are metric, unless its made under licence or supplied by the US. Once you get used to it, its fine. 25.4mm to the inch, that's all you need to know! Road signs are in MPH and miles and there is a mix of yards or metres (Which are near enough the same) It would cost too much to change the road signs, so we stay as we are
The argument of "it costs to much money to change XXX" is so flawed... I mean, those road signs don't last forever! The next time you need to replace them, add both MPH and KMH to it, and the next time those need to be replaced only add KMH. So, now you changed it with no additional costs in about 20 years. The UK switched in 1965, so... no reason to still have imperial units on road signs.
@@annekekramer3835 Fully agree about the road sign renewal, but MPH still rules in the UK, and if you ever went in a pub and ordered 1/2 a Litre of bitter you would get laughed at, some things are here to stay
To be honest, when I saw the second channel I thought: "Why would I watch this?!" (of course other then thirsting over Nick). However, after watching several of these short videos I have to admit, I quite like it. I learn interesting facts, learn new things, and Nick you're disseminating the info in a good, entertaining way. Keep going.
It's not that we don't use the metric system, it's just that we haven't adopted it exclusively. Where I went to school, they taught us metric right along with the imperial--and I mean from first grade all the way through high school, we were talking about miles and kilometers, pounds and kilograms, quarts and liters, etc., and how to convert measurements between the two systems. Metric is unavoidable in the American automobile industry, for instance, because a substantial amount of people drive cars manufactured to metric standards overseas. You'll find that most rulers sold in the US have metric on one side and imperial on the other. I do think it's kind of weird that we haven't adopted the metric system universally, because I personally feel like it's a BETTER system, I just hope no one's walking around with the misconception that we're all totally ignorant of what it is or how it works.
Yesterday I went to Home Depot to get a metric tape measure... Out of forty-plus different styles of tape measures, there was one, a Stanley, that had metric units. I was not a fan of the metric system until I got into RC vehicles, which are mainly metric. Metric measurements just make sense, and it is so much easier using half or whole numbers going up are down in sizes vs having to figure out the fraction for going up or down in size. Plus, the conversions between units in the SAE system is completely arbitrary, vs just moving the decimal point.
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But, because the USA is a signatory of the Metre Convention, all the customary imperial units used in the country are defined by a conversion from metrical units. The USA uses the metrical system without noticing it.
Yes well explained. The map is kind of wrong in that the US is actually a metric based country that uses imperial measurements in everyday life because people never really got the memo (aka noone organized the change).
They aren’t actually connected. The USA participated in the convention in 1875 but decided to tie US Customary units to Metric units only in 1893. Nothing in the Convention du Mètre requires that, but there are good reasons for doing so.
A lot of everyday life is in metric. Everything in the military. Nearly everything scientific. Practically everything in medicine. Just not stuff that would upset the violent idiots who would go on shooting sprees if we tried to switch the rest away from their beloved "freedom units."
After moving to Germany and then having to come to terms with apartments don't come with anything in the kitchens, you have to install it all yourself; I became a quick fan of metric for performing simple measurements. Ikea cabinets are all 20,30,60 cm wide, with 60 being the most common size. Dealing in 60 and not 23 5/8 is so much easier. Made it so much easier to compute how many cabinets would fit along a wall. Most appliances are 60cm wide, so your fridge, stove, dishwasher and/or washing machine could all be easily configured in kitchen spacing. No dealing with uneven numbers and fractions. Trim the counter top piece to 140 cm, not 55 1/8 inches.
yes, why did they divide the US dollar into 100 cents (like the meter is divided into 100 centimeters) ? why isn't it divided into e.g. 72 pence or 120 whatever... and why aren't there 24$, 72$ and 1680$ notes, as you would expect in a non-metric system?
Even when we did we had a half pence initially but that did not las long and I believe we were the only decimal currency to have such a small value coin.
In Canada we still mostly use the Imperial system for a lot of things. If asked how far something is, or how big a fish you caught is, the answer will likely be in feet or miles, or inches and pounds. Rarely will someone reply with "about 4 meters or 10 kilometers, or 35 centimeters, or 1.3 kilograms . Although I do reply in metric just for kicks .
As if the imperial isn´t complicated enough there are for instance 3 different kind of "ounces" alone in the USA 1) ounces "avoirdupois" = 1 ounce = 1.727 cubic inches (international inches) used for all kinds of stuff 2) ounces "troy" = 1ounce = 1.898 cubic inches (international inches) used for metal 3) "fluid" ounces = 1ounce = 1.8045 cubic inches (international inches) used for liquid ("international inches/foot" because there would be also a "survey inch/foot" as well used for measuring landscapes and that inch/foot has - of course - a different format) So in practical use what is more/heavier? an ounce of gold or an ounce of feathers? = answer "a ounce of Gold" because gold is measured in "troy" then there is also 2 kinds of pounds as well pound "avoirdupois" = 16 ounces "avoirdupois" pound "troy" = 12 ounces "troy" So 1 pound of gold is suddenly now way less than 1 pound of feathers + different tons, different miles, different pints, different gallons, and lots of different barrels as well. And I didn´t even mention the british ones which are additional different as well. that´s simply just a huge mess of imperial measurements. the metric has just - 1 - "one" - value - ONLY...for everything....1 gramm/kilogramm/ton of gold weights exactly as like 1 gramm/kilogramm/ton of feathers 1 meter, 1 liter, 1 gramm, 1 ton, 1 what ever is for everything...always with the same value for what is to measure...and every type of metric measurement is always in direct relation to an other type of metric measurement as well... For instance 1 liter (measurement of liquid) = 1 cubic decimeter (measurement of volume)..that is a cube of the size 1 decimeter length x 1decimeter width x 1decimeter height (measurement of length) and has 1 kilogramm (measurement of weight) that´s why science/scientists worldwide - also in the USA - uses the metric system, because it makes everything in behalf of measurement in all facets way easier and additionally way more efficient = killing 2 birds with just one stone. Sticking to the imperial system is a pure political decision..and "politics" and "logic based common sense" are - for the very most part = in 99.99999 % of all cases - not in the slightest compatible ...
@@mojojim6458 Ha, Ha, Ha "The american knock out argument"... ...the US citizen has to be "entertained" in every aspect of life. Hi Jim. How is it going. Hope you´re doing fine.
I help develop wind energy and the company I work for uses metric for everything except air temperature. So there are certain US industries [often with an international element] that have made the transition already.
Though many industries in the US did switch. Photography is metric. Focal length of lenses has always been in millimeters when I was growing up. Went shopping for bicycles and the tire diameter and width is in millimeters. When was the last time you heard a car engine's displacement described in cubic inches? To over simplify what I read in Wikipedia, big business objected to the conversion because of money, then actually switched because of money; international trade and suppliers.
As an automobile technician, I’ve worked on Swedish and Japanese vehicles for over forty years. Even the tape measures I use at work are metric. I’m also an amateur handyman and woodworker. Everything I do at home is done in “feet” and “inches”. It’s no big deal to think millimeters all day long and in inches in the evening. When you’re the biggest economy in the world, you can measure things however you want.
I think it's also related to the US being alone and far away from everything. Two borders in the north and sins and to the east and west much water. And it is a huge country that is enough for itself. In everyday life, you probably hardly notice what a mess the imperial system is. To get used to it is difficult. It took me years to get the same habit with the euro that I had with the deutschmark.
I think one reason you didn't mention is that the US simply had much less incentive to switch: In 1875 they were a large, relatively isolated country which already a consistent measurement system: 1 mile in New York was the same as 1 mile in Chicago and 1 Mile in San Francisco. But in Europe the situation was much more fragmented: Every country (and in some cases even different cities within the same country) had their own definition of a foot, a mile, a pound, etc. So for most countries switching to the metric system had an immediate benefit which outweighed the costs. For the US the benefits would have been lower (and maybe the costs higher, but I'm not convinced of that).
Yes, if the whole world had already settled on a convoluted but universal system, we would still be using that convoluted but universal system. Think hours, minutes, and seconds.
Here is an odd mix of both systems that I discovered when I visited California in the early 90s. I went to the supermarket and at the deli counter they were selling salad by the pound. Being a visiting student, and living on my own, I did not want to buy large amounts. Often in the UK we would (in the past) buy a 1/4 pound, but because I had so many new options of salads to choose from I only want small tubs of may half of that (2 oz). I asked for 2 ounces of this salad. I was answered with a 'What is 2 ounces?' I said, it would show them on the scale, it didn't. The scale was in decimal and weighed 0.1 pound, 0.2 pound, etc. Not only that the served did not know what 2 ounces was equivalent to. I said it was just over 0.1 pounds. Here is another one, and it is a bit of an old joke in the UK. A man walks into a hardware store, and asks for 6 ft of quarter inch dowel. He is told that everything is now metric, and what he wanted was 6 millimeter dowel. The customer says, 'That's OK, give me 2 meters of 6 millimeter dowel'. The shopkeeper says that dowel does not come in 2 meter lengths, but 1.8 meter. 'Why?' asks the customer, to which comes the answer, 'They work to the nearest foot.' Strange, but actually true.
Your deli example is not a case of mixed systems. Modern deli scales generally register lbs with decimal fractions. The manner of representing fractions is an entirely separate matter from the choice of units. A digital scale might have a mode which registers ounces, but it would be an imposition on the counter person to change the settings. It is better to order the way it is registered on the scale, but a half or quarter pound works. An eighth of a pound (.125) is a little small to trouble a counterman with. I would look for prepackaged salads, which are common in supermarket delicatessens.
I think it's a fun fact that even NASA (the US space agency) uses the metric system for many, if not most of their calculations. 👀 For their astronauts on the ISS, they also have to provide all data in both units. Bit of a hassle. 🙄😄
unfortunately, many of NASA's contractors are US companies who think in the imperial system... and once, during the construction of a Mars probe, someone apparently was not aware of the difference... which made the communication between this contractors "imperial" component and NASAs "metric" calculating part of the project... well ... problematic
As well as the U.S. military, which has been using the metric system for many decades.
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@@tobyk.4911 In fact, they lost the Mars Climate Orbiter, which was destroyed by the Mars atmosphere, because one contractor used Imperial units for setting up some softwares of the probe.
NASA is science, so of course they use the SI units used by every other scientist. All imperial units are defined by their metric counterpart, not based on physical representations, as metric also shifted from objects to constants.
@ yes, that was what I meant. Well, if every contractor uses whatever units they want (internally, in their components), this would be fine as long as the interfaces between their components are well-defined (as you should assume in such an expensive project which can't be fixed if an error is noticed after it has started), and everybody uses these interfaces according to the specifications.
Btw, the US imperial system is also used in Germany in a few applications: Screen sizes (Monitor and Mobile phone) and drive sizes (Floppy sizes like 5 1/4", and then drive bays for floppy/cd drives/ Harddisks) Ofc nobody actually has an idea what that is in centimeters. Usually we just use it either as fixed term (like for Floppies, where you only got 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 as the popular ones) or as comparison to what we know. Like if you have a 22" screen, you know that 24" is a little bit bigger than what you have.
These are all areas, where the US set the standards, that's why. For monitors etc. I usually do look up the metric values, they are usually given somewhere, I think they have to be. Inches (Zoll) are also used in further areas like bikes. I don't think that is due to any US-influence but has historic reasons, some old industry standards just never changed. And if you change the unit, you want to change to sensible values. E.g. 70cm bike wheels instead of 28 inch, not 71,12. But if you do that, you loose compatibility in all kinds of places. Also in seafaring and avionics traditional units are used like nautical miles, knots, etc.
I'd really like to learn, why the USA, Belize, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands measure temperatures using the German Fahrenheit system and the rest of the world doesn't.
Well, not everything invented in Germany makes sense. Didn't he take the coldest temperature in his hometown Danzig as base or something? I have to look it up again...
@@eily_b At first he used the coldest temperature of his hometown Danzig for scaling his 0 degree mark but later he adapted and used brine/Seawater. But he had 2 other reference points as well therefore 3 reference points in total which additionally was the temperature of human blood = 96 degree mark on the Fahrenheit scale and a mixture of ice and sweet water = 32 degree mark at the Fahrenheit scale.
@@wora1111 Because we don't, to use a quote, "live in a country that cares about its people". We live in a country that only cares about monetary profit. Sooner or later that attitude precipitates a downward spiral, when it weakens the backbone middle class, leaving mostly a few very wealthy with many poor with a decimated middle. I wonder if we will ever learn from history?
Some nice food for thought: E=m×v^2/2. If you use kg and m/s the energy comes out a J. Nothing new there. But if you use lb and ft/s and want the energy i ft lbf the formula is E=0.0155m×v^2/2. F=m×a plug in mass in kg and acceleration in m/s^2 and you get the force in N. But if you use lb and ft/s^2 and want the force in lbf the formula is F=0.0311m×a. So if you want to stick with imperical you must memorize 0.0155, 0.0311... and so on for each formula. And don't mix them up.
Although the UK went metric in the 1960s there are some some things in Imperial. Road signs give distances in miles and speeds are in miles per hour. To appeal to traditionalists beer is still sold in pints in our bars and you can still buy milk in pints.
More accurately, citizens use US Customary Units, while ALL US government agencies and most (not all) industries use metric. That's why this whole, "Why doesn't the US use metric," question is a moot point.
Another fine bit of fascinating, informative information. Thanks so much!
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You're wrong right at the beginning. You don't use the imperial system, you use "US customary" units. Compare your US gallon to the actual imperial gallon, the imperial gallon is more 4 liters, the US gallon less than 4 liters. All the volume units are different. The imperial ton is different from the US ton. Length units are the same, sure, but that's just a part of the whole measuring system.
Although petrol (gas) is sold at pumps in litres, many of us in the UK still think in terms of gallons. But the UK gallon and the US gallon are different! One is based on an old beer gallon, another on an old wine gallon. And only just going out of use in the jewellery trade are pounds troy and troy ounces. These are both different from the old imperial measure of weight, the pounds and ounces avoirdupois ( pronounced avverderpoiz). There is an ancient unit called the 'barleycorn', and this is the same for both systems.
I take of my hat Sir, as the humble american you seem to be, you didn't call them "freedom units". Always find that funny when people do that. I think "colonial units" would fit better, as they came to be used in the US while being a colony. And every other former colony that got it's freedom is using the metric system.
@@Ettibridget330 million Americans. About one person in 50 qualifies for Mensa in the USA. Please note, if you have poor reading skills, that doesn't mean that over six million people in the USA are Mensa members. That means that they _qualify_ for membership. You've met plenty of intelligent Americans if you meet even small number of them. However, why let facts interrupt a perfectly good round of plausibly deniable insults? Sorry for the typo; old keyboard.
Judging by Jan 6 it might have been a bit premature to call them “freedom units” If things continue to go the way many want it to go, a more apt description would be “conspiracy units”
@@bbb462cid 1 in 50. That's a great way of expressing and visualising "98th percentile". To counter your interpretation of the statement, though ... it isn't always a pleasure to meet an intelligent American.
Here's a funny one - Car tyres (tires) and rims. Worldwide, the diameter is always expressed in inches and the tread width is in millimeters. Eg: 185/70-15 = 185mm - 15inches. (The "70" is the sidewall height as a % ratio of the 185, that is: 70% of 185). The reason for that is a coincidence of ratios and proportion in standard steps in those sizes. Increase one of the dimensions in a tyre's set of numbers and then also decrease one of the others by the same "step", and the rolling circumference is nearly identical. Eg: 185/70-15, 195/70-14, 175/70-16, 185/60-16 all have approximately the same circumference.
It's funny where we use metric units in the US. We buy cans of soda in ounces and large bottles of soda in liters. Most cars today, even made in the US, have metric engines pieced together with metric bolts, except for the wheels and tires. Those are imperial. In medicine, we have pints of blood, liters of saline, and cubic centimeters of injections. Where I work, we make a resin product in pounds, but measure the catalyst in grams. In construction, however, I'm glad that we still make 4 x 8 panels as they go nicely on my 16" centered studs.
@@mojojim6458 it’s less complicated than it first appears to be. There are basic units and every group of ten small units has a new name, but people use only some of them. For instance: use millimeters for relatively small measurements; with ten millimeters you talk about centimeters until you get to one meter. There is a decimeter (ten centimeters) but nobody talks about them. The same thing happens with lengths longer than one meter: you keep measuring in meters until you get to one kilometer. No one is talking about decameter (10 meters) or hectometer (100 meters). A similar situation prevails for weighing and volume units. There’s a lot of names involved but people use only a couple of them.
Not sure how you came across my news feed. But as an older Brit, I use both and many of my counter parts do in the UK. Though younger generation will tend to think metric. Our distances for travel are still miles. We buy petrol in litres, but still use miles per gallon. Weight, my pets I know their weight in kg, but people I still think in stones and pounds. Again for height I'll use feet and inches. If you tell me how tall someone is in cm, I would have to convert it for me to visualise if the are short or tall. But if I am building or making something then metric all the way. The maths is easier :) Buying food, drink and goods are all metric, but often I still use pounds and ounces for cooking. Temperature I was brought up using Fahrenheit, but now use and think centigrade. I think many Brits over the age of 40 will comfortably swap between the two. Metric is so much easier to use, but I will always for somethings revert to good old imperial measurements.
Thanks for the history lesson. Still doesn't explain why though. Money? Sure but we are talking about the planets largest economy here...if Ethiopia can do it certainly the US could afford it as well. Unless of course the answer to the question is in fact, corporate greed and the average U S citizens fear of change are the real answer.
That's all cool and stuff, but the answer is simple- there's no real pressing need. And using Ethiopia as a (ahem, this is on purpose) yardstick is frankly bizarre. Ethipoia can do it so that means what exactly? That Ethiopia and the USA are so similar and are in the same sets of circumstances so closely that policy means it should be adopted by the other?
I was working in design in a factory that mainly made fire door frames when Australia went metric. Suddenly my job became much easier, but the guys on the factory floor who cut and bent the sheet metal were seen scratching their heads while looking at their new metric steel rulers, because they had learned how to 'fudge' certain measurements to allow for bent seams that would give a finished product with the correct overall dimensions - even though we used tried and true formulae in our plans. They were all-at-sea for a few days then everything settled down again with zero fuss thereafter.... I remember also being pulled over on my motorbike by a highway patrol car at that time - "Do you know you were doing over 100 (kph)?" My response, "WOW! It felt like I was doing no more than 60 (mph) ". "Ok, ok (chuckle), I get it. Just be careful and make sure you don't speed again. Off you go."
What makes it even more weird is that the US gallon is smaller than an Imperial gallon, which we still use in Britain, but only in the context of calculating fuel consumption (we buy our fuel in litres), and some measures used in the US such as bushels haven't been used in the UK for a hundred years.
When you go to the country to buy a large quantity of apples, do they weigh them? A bushel is a more convenient unit for that purpose. City folks who only shop for food at a supermarket never use bushels.
I love the irony that the USA go on about winning their independence from the British Empire. Yet are one of the only countries that still cling to the Imperialist's measurement system.
A 102 kilometer (63-mile) stretch of highway (I-19) from Tucson, Arizona to Nogales near the Mexican border uses metric signage, only example in the US.
There are two quite separate aspects to the metric system - one is the metric system itself, and the other is the decimal system. The huge advantage of the metric system is that weights, lengths and volumes are all related to each other - a litre is a volume of 1000 cubic centimetres (so you can relate volume to length quite easily). A kilogramme of water is one litre in volume. The other main advantage is that you don't get different numbers of units in different measures. So 1000 grams in a kilo, 1000 millimetres in a metre etc. Compare this with 16 ounces in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone, 112 pounds in a hundredweight, 20 hundredweight in a ton, 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard etc. Very confusing. But, the other aspect of the metric system - units of 10 and multiples thereof, is very unfortunate. That comes about simply because we have 10 digits on our hands, and we use digits to count. But 10 is a really poor choice - its divisors are 10, 5 and 2. The latter two are prime numbers, so can't be sub-divided. If we had 8 digits, or 12 or 16, then things would have been even better, numerically. 16 can be divided by 2, 4 or 8. 4 and 8 can be divided into equal groups. We would still have the same advantages of decimals (moving the decimal point as we divide or multiply by the base - 10 in the case of decimal (which is base 10), 16 in he case of base 16, 8 in the case of octal (base 8) ) but we would have had much more flexibility in how we divide numbers into equal groups. Of course, we are stuck with decimals - but decimals are not really an advantage per se in the metric system. It is the unification of length, volume and weight that is the main advantage, and the fact that there is a uniform number of units and subunits in each case.
I see your point, kind of. But you have to admit, that in many, many use cases, you don't divide a 10 something. If you want to cut a 2850 mm table in half, it doesnt help that 16 divides better. Which brings me to another point: If you use smaller units, you don't end up dealing with fractions of a whole number. Because with the base 10 the switching between larger and smaller units is so easy, you can take advantage of that easily. Professionals often use mm, even if the degree of precision isnt necessary.
@@reen_oderso Hmm - I will often have to divide by numbers, often not 10. For example, panelled doors - I have made several that are two wide by 3 high (and the sizes of the panels' heights are not all the same). Similarly with raised and fielded panelling. But the point is that with 12 and 16, you have more options for dividing something up into equal sizes. Base 10 is only convenient to us because we have 10 digits, and so we chose base 10 (the Sumarians, I think it was, used base 60 - hence 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 360 degrees etc.). If we had used base 16, then divisions would have been just as simple in that base as we now find it in base 10 - simply moving the hexadecimal point forwards or backwards, as we do with the decimal point. There is nothing 'natural' about decimals other than the number of digits we have. In some cultures, they don't count on their fingers, but rather on things like knuckles, parts of the arm etc. If you count on the knuckles of the fingers (using the thumb to keep your place) then you would probably be using base 16. So the decimal system is quite separate (in principle) from the metric system. The metric system was an attempt to relate measurements to the natural world. The metre was a decimal fraction of the measurement of the earth's circumference (IIRC) for example. We now use better natural relationships (wavelengths, vibrations of particular atoms etc.) to standardise metric measurements. As I say, we are stuck with base 10, but it is one of the worst bases that we could have chosen.
@@steveknight878 dividing 12 is easy, but multiplying it not so much^^ if we were using base 12 for all numbers then you'd be right, but since our calculations are base 10 using base 10 for measurements aswell is the most convenient
@@johnuferbach9166 Yes. I think I said that. We are stuck with base 10 (for most things. As a computer programmer I have the joys of base 16 or, sometimes, base 8
10 fingers are a problem only in US... You don't need to divide anything in the metric system not by 2 nor by 5. You just move the decimal. In countries with metric system you could be a carpenter - even if you are missing three fingers... Only small kids uses there fingers to count in Europe.
That is a perfect example of a retcon. When I look at a ruler and see an inch on there, i just see an inch and not 2.54 cm, or .254 decimeters, or .0254 meters. I can go metric or imperial but the idea that metric is easier to understand is flawed for me. In the imperial system we basically talk in units. We say 4 feet not 48 inches. In metric some would say "54 cm" vs ".54 meters". In metric you are always converting, yes the converting is easier but not needed.
Last I heard, all length measurements were based on a particular wavelength of light. 1 inch = 2.54 cm is a close equivalent, but I'll bet, doing precision machine work, it isn't close enough. There's enough trouble grinding engine crankshafts to that equivalence ( been there, done that ), and they aren't all THAT precision ( typically 5 to 7 / 1000's of an inch, almost 1/ 4 mm.) I have never seen the definition of an inch in wavelengths of light, but I'll bet there is one. Any ammount up to 99 cents.
I'll reply to myself. I Am A JERK. YOU ARE CORRECT. The inch is Legally defined as "exactly 2.54 cm. ". If you push it too far jnto precision work, I'll bet that jsn't good enough. But probably nobody uses inches for very precision work anymore. I owe y'all 99 cents. Please send self addressed, stamped envelopes for payment. Limited number available today. 😉
It reminds a bit of the spelling reforms here in the Netherlands we have about every 15 years, to make correct spelling more logical and easier. Easier it would be if we all started out blank, but we don't, for me it gets harder with every spelling reform because I only have to learn more and not forget which was the latest. So I'm not judgemental at all about people who want to stick to how they learned it, for them it's a burden no matter how much easier the metric system is. It also gets harder to change the longer you wait. It also reminds me of DagenH in Sweden, you don't want to change the side of the road that is driven on with today's traffic. Nontheless, the advantages are so huge that I would advise the USA to switch to the metric system. Not because of internationalism, but for the intrinsic quality and advantages of the metric system itself.
That Myanmar mainly uses the imperial system is a widespread misconception. They actually use their own traditional system(s), while one using the imperial system for square measurements. The maps depicts the three countries that didn't officially implement the metric system.
Same with Fahrenheit. Freezing point at 0°C is so much easier... and what about the billions that are "Milliarden" in Germany? Followed by Billionen? A lot of confusion caused by that.
@@thomasseidel2381 Alter, glaubst du ich bin bescheuert? Ich verwechsel gar nichts, ich werfe in den virtuellen Raum, dass man mal genauer nachschauen könnte, warum es keine Milliarden im englischen Sprachgebrauch gibt. Fänd ich interessant da ein Nalfsense Video dazu zu sehen...
The US auto industry has been metric once the 70s. We commonly buy soda in two liter bottles and while less common than 16 oz. bottles, one liter bottles are also available. The UK still uses miles on their highways and us measurements are frequently used by Brits in cooking and heights and weights.
Technically they're UK measurements, not US measurements. An inch is the length of the last King of England's big toe, and a foot is the length of his foot. Hence the variance in Europe, since a country would use that as the basis for their measurements under the imperial system, but would use the length of their own King's foot and toe for their inches and feet. It's a little ironic that the US still uses a measurement system based on the bodily dimensions of a monarch they despised.
I'm quite happy using cups and teaspoons, tablespoons, etc......rather than having to have a scale on my counter and figure out grams, or ml's when I can just use a cup or spoon measure.
@@bevtuft3572 So you have standardized cups, teaspoons and tablespoons, just for measuring food? How is having a scale on your counter more inconveniant than using several other measurement instruments?
US should use metric system, and kilometer system - and kilo system - and multi party system - and militäry time and - and european gun laws and ... healthcare system and social security system and give up patriotism and ...
I grew up using the metric system and had to learn the imperial system when I moved to the US. Knowing both systems, I can honestly say the metric system is easier and more precise. If what I’m stating weren’t true then why do some of the most important industries in the country use metric. NASA, BOING, DEVELOPERS OF WEAPONS, ELECTRONICS, ECT.
Correction: No, USA does not use the imperial system. There is nothing remotely systematic about that mishmash of random bodyparts and other things you combine into your measurement randomness.
An English bishop, John Wilkins, (1614-1672) invented the system part of the decimal metric system when he published a book with a plan for a 'universal measure' in 1668. To be more exact, Bishop Wilkins released his plan for what became the decimal metric system on Monday, 1668 April 13
I think in now day&age it's not that important as the goods imported/exported by US are not that impacted, mainly electronics. But the cost of switching the whole US infrastructure would be gigantic.
Nonsense! Infrastructure wears out or becomes obsolete at some point and needs to be replaced. Make the conversion then. The American automotive industry did this decades ago. Road signs, for example, need to be replaced periodically as they become unreadable. First, show both with Imperial in a larger font; at the next replacement with SI in the larger font; and, at the next replacement, with SI units only. Florida did a similar thing when its interstates switched from numbering exits consecutively to using mile numbers. Easy pease!
I agree that the US should switch to the metric system, except for temperatures. Weight, length, and volume all benefit from the metric system but temperatures do not enjoy any such benefits. Having 180 degrees between freezing and boiling water instead of a hundred makes temperatures more precise. As for dates, it makes more sense to write them the way you say them. If someone asks you your birthdate, you don't say "Five March, 1991." You say "March fifth, 1991."
UK we use both, just depends if i measure something might be easier to measure in inches or millimetres. Often products are shown converted from inch to metric because the product was made in China for a US market. I think US military use metric, probably a NATO thing.
A few problems with this video. First, the USA does use the metric system in many places...the military, every medication I've ever purchased, everything at the grocery store has a metric measurement and even every car has a km/h measurement (not really metric but that's another point). To change every street sign in the country would cost mega $....and for what exactly? GPS can show you both. What is gained? To me....nothing really other than to say you did it. As a taxpayer I can think of thousands of better uses for that money. Also you cannot FORCE people to do it here. And lastly, the entire world only partially adopted the metric system as well. Oddly no mention of that fact. Why didn't they? "Too hard", "inconvenience", "unpopular", words words words (in a derisive tone). Even the f'in French did not convert to metric time....because...words. When they all progress to metric time, as I have, I'll stop measuring my weight in LBS.
I was a draughtsman in UK 1980's, we used whatever measure the customer drawings came in to make tools. UK/US usually inches, European metric (Ford Europe metric/Ford US imperial) Even though UK was supposed to be metric by then. Machine tools in shops were in inches. Would imagine huge problem back then converting all machines to metric, easy now with computer cnc machines. Would imagine international space programs were a nightmare. Concorde designers UK inches, in France metric?
I really like your hoodie; it matches your eyes. Joey is hoping that you leave it behind when you return to Germany. He wants his eyes to look nice, too.
There's also a difference between the UK and US imperial measurements for liquid measure. In days of yore (before the colonies and the UK were established) England used two different volume measures for beer and wine. A pint of beer was 20 fluid ounces and a pint of wine was 16 oz. When such things were standardised the UK went with 20 oz to the pint and the USA with 16oz. That's why Americans get less beer in a pint than the UK and less petrol/gas in a gallon. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems
Here in the UK we interchange between everything. Usually when things require any degree of accuracy or measurement info needs to be passed on and understood by others, we swap to metric because 1800mm is easier to measure accurately than 70.886 inches. We still use miles, feet, stone and lbs interchangeably with meters, km, kg and ml and I don’t think it causes any issues. It’s an ease of use thing ya know? I’d never see anyone ordering “0.57L of lager please”, it’s a pint. What I will never get though is why an American gallon is different to a UK gallon. That completely baffles me.
Greetings from England we are 50 / 50 metric / imperial ie Road speed is MPH and car fuel economic is MPG but fuel is sold at ££$$ / litre. Beer is sold in pint glasses but millilitre bottles - milk sold in litres. Most people state there height and weight in feet and stone etc Timber is sold in linear lengths of metre x 6x2 inches messed up......
Why the USA still use the imperial system? Because of the same reason why they do all the other stupid stuff. Because its citizens learn from the age of being toddlers that the USA are the best country in the world. So how could anything other countries do be better?
Because they obviously love to do fractions like, 4 and three quarter-inches plus 7 and seven sixteenth-inches instead of just shifting a comma left or right like normal people do.
If the US would start to use the metric system, as a quid pro quo the rest of the world could adopt American-English spelling (color, honor, etc), and we would all be better off!
I beg to differ! The British spelling nicely links these words to their French origin. It's like a little history lesson hidden in a word spelling. I adore details like that.
I remember a time when some gas stations changed to liter and people got so upset because they didn't understand it. The price was the same as before but now they had 60 liter instead of 15 gallons and in their minds they thought they pay more.
These are the same people that almost put A&W out of business because they thought McDonald’s burgers were larger. A&W sold 1/3 pounders, McDonald’s sold 1/4 pounders. 4>3 so McDonald’s must be bigger obviously. Americans are dumb even using their own system.
The funny thing is is that in many aspects of life, perhaps even most, the US has converted to metric. US cars for example are all metric as is a lot of industry that sells overseas. You're not going to export anything to Europe that's going to require imperial tools to work on for example. Besides that everything is a mish-mash with some products sold in imperial (actually a US version of imperial units since our gallon for example is 4/5ths the size of an imperial gallon) but marked in both units and some other products made in metric sizes but labeled once again both ways. There are even some products where some sizes are imperial (a 12 oz can or 16 oz bottle of Coke for example) and some sizes are metric (a 2 liter bottle of Coke). Heck even one stretch of I-19 in Arizona has exits numbered in kilometers! I still have hope eventually globalization will force our hands but that's still probably 20 years out at best.
"US cars for example are all metric as is a lot of industry that sells overseas." beside of Rims and tires they all in Imperial also in Europe...strange ;)
@@rudimentar6583 Mostly though I used to have a '79 Mustang with 190/65HR390 (as in 390mm) Michelin TRX tires which was an option that Ford offered back then.
In 1972 when I was 12 years old my family got a brand new Chevrolet Vega as a second car. On the speedometer it had big numbers that indicated miles per hour. But it also had little smaller numbers for kilometers. They told us the USA was in the process of converting to the metric system so they put those little smaller numbers so when the change finally happened we could still drive the car and use the speedometer . That 72 Vega is long gone and the switch to metric is still in process. Give it another fifty years and they might finally get it done.
Pause at 2:38 -By the 1870s only a dozen or so countries had switched to metric. By the 1870s the USA was deep into developing the largest industrial infrastructure of any country on the planet, including the largest railway network. It was because of our *early* success at industrialization, putting us well ahead of most other countries, that we ended up wedded to a system that was *later* superceded. Having built that huge infrastructure the economic case for changing it to metric simply hasn't been strong enough to win out. I have a Master's Degree in structural engineering and have worked in countries using both systems. Guess what. They both work just fine. Because they both work, there is even less economic incentive to make the change. Perhaps someday the economics will change. At that point the change will probably happen. I would encourage anyone with children to get them comfortable using both. It's actually good training, being able to think in both systems.
It is more a matter that the US uses both. Newer autos and pharmacy prescriptions are metric, while construction is tied to the 4 foot framing compatibility, with all home construction being even multiples of four feet.
I remember in elementary school (as well as another writer) when we were introduced to metric in Canada. We still talk imperial for construction terms/lingo, but we are still metric overall - all good. It seems by your description, that a select group of influential corporate elites blocked the USA going metric - yeah, these powerful groups ;-). Another good video would be why the USA did not switch to 1 or 2 dollar coins (get rid of bills) - Canada also did this change. Also why USA bills are all the same colour ;-). Thanks!
I also remember the changeover to metric in Canada. In retrospect, one forgotten reason for the switch had to do with the price of gas, which was just approaching the $1 per gallon threshold. There was lots of noise about that price point, and my doing the metric change at that time, they made it sound less expensive. 22¢ a litre sounds cheaper but adds up the same. For you Americans doing the math, don't forget that the imperial gallon is bigger than a US gallon, yet another reason to switch to metric now, so your head doesn't explode converting when you are on vacation. 🤔
@@duanerutherford9033 one of the main motivators we were taught in school is that the metric system is used by countries representing 90 percent of the world's population; three-fourths of world trade is carried out in metric measurements.
I seem to remember a certain space station part NOT fitting because it was manufactured using imperial while everyone else was using metric, was that the yanks??yes i think it was
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I was in elementary school in the US when there was a big push to switch to the metric system. We were taught the metric system in just a few hours over a week. Super easy! I remember going home and explaining it to my mom ( who came from Italy) . A sweet smile came over her face and she said, “Finally, you learn something good in an American school!” And then it suddenly disappeared never to be heard about again. 😂
Same for me. One year we were learning the metric system, the next there wasn't a mention of it. Based on what grade I was in, it must have been the Carter Administration that initiated it and the Reagan Administration that dropped it.
In 1972 when I was 12 years old my family got a brand new Chevrolet Vega as a second car. On the speedometer it had big numbers that indicated miles per hour. But it also had little smaller numbers for kilometers. They told us the USA was in the process of converting to the metric system so they put those little smaller numbers so when the change finally happened we could still drive the car and use the speedometer .
That 72 Vega is long gone and the switch to metric is still in process. Give it another fifty years and they might finally get it done.
@@frankmarsh1159 - I remember those speedometers.
Same.
@@frankmarsh1159 … but every nut & bolt in that Chevy !🤣😂
before retiring, my father worked for a company that makes precision items (for example metal mini locks and studs for gucci and such). There were an order from the US that sended specifics in imperial. So they converted in metric (we are talking about measures in less than millimiters and those machines didn't work in imperial) and produced. After that they shipped the items with documents in metric. The us company complained that they didn't the job in imperial and shipped it back, ordering a remake and menacing of sueing. The company simply waited a month and reprinted the documents in imperial and shipped back (cheaper than fighting in tribunal i think)
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I heard a similar story about a shipment of condoms shipped to Italy that were returned for “being to small for the average Italian male” and returned. The company then sent a shipment of extra large condoms in return marked American medium with apologies for the first shipment !
@@leonardmacaulay9833 😆🤪
So in short, the US decided to do something sensible and rich companies used their money and influence to stop that. To me over here in Europe this sounds like 90% of US policy making in the last 100 years so no surprises here
No, actually many companies do use Metric units. The entire automotive industry switched to Metric hardware. The wine industry uses Metric bottles. Medicine is almost entirely Metric.
@@GH-oi2jf NASA also entirely uses metric. It doesn't get much more American than that lol.
@@TheMarslMcFly as does the US Army since about 1911 I believe
@@TheMarslMcFly Because the Nazi war criminals, who started NASA, knew metrics only. Does not get more American than that lol
That, or a free country _encourages_ people to do things instead of *forcing* them to do it.
I was in school in Canada when we switched over, the only thing that changed at first was labels. Ice cream still came in a gallon or a quart but it had a metric number on it with some decimal places in it. Once these companies retooled over the next few years for upgraded machinery, which they would do in any case, they simply switched to litres. In the end there is very little actual cost. The public backlash was a much bigger deal, different is always bad. It would be the same for the US. I look at it like a bandaid rip it off and move on.
Good analogy! Ouch!
Most of the Canadians I know use the imperial measurement system still. They work on classic cars and they say that is all they have ever known. So it must just be with younger Canadians?
If you don't push it like "do it all right now, immediatelly!" then the costs can be significantly reduced. But they always will be there.
@@torekristoffersen176 If you work on something old that item will naturally be made with the measurements used when it was produced.
In a car that means nuts and bolts etc.
When you go for new things, like household items, food, cloths etc you change quickly.
Some things will take a generation or so to change.
A few things might be cultural and even harder to change, like the British still serving a beer pint 50+ years after the change to metric.
Speed limits are one of the tricker things to change. You want to change all signs and all speedometers at once, and that is not practically possible.
I lived in Montreal in 1967 and 1968. I had previously lived in both the USofA and Germany so I was familiar with both systems. Moved back to the USofA and then in 1971 back to Canada. All of a sudden everything was metric, but as you explain, the containers were still imperial, just labelled in metric. So the Canadians were complaining "What is 0.113 kg supposed to mean? I want my simple 4 oz back!" Eventually they changed the containers, and now people would go "100 grams is way more simple than 3.53 oz. Metric is so much easier!"
In the USofA, they made the first change but not the second. So USofAians still think metric is complicated.
As a little kid in the 1970's, I remember the whole "we're converting the country to metric" push.
In grade school we learned all the units of measure for both the metric and imperial systems.
But the metric system never fully caught on here.
Currently in the U.S., we have a mix of both systems.
You can drive a mile to the store and buy a liter of Coka-Cola.
Or put a gallon of gas (petrol) in your car and drive to the start of a 10 K run.
When I was in the military, we had 81mm mortars.
Want to know how much each mortar round weighed?
About 15 pounds.
Or as some smart guy put it: Americans learn metric via soft drinks and drugs...
german here, i remember my grandma uses "Pfund" (pound)" and "unze" (ounce) to measure something and nowadays we measure the size of our TV in "zoll" (inch)..
@@ClaudiaG.1979 but the screensize is dominated by the american producers of pc screens. In former days you had the size in cm...
@@nordishbynature268 Yes, I remember a 63 cm diagonal...
@@ClaudiaG.1979 Two "Pfund" was one "Kilogramm", so it was kind-a metric, I never have encountered "Unze" in recipes nor my grandmother using it (except for dealing with precious metals). I have indeed encountered "Deka" but that relates to my family's origins. And yes, I'm old enough for that since both of my grandmothers were born before World War I.
But what always amuses me: A "Gliedermaßstab" is still called a "Zollstock".
Cups and teaspoons still make more sense in the kitchen. No one questions the strange relationships of the milliliters on metric measuring cups, but they are actually based on measurements to come to the nearest cup, half cup, tablespoon, and so forth.
Some trivia: in 1793 the french botanist Joseph Dombey was sent to the US. He should support Thomas Jefferson to convince the congress establishing the metric system. He had a copper bar of one meter and a cylinder of one kilogramm in his baggage. Unfortunately there was a storm and his ship drifted into the caribbean sea. There he got caught by pirates who arrested him and destroyed his equipment. One year later he died there in captivity. The french sent another envoy who arrived but Jefferson wasn't US Secretary of State anymore and his successor was no friend of changing the system. Who knows how the story would have ended without the pirates ;-)
It's always the same with those pirates. Imagine Jean Lafitte wouldn't have joined forces with the New Orleans Militia stopping British reinforcments in the swamps of Louisiana...
Remember, the USA is a corporation that tolerates citizens.
I guess it only will last until they are surpassed by robots... Then they will get rid of all humans but the owners.
@@la7dfa inevitably so, but they are late, i expected that to be like this by now, star trek has failed me here ... boooh 😂
I still wonder why you at least use the metric system with money, wouldn't it be much more fun if you have something like :
97 Ronnie Reagens = 1 Abe Lincoln and 113 Abe = 1 George Washington or whatever ?
Together with the funny fact that you also always need a calculator for real prices, since taxes are not included, that must be really fun 😄
It would be a better analogy if there were 12 Lincolns in a Washington and 12 Reagans in a Lincoln. Then taxes would likely be in 12ths or 24ths and would be easy to figure out.
We don't use metric money, and most likely, neither do you. We write using decimal and we do have a some metric cross over, centidollar (one cent) and decidollar (dime); but the half, quarter, and twentieth dollar units are commonly used, as well as the 2, 5, 20, and 50 times dollar bills.
If you wanted to make something more inspired by real US customary units, you shouldn't pick large primes. As @More Fiction suggested 12 would be a good number. Easily divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. So easy to make common splits. We literally use a 12x system for eggs and some other products, dozen (12) and gross (12x12=144). If you want something uglier try 7, 14, 28, 364; call them: dies, furts, moes, and yars. Maybe do some rounding drop those 7s and add some 3s to make 360 the top number, lots of small prime factors, call them degrees. Just a little short of that we can cover halves, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths with just 60, call those splits minutes, and do it a second time to get seconds.
@@barongerhardt you just split it at 100 to get quarter or dime it is still metric as its 1/100 which is base 10 which humans calculate very easy in. So yes your money is metric
The reason for added sales taxes are that there are 50 states and within each states, many counties except Alaska and Louisiana, which charge different amounts of sales taxes, or in some cases none at all.
Just like guineas, shillings and pence.
Its such a hodge podge here. Almost everything in grocery stores lists the weight or amount in imperial and then metric. All medications are in metric. The dimensions of computer hardware (fans) is in metric. Plus if you watch or read news from anywhere in the world most of what they report concerning any measurement is in metric. I really wish that the US had gone metric in the 70s (like Canada did) so I wouldn't have to deal with it.
But even Canada only half-assed the switch towards the Metric system. They also only partially adopted it in practice.
The (spacial) dimensions of computer hardware (or especially the classification of devices according to their size) are usually stated primarily in inches (not cm), even here in Germany: Over a few decades, we went from using 5.25" floppy drives to 3.5" floppy drives to 3.5" HDDs and 2.5" HDDs ... computer displays are categorized according to their diagonal in inches, the same with laptops, tablets and smartphones... all these things are named according to their sizes in inch - in Germany.
this probably shows how the USA have been dominating the computer hardware industry for decades
@Jeff
I grew up with the metric system. I like to watch UA-cam channels with content about sewing, crafting, converting, building. It turned out that most of them are in English and a lot of them from the US. So I have the same problem vice-versa, constantly checking on the phone, what Fahrenheit is in Celsius and inch foot feet whatsoever is in centimeters or meters, what a gallon is in liters.
But then Wikipedia says:
The gallon is a unit of volume in imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use:
the imperial gallon (imp gal), defined as 4.54609 litres, which is or was used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and some Caribbean countries;
the US gallon (US gal) defined as 231 cubic inches (exactly 3.785411784 L), which is used in the US and some Latin American and Caribbean countries; and
the US dry gallon ("usdrygal"), defined as 1⁄8 US bushel (exactly 4.40488377086 L).
A one-US-gallon gas can showing "U.S. Gallon" marking (for US use), imperial gallons (for Canadian use), and litres
There are four quarts in a gallon and eight pints in a gallon, which have different volumes in different systems.
🤯😳😱
Something like that can only go wrong.
@@tobyk.4911 I think inches are well understood globally, but can get difficult/complex if you need exact measurements like 7/32 of an inch :)
@@tobyk.4911 Nobody uses drives anymore, so whatever. And stuff like power supplies, size of graphic cards, etc are in metric. The only inches we still use are screens. And it sucks. It is basically a label, nothing you really understand.
Yeah, I know that a 32'' is kinda big (PC monitor) and obviously bigger than a 30'' monitor... but that's it. I have no idea how big it really is. If it would have been marked as 81cm, it would be so much more comfortable (even though I know that 1 inch is 2.54cm, I still had to use google to make the conversion so I can get a grasp of the size)
We've been metric in my country for about 50 years and I was around to see the change. Metrics are definitely easier, and once your mind shifts to visualising real-world objects in the new units, you stop caring about the old ones. Having said that, I was measuring a piece of wood last month and on my dual-unit rule is just happened to be exactly 4.5". I hadn't used imperial for decades, but on that day I just went with the easy option. A number is just a number.
its only handy for when the earth moon and the sun are in perfect alignment.
"A number is just a number."
Yup!
Imperial aka Inferior:
Imperial:
So you have 5/16 and need to add a foot to that and divide that by 2 to find the center:
1 foot = 12 inches + 0.3125 gives = 12 5/16 divided by 2 = 6 5/32 converted to inches 6.15625
Metric:
8 + 30 = 38 and 38 / 2 = 19 cm
Well, measuring lengths is really complicated when it comes to fractions. I saw an example for a kitchen countertop once; at first, it had to be 6 feet. Then, after measuring again, it had to be longer, first by 3/8", then another 7/16" and finally another 3/32" more. In metric, that would be 1830mm + 9mm + 11mm + 2mm - very easy. ;-)
Also, there are thousands of cases of misconverting doses of medicin each year.
It could be so easy but some boomer mfs don't want anything to change
Base 12 divides much better when your doing construction. There's a reason our forefathers used base 12 not base 10, THEY WEREN'T STUPID. It made building things easier. They used metric when it was useful (like money), and Imperial when useful. The rest of the world can bugger off.
@@kevinmarsh8922 "Base 12 divides much better when your doing construction." When and where?
And how do you even come to a base of 12? This base is only used for conversion from inch to foot. For all other conversions hte bases are all over the place.
I've read a sentence quite some time ago that sums up your comment quite nicely: "imperial units are only good for measuring, but not for calculation"
"There's a reason our forefathers" Which forefathers do you mean? Based on your "the rest of the world can bugger off" I have to assume that you are one of the Americans that think that this was all invented for good reasons by the founding fathers. Surprise: it's not.
BTW: you know how many definitions of a mile exist? I guess not.
"The rest of the world can bugger off." No problem to bugger of from closed minded people like you, who simply don't want to understand. Greetings for showing the world how much of a cliché American your are.
@@kevinmarsh8922 what forefathers, dude? The imperial system was invented by the British Empire and you guy had to adopt it because you were their bitch.
@@johnscaramis2515 I've spent forty years doing construction in the US. I never used yards, miles or much of any thing but feet,(except when poring cement). I get the idea of simplifying the system, but that doesn't make it inherently better. The Egyptions and the Romans, didn't have the concept of an empty set (0) but they built pyramids and aquaducts. Europians built the great cathedrals using undefined measuring sticks, and strings for compasses. I understand the need for standards in measurements and Weights, but try programming ing base 10. Metric isn't inherently better, it's just easier to teach.
It’s even more complicated in Britain, since although we’re supposed to be ‘all metric’ there are still some anomalies. We buy our petrol (gas) in litres but a lot of people still work out their miles per gallon. We still buy our beer in pubs in pints, although we buy our milk in litres. Our car’s speedometers still show Miles per Hour (mph), roadsigns still show miles, and a lot of people still measure their weight in Stones and Pounds NOT Kilos. However our money is now metric based (although NOT in Euros), and our temperature is now °C not °F.
A lot of younger people were brought up on the metric system, and the anomalies are more due to the older generation not wanting (or understanding) the change, so given time metric will become the norm.
As a draftsman in the U.S., most jobs are drawn in imperial. However, I've drawn some projects in metric. A federal courthouse in Louisiana was a metric project and a bascule bridge in Mississippi was a metric project. There were a few others over the last 35 years. It's not a big deal. However, it's best not to mix the two systems. Rounding errors accumulate. If you need to build something using metric, just buy a metric tape measure from the hardware store.
I'm from the UK and can use both metric easier to use but I'm still 6ft 3
Doesn’t the US military work in metric? “I was 30 clicks into the hills, blah blah blah“ Isn’t military ammunition in metric? I was told a long time ago that a 1 inch ID bearing on a Ford or Chevy is in fact built as a metric bearing but renamed in imperial for the peace of mind of the average American. Is this true? Nick
In the US you can't buy a measuring tape in metric at most stores. Believe me I have tried. You have to buy one online. I now buy ones with both measurements online since things like 3D printers, CNC tools and more are only in metric measurements. I am older and have resisted the change but am slowly converting.
@@90Beater They're in stock at my local Home Depot.
@@MrNetnic standard ball bearings are metric, at least bore, O D. and thickness. The races can be made thicker or thinner to produce inch dimensions. Shell bearings ( crankshaft, pjston rod, etc ) are produced fitted to whatever the original diameter of the journal was. Regrinding metric crankshafts used to be done in .020( 20 thousandths, of an inch, ALMOST 1/2 mm. ) That "almost"used to cause headaches. Things fit up either too tight or too loose.
I still remember how at some point in the 1990s Time magazine tried (ultimately unsuccessfully) to go metric. Their reporters would write their articles still using Imperial measurements, then a text editing computer program ran over the whole thing and converted the figures to metric. The result was such howlers as 'the rebel stronghold is situated roughly about 1.604 kilometers to the north of the village'.
I worked in Germany for Opel ( car manufacturer) n the development department . Opel was a Part of the GM Group. Together we developed our stuff. The only thing that was not metric for my work was the date format (mdy). In the engineering, nobody uses imperial. This thing is much to crazy to work with.
I was a draughtsman in UK 1980's, we used whatever measure the customer drawings came in to make tools. UK/US usually inches, European metric.
So, did your mechanics use the 1/2 inch or 3/8 inch drives for the metric socket wrenches?
fun fact the imperial system in the us is nowadays defined by the metric system.
Also most us industrial companys (car companys, pharma, food etc) uses the metric system today. Started with the car industry they realized that using metric is much cheaper for them than using imperial.
less mistakes , who wants to do fractures every day . same goes for carpenters, any idiot can built a cabinet in metric , a math wizard is needed to do it in imperial
@@cheezy2455 UK imperial we never got into the fractions like US, we would write 3.25 inches, not 3 and 1/4, but might say three and one quarter.
@@flybobbie1449 Oh my gosh you just made me smarter. Now I understand imperial much better, not that there's any need since I am a Swede. =)
Here in the UK we still haven't fully adopted metric.Beer from the pump in pubs is still sold by the pint(something which I believe was fought for on entry to the then EEC)but bottled beer in litres or half litres.Road signs are still in miles and yards which of course means that speedometers have to be in MPH.These though do tend to be switchable which makes driving abroad slightly easier.
I found that funny many years ago that our neighbors to the north in Canada use kilometers as well as Mexico.
Interstate 19
A 102 kilometer (63-mile) stretch of highway in from Tucson, Arizona to Nogales near the Mexican border is the only metric highway in the United States.
Why is Interstate 19 the only complete highway in the U.S. to have signs using the metric system? Interstate 19, which was first open to traffic in 1962 but not fully completed until 1975, was chosen by the Metric Board to be the first highway with only metric signage as a pilot project for converting all of the U.S. interstate system to the metric system.
And weight of people in stones. UK is a unit mess and in that sense the point goes to the US.
dont mess with the pint :)
US Pints gallons Barrels (of oil) etc aren't imperial, they are smaller than true Imperial UK units, is a PITA if you work in the Oil and Gas industry and you work with companies across the pond
Due to the necessities of creating printed circuit boards and integrated circuits, in the US there has been a special metric system established within the Imperial System: The Mil!. Since most of the lengths, widths and distances are much smaller than one inch, the inch got not divided into fractions the imperial way like 1/2, /1/4, 1/8, but in the metric way into decimal numbers like 1000, 100, 10.
That's just decimal. A "Mil" is one thousandth of an inch, or .001". Look at plastic garbage bags the next time you buy them. The thickness is measured thousandths of an inch. Plastic that is .004" is 4 mils thick. Machine shops have always used decimals instead of fractions. This system has been around as long as industry.
@@threynolds2 The same is true in small caliper rounds. Thus is realized, that the Imperial system is unfit for technical use.
In electronics there is a parallel set of parts available with pure metric sizes, that is the distance between Pins is not 100mil, but 2mm, which is slightly smaller.
It’s just the same old US Customary system. We have long used decimal fractions of US units when it suits us. My bathroom scale gives weight in pounds and tenths. Decimal does not imply Metric.
@@GH-oi2jf How come, that for smaller and more precise measurements decimal fractions are considered useful, but not the conversion between inches, feet, miles, gallons, stones and so on?
Metric means decimal fractions for all measurements, no matter of volume, weight, force, length and more. The basis of that system, the "Urmeter" is just of arbitrarily size, it could be anything, but it is important, that it is exactly the same everywhere.
At this point I'm just glad you still use seconds, minutes and hours. Just imagine you would call them something like blinks, yawns, farts. 4 blinks equal a yawn. 2 yawns are a fart, and 49 farts - or also called megafart, are what the rest of the world would call 25 minutes.
You forgot a nap = 1h XD
@@promcheg na Bro a nap would be 2,63h😂
@@trunkenb0ld best american unit I've heard has to be baldeagle / second
😂😂😂😂😂😂👍
When you think about it, seconds, minutes, and hours are pretty convoluted with their mixture of base 60 and 24/12, expressed decimally. But, they were already pretty universal (or remained unimportant to trade), so metric time didn't catch on, even though it was proposed. The main impetus of the metric system was standardization, not ease of calculation.
In Canada, meteorological data is in metric units, road distances and speed limits (along with speedometers and odometers) are metric as well. Gasoline, diesel, etc. are sold in liters. Building materials however are in US customary, natural gas meters are still in cubic feet, oven temperatures are in fahrenheit and railroads still use miles and mph. Produce can still be sold by the pound, but also in grams/kilograms.
The adoption of the "new French metric system" throughout continental Europe probably had some association with Napoleon's control over most of the continent in the early 1800s. During this time, Napoleon essentially redefined legal and scientific criteria to assure conformation, improve Continental System trade, and exclude trade with Great Britain. Oh, the Celsius (or Centigrade) measure of temperature is not part of the metric system; that would be Kelvin, a system only used in science. Celsius was developed by a Swedish scientist much earlier in the 18th century.
Yeah, and after Napoleon everyone has sticked with it, because it's easier than to know that 1 feet =/ 1 feet somewhere else
Indeed Kelvin is the real temperature meassure, but Celsius isnt a totally different thing. One Kelvin in difference is the same as 1 Degree Celsius in difference, it's pretty much the same measure with a different baseline. - 273,xx C = 0 K
@@reen_oderso yup, 1 degree Kelvin = 1 degree Celsius - only difference between the two is where it begins. In Kelvin, 0° is absolute Zero (so there’s no such thing as a negative temperature in Kelvin), in Celcius, it’s the freezing point of water. They just shifted the 0 mark to something relatable to humans.
Centigrade is part of the metric system. It start from 0 to +100 for the hot, and from 0 to -100 for the cold. The Swedish version was different.
I grew up in the UK, then Australia using the Imperial system for measurements and money, after the introduction of the Metric system in the 1960's, I finally found out I didn't need an advanced degree in higher mathematics just to work out how far it was to the nearest shopping centre or work out how much change I should have from my shopping, I just multiplied or divided by 10.
Simple. Switching to Metric is a no brainer.
Don't even get me started on the American Wire Gauge (AWG) instead of the metric mm2 for the cross section of a wire.
13 kV systems even use bird names for each size. Like Falcon and Hawk. It's mind boggling.
AWG is far more convenient than using the cross section. We don’t specify the cross section when we buy wire, we just give the name: #12 for most common household wiring.
Electrical engineers might be concerned with cross sectional measurement, not laymen.
@@GH-oi2jf would it make a huge difference to buy "3.5" (mm²) instead of "#12" (AWG)?
@@stephanweinberger The big difference is that the namn 3,5 specifies the area - you never need a table or an internet connection to know what you are holding in you're hand.
Guitar, bass etc. string gauges are also still in inches everywhere. Like a set of guitar strings can be for example .009 - .042.
I'm an engineer in the UK and when I was an apprentice in 1982 we did everything in imperial.
Then one Monday, we started doing everything in metric.
So we had to learn both, all new projects are metric, unless its made under licence or supplied by the US.
Once you get used to it, its fine. 25.4mm to the inch, that's all you need to know!
Road signs are in MPH and miles and there is a mix of yards or metres (Which are near enough the same) It would cost too much to change the road signs, so we stay as we are
The argument of "it costs to much money to change XXX" is so flawed... I mean, those road signs don't last forever! The next time you need to replace them, add both MPH and KMH to it, and the next time those need to be replaced only add KMH. So, now you changed it with no additional costs in about 20 years. The UK switched in 1965, so... no reason to still have imperial units on road signs.
@@annekekramer3835 Fully agree about the road sign renewal, but MPH still rules in the UK, and if you ever went in a pub and ordered 1/2 a Litre of bitter you would get laughed at, some things are here to stay
To be honest, when I saw the second channel I thought: "Why would I watch this?!" (of course other then thirsting over Nick). However, after watching several of these short videos I have to admit, I quite like it. I learn interesting facts, learn new things, and Nick you're disseminating the info in a good, entertaining way. Keep going.
It's not that we don't use the metric system, it's just that we haven't adopted it exclusively. Where I went to school, they taught us metric right along with the imperial--and I mean from first grade all the way through high school, we were talking about miles and kilometers, pounds and kilograms, quarts and liters, etc., and how to convert measurements between the two systems. Metric is unavoidable in the American automobile industry, for instance, because a substantial amount of people drive cars manufactured to metric standards overseas. You'll find that most rulers sold in the US have metric on one side and imperial on the other. I do think it's kind of weird that we haven't adopted the metric system universally, because I personally feel like it's a BETTER system, I just hope no one's walking around with the misconception that we're all totally ignorant of what it is or how it works.
Yesterday I went to Home Depot to get a metric tape measure... Out of forty-plus different styles of tape measures, there was one, a Stanley, that had metric units. I was not a fan of the metric system until I got into RC vehicles, which are mainly metric. Metric measurements just make sense, and it is so much easier using half or whole numbers going up are down in sizes vs having to figure out the fraction for going up or down in size. Plus, the conversions between units in the SAE system is completely arbitrary, vs just moving the decimal point.
But, because the USA is a signatory of the Metre Convention, all the customary imperial units used in the country are defined by a conversion from metrical units. The USA uses the metrical system without noticing it.
Yes well explained. The map is kind of wrong in that the US is actually a metric based country that uses imperial measurements in everyday life because people never really got the memo (aka noone organized the change).
@@DarkHarlequin I bet americans wouldn't have understood the memo anyway...
They aren’t actually connected. The USA participated in the convention in 1875 but decided to tie US Customary units to Metric units only in 1893. Nothing in the Convention du Mètre requires that, but there are good reasons for doing so.
@@GH-oi2jf That i question because twice i have heard offical people talk about how the treaty means us is going to be metric.
A lot of everyday life is in metric. Everything in the military. Nearly everything scientific. Practically everything in medicine. Just not stuff that would upset the violent idiots who would go on shooting sprees if we tried to switch the rest away from their beloved "freedom units."
After moving to Germany and then having to come to terms with apartments don't come with anything in the kitchens, you have to install it all yourself; I became a quick fan of metric for performing simple measurements.
Ikea cabinets are all 20,30,60 cm wide, with 60 being the most common size. Dealing in 60 and not 23 5/8 is so much easier. Made it so much easier to compute how many cabinets would fit along a wall. Most appliances are 60cm wide, so your fridge, stove, dishwasher and/or washing machine could all be easily configured in kitchen spacing.
No dealing with uneven numbers and fractions. Trim the counter top piece to 140 cm, not 55 1/8 inches.
In our defense, the USA adopted a decimal currency long before Big Brother Britain.
On that note. Decimal imperial will always make me laugh. Like in calibres. It's not half an inch diameter bullet. It's .50 calibre.
yes, why did they divide the US dollar into 100 cents (like the meter is divided into 100 centimeters) ?
why isn't it divided into e.g. 72 pence or 120 whatever... and why aren't there 24$, 72$ and 1680$ notes, as you would expect in a non-metric system?
Even when we did we had a half pence initially but that did not las long and I believe we were the only decimal currency to have such a small value coin.
In Canada we still mostly use the Imperial system for a lot of things. If asked how far something is, or how big a fish you caught is, the answer will likely be in feet or miles, or inches and pounds. Rarely will someone reply with "about 4 meters or 10 kilometers, or 35 centimeters, or 1.3 kilograms . Although I do reply in metric just for kicks .
As if the imperial isn´t complicated enough there are for instance 3 different kind of "ounces" alone in the USA
1) ounces "avoirdupois" = 1 ounce = 1.727 cubic inches (international inches) used for all kinds of stuff
2) ounces "troy" = 1ounce = 1.898 cubic inches (international inches) used for metal
3) "fluid" ounces = 1ounce = 1.8045 cubic inches (international inches) used for liquid
("international inches/foot" because there would be also a "survey inch/foot" as well used for measuring landscapes and that inch/foot has - of course - a different format)
So in practical use what is more/heavier? an ounce of gold or an ounce of feathers? = answer "a ounce of Gold" because gold is measured in "troy"
then there is also 2 kinds of pounds as well
pound "avoirdupois" = 16 ounces "avoirdupois"
pound "troy" = 12 ounces "troy"
So 1 pound of gold is suddenly now way less than 1 pound of feathers
+ different tons, different miles, different pints, different gallons, and lots of different barrels as well.
And I didn´t even mention the british ones which are additional different as well.
that´s simply just a huge mess of imperial measurements.
the metric has just - 1 - "one" - value - ONLY...for everything....1 gramm/kilogramm/ton of gold weights exactly as like 1 gramm/kilogramm/ton of feathers
1 meter, 1 liter, 1 gramm, 1 ton, 1 what ever is for everything...always with the same value for what is to measure...and every type of metric measurement is always in direct relation to an other type of metric measurement as well...
For instance 1 liter (measurement of liquid) = 1 cubic decimeter (measurement of volume)..that is a cube of the size 1 decimeter length x 1decimeter width x 1decimeter height (measurement of length) and has 1 kilogramm (measurement of weight)
that´s why science/scientists worldwide - also in the USA - uses the metric system, because it makes everything in behalf of measurement in all facets way easier and additionally way more efficient = killing 2 birds with just one stone.
Sticking to the imperial system is a pure political decision..and "politics" and "logic based common sense" are - for the very most part = in 99.99999 % of all cases - not in the slightest compatible ...
As you've just proven, metric is so boring, so dull.
@@mojojim6458
Ha, Ha, Ha
"The american knock out argument"...
...the US citizen has to be "entertained" in every aspect of life.
Hi Jim. How is it going. Hope you´re doing fine.
You... you are kidding, right?
@@sisuguillam5109 Nope....unfortunately
@@michaelgrabner8977 my brain just broke.
I help develop wind energy and the company I work for uses metric for everything except air temperature. So there are certain US industries [often with an international element] that have made the transition already.
Though many industries in the US did switch. Photography is metric. Focal length of lenses has always been in millimeters when I was growing up. Went shopping for bicycles and the tire diameter and width is in millimeters. When was the last time you heard a car engine's displacement described in cubic inches? To over simplify what I read in Wikipedia, big business objected to the conversion because of money, then actually switched because of money; international trade and suppliers.
Car tires too - the first number (185 or 225 etc) is mm. Although, worldwide the diameter of a tire is in inches.
As an automobile technician, I’ve worked on Swedish and Japanese vehicles for over forty years. Even the tape measures I use at work are metric. I’m also an amateur handyman and woodworker. Everything I do at home is done in “feet” and “inches”. It’s no big deal to think millimeters all day long and in inches in the evening. When you’re the biggest economy in the world, you can measure things however you want.
I think it's also related to the US being alone and far away from everything. Two borders in the north and sins and to the east and west much water. And it is a huge country that is enough for itself. In everyday life, you probably hardly notice what a mess the imperial system is. To get used to it is difficult. It took me years to get the same habit with the euro that I had with the deutschmark.
I think one reason you didn't mention is that the US simply had much less incentive to switch: In 1875 they were a large, relatively isolated country which already a consistent measurement system: 1 mile in New York was the same as 1 mile in Chicago and 1 Mile in San Francisco. But in Europe the situation was much more fragmented: Every country (and in some cases even different cities within the same country) had their own definition of a foot, a mile, a pound, etc. So for most countries switching to the metric system had an immediate benefit which outweighed the costs. For the US the benefits would have been lower (and maybe the costs higher, but I'm not convinced of that).
Yes, if the whole world had already settled on a convoluted but universal system, we would still be using that convoluted but universal system. Think hours, minutes, and seconds.
Here is an odd mix of both systems that I discovered when I visited California in the early 90s. I went to the supermarket and at the deli counter they were selling salad by the pound. Being a visiting student, and living on my own, I did not want to buy large amounts. Often in the UK we would (in the past) buy a 1/4 pound, but because I had so many new options of salads to choose from I only want small tubs of may half of that (2 oz). I asked for 2 ounces of this salad. I was answered with a 'What is 2 ounces?' I said, it would show them on the scale, it didn't. The scale was in decimal and weighed 0.1 pound, 0.2 pound, etc. Not only that the served did not know what 2 ounces was equivalent to. I said it was just over 0.1 pounds.
Here is another one, and it is a bit of an old joke in the UK. A man walks into a hardware store, and asks for 6 ft of quarter inch dowel. He is told that everything is now metric, and what he wanted was 6 millimeter dowel. The customer says, 'That's OK, give me 2 meters of 6 millimeter dowel'. The shopkeeper says that dowel does not come in 2 meter lengths, but 1.8 meter. 'Why?' asks the customer, to which comes the answer, 'They work to the nearest foot.' Strange, but actually true.
Your deli example is not a case of mixed systems. Modern deli scales generally register lbs with decimal fractions. The manner of representing fractions is an entirely separate matter from the choice of units. A digital scale might have a mode which registers ounces, but it would be an imposition on the counter person to change the settings. It is better to order the way it is registered on the scale, but a half or quarter pound works. An eighth of a pound (.125) is a little small to trouble a counterman with. I would look for prepackaged salads, which are common in supermarket delicatessens.
@@GH-oi2jf Duh!
I think we need to have a conversation about what constitutes 'nonsense'.
Thanks, that's exactly what I thought as well.
It's a trick to spread education.
How do you even measure nonsense ? By volume, or weight ?
@@scratchy996 by being wrong , unlogic, not plausible. Or nuts, useless ,irrelevant. Clumsy, naive childish, ....
Like ordering a bottle of sugar.
Worldwide when flying we use a mix of imperial AND metric depending on what we are measuring.
I think it's a fun fact that even NASA (the US space agency) uses the metric system for many, if not most of their calculations. 👀
For their astronauts on the ISS, they also have to provide all data in both units. Bit of a hassle. 🙄😄
unfortunately, many of NASA's contractors are US companies who think in the imperial system... and once, during the construction of a Mars probe, someone apparently was not aware of the difference... which made the communication between this contractors "imperial" component and NASAs "metric" calculating part of the project... well ... problematic
As well as the U.S. military, which has been using the metric system for many decades.
@@tobyk.4911 In fact, they lost the Mars Climate Orbiter, which was destroyed by the Mars atmosphere, because one contractor used Imperial units for setting up some softwares of the probe.
NASA is science, so of course they use the SI units used by every other scientist. All imperial units are defined by their metric counterpart, not based on physical representations, as metric also shifted from objects to constants.
@ yes, that was what I meant.
Well, if every contractor uses whatever units they want (internally, in their components), this would be fine as long as the interfaces between their components are well-defined (as you should assume in such an expensive project which can't be fixed if an error is noticed after it has started), and everybody uses these interfaces according to the specifications.
Btw, the US imperial system is also used in Germany in a few applications: Screen sizes (Monitor and Mobile phone) and drive sizes (Floppy sizes like 5 1/4", and then drive bays for floppy/cd drives/ Harddisks) Ofc nobody actually has an idea what that is in centimeters. Usually we just use it either as fixed term (like for Floppies, where you only got 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 as the popular ones) or as comparison to what we know. Like if you have a 22" screen, you know that 24" is a little bit bigger than what you have.
These are all areas, where the US set the standards, that's why. For monitors etc. I usually do look up the metric values, they are usually given somewhere, I think they have to be.
Inches (Zoll) are also used in further areas like bikes. I don't think that is due to any US-influence but has historic reasons, some old industry standards just never changed. And if you change the unit, you want to change to sensible values. E.g. 70cm bike wheels instead of 28 inch, not 71,12. But if you do that, you loose compatibility in all kinds of places.
Also in seafaring and avionics traditional units are used like nautical miles, knots, etc.
In Denmark too. It's kind of silly.
And tire sizes are a mixture of inches and millimeters.
I'd really like to learn, why the USA, Belize, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands measure temperatures using the German Fahrenheit system and the rest of the world doesn't.
Well, not everything invented in Germany makes sense. Didn't he take the coldest temperature in his hometown Danzig as base or something? I have to look it up again...
@@eily_b At first he used the coldest temperature of his hometown Danzig for scaling his 0 degree mark but later he adapted and used brine/Seawater. But he had 2 other reference points as well therefore 3 reference points in total which additionally was the temperature of human blood = 96 degree mark on the Fahrenheit scale and a mixture of ice and sweet water = 32 degree mark at the Fahrenheit scale.
@@eily_b Yes, not everything makes sense. But why do the Americans have to copy just the stupid stuff? Why not something like global healthcare?
@@wora1111 Because we don't, to use a quote, "live in a country that cares about its people". We live in a country that only cares about monetary profit. Sooner or later that attitude precipitates a downward spiral, when it weakens the backbone middle class, leaving mostly a few very wealthy with many poor with a decimated middle. I wonder if we will ever learn from history?
@@torinsall Based on your own logic, the US will "ever learn from its history" when it is financially and monetarily beneficial....
Some nice food for thought:
E=m×v^2/2. If you use kg and m/s the energy comes out a J. Nothing new there. But if you use lb and ft/s and want the energy i ft lbf the formula is
E=0.0155m×v^2/2.
F=m×a plug in mass in kg and acceleration in m/s^2 and you get the force in N. But if you use lb and ft/s^2 and want the force in lbf the formula is
F=0.0311m×a.
So if you want to stick with imperical you must memorize 0.0155, 0.0311... and so on for each formula. And don't mix them up.
When you retire from football you should think about becoming a history teacher. You have a lot to share.
Or a tour guide - he would be interesting, humorous and informative.
Nalf's History Nonsense
HISTORY TEACHER
AND
TOUR GUIDE ❣
Yeah, if he got a teaching credential he'd be the most popular teacher in school.
You don't do this today anymore. If you have this amount of talent, you start a UA-cam channel and ....
Although the UK went metric in the 1960s there are some some things in Imperial. Road signs give distances in miles and speeds are in miles per hour. To appeal to traditionalists beer is still sold in pints in our bars and you can still buy milk in pints.
More accurately, citizens use US Customary Units, while ALL US government agencies and most (not all) industries use metric. That's why this whole, "Why doesn't the US use metric," question is a moot point.
Everything important is metric. Everyone else can do what the want.
Agreed!
Another fine bit of fascinating, informative information. Thanks so much!
You're wrong right at the beginning. You don't use the imperial system, you use "US customary" units. Compare your US gallon to the actual imperial gallon, the imperial gallon is more 4 liters, the US gallon less than 4 liters. All the volume units are different. The imperial ton is different from the US ton. Length units are the same, sure, but that's just a part of the whole measuring system.
and still explained it with metric proves a point. :)
Although petrol (gas) is sold at pumps in litres, many of us in the UK still think in terms of gallons. But the UK gallon and the US gallon are different! One is based on an old beer gallon, another on an old wine gallon.
And only just going out of use in the jewellery trade are pounds troy and troy ounces. These are both different from the old imperial measure of weight, the pounds and ounces avoirdupois ( pronounced avverderpoiz). There is an ancient unit called the 'barleycorn', and this is the same for both systems.
I take of my hat Sir, as the humble american you seem to be, you didn't call them "freedom units".
Always find that funny when people do that. I think "colonial units" would fit better, as they came to be used in the US while being a colony. And every other former colony that got it's freedom is using the metric system.
I call them "Murrican Units"!
It's always a pleasure to meet an intelligent american.
@@Ettibridget330 million Americans. About one person in 50 qualifies for Mensa in the USA. Please note, if you have poor reading skills, that doesn't mean that over six million people in the USA are Mensa members. That means that they _qualify_ for membership. You've met plenty of intelligent Americans if you meet even small number of them. However, why let facts interrupt a perfectly good round of plausibly deniable insults? Sorry for the typo; old keyboard.
Judging by Jan 6 it might have been a bit premature to call them “freedom units” If things continue to go the way many want it to go, a more apt description would be “conspiracy units”
@@bbb462cid 1 in 50. That's a great way of expressing and visualising "98th percentile". To counter your interpretation of the statement, though ... it isn't always a pleasure to meet an intelligent American.
Here's a funny one - Car tyres (tires) and rims. Worldwide, the diameter is always expressed in inches and the tread width is in millimeters. Eg: 185/70-15 = 185mm - 15inches. (The "70" is the sidewall height as a % ratio of the 185, that is: 70% of 185).
The reason for that is a coincidence of ratios and proportion in standard steps in those sizes. Increase one of the dimensions in a tyre's set of numbers and then also decrease one of the others by the same "step", and the rolling circumference is nearly identical. Eg: 185/70-15, 195/70-14, 175/70-16, 185/60-16 all have approximately the same circumference.
The reason for retaining inches as the unit for wheel sizes is simply that a change would be impractical and unnecessary.
Let’s have some NALFication - very informative and entertaining, thanks! 😎
It's funny where we use metric units in the US. We buy cans of soda in ounces and large bottles of soda in liters. Most cars today, even made in the US, have metric engines pieced together with metric bolts, except for the wheels and tires. Those are imperial. In medicine, we have pints of blood, liters of saline, and cubic centimeters of injections. Where I work, we make a resin product in pounds, but measure the catalyst in grams. In construction, however, I'm glad that we still make 4 x 8 panels as they go nicely on my 16" centered studs.
wondering if NALF can read metric measures in daily life after so many years in Germany.
Oh, I can read them, too. Absolutely. But as for understanding them....
@@mojojim6458 For understanding them....God gave you 10 Fingers to teach you to calculations on a basis of 10. 😄
@@sevenlux7093 I guess the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians had only six fingers, then. LOL
@@mojojim6458 it’s less complicated than it first appears to be. There are basic units and every group of ten small units has a new name, but people use only some of them. For instance: use millimeters for relatively small measurements; with ten millimeters you talk about centimeters until you get to one meter. There is a decimeter (ten centimeters) but nobody talks about them. The same thing happens with lengths longer than one meter: you keep measuring in meters until you get to one kilometer. No one is talking about decameter (10 meters) or hectometer (100 meters). A similar situation prevails for weighing and volume units. There’s a lot of names involved but people use only a couple of them.
Not sure how you came across my news feed. But as an older Brit, I use both and many of my counter parts do in the UK. Though younger generation will tend to think metric.
Our distances for travel are still miles. We buy petrol in litres, but still use miles per gallon.
Weight, my pets I know their weight in kg, but people I still think in stones and pounds. Again for height I'll use feet and inches. If you tell me how tall someone is in cm, I would have to convert it for me to visualise if the are short or tall. But if I am building or making something then metric all the way. The maths is easier :)
Buying food, drink and goods are all metric, but often I still use pounds and ounces for cooking.
Temperature I was brought up using Fahrenheit, but now use and think centigrade.
I think many Brits over the age of 40 will comfortably swap between the two.
Metric is so much easier to use, but I will always for somethings revert to good old imperial measurements.
Thanks for the history lesson. Still doesn't explain why though. Money? Sure but we are talking about the planets largest economy here...if Ethiopia can do it certainly the US could afford it as well.
Unless of course the answer to the question is in fact, corporate greed and the average U S citizens fear of change are the real answer.
That's all cool and stuff, but the answer is simple- there's no real pressing need. And using Ethiopia as a (ahem, this is on purpose) yardstick is frankly bizarre. Ethipoia can do it so that means what exactly? That Ethiopia and the USA are so similar and are in the same sets of circumstances so closely that policy means it should be adopted by the other?
I was working in design in a factory that mainly made fire door frames when Australia went metric. Suddenly my job became much easier, but the guys on the factory floor who cut and bent the sheet metal were seen scratching their heads while looking at their new metric steel rulers, because they had learned how to 'fudge' certain measurements to allow for bent seams that would give a finished product with the correct overall dimensions - even though we used tried and true formulae in our plans. They were all-at-sea for a few days then everything settled down again with zero fuss thereafter.... I remember also being pulled over on my motorbike by a highway patrol car at that time - "Do you know you were doing over 100 (kph)?" My response, "WOW! It felt like I was doing no more than 60 (mph) ". "Ok, ok (chuckle), I get it. Just be careful and make sure you don't speed again. Off you go."
The imperial units are defined in metric so technically the US did convert.
What makes it even more weird is that the US gallon is smaller than an Imperial gallon, which we still use in Britain, but only in the context of calculating fuel consumption (we buy our fuel in litres), and some measures used in the US such as bushels haven't been used in the UK for a hundred years.
When you go to the country to buy a large quantity of apples, do they weigh them? A bushel is a more convenient unit for that purpose. City folks who only shop for food at a supermarket never use bushels.
I love the irony that the USA go on about winning their independence from the British Empire. Yet are one of the only countries that still cling to the Imperialist's measurement system.
Well they did slightly change it so it wasn't exactly the same, just to be a little bit more confusing.
@@AlexKall - We did not change it. The Imperial System was introduced half a century after US independence.
In the seventies, they even went so far as to add KPH under the MPH on all highway speed limit signs. It just never caught on.
In the US they use the metric system in science and Space technology allready
NASA has always been metric. Except the displays for astronauts. Because they still were very American.
A 102 kilometer (63-mile) stretch of highway (I-19) from Tucson, Arizona to Nogales near the Mexican border uses metric signage, only example in the US.
There are two quite separate aspects to the metric system - one is the metric system itself, and the other is the decimal system. The huge advantage of the metric system is that weights, lengths and volumes are all related to each other - a litre is a volume of 1000 cubic centimetres (so you can relate volume to length quite easily). A kilogramme of water is one litre in volume. The other main advantage is that you don't get different numbers of units in different measures. So 1000 grams in a kilo, 1000 millimetres in a metre etc. Compare this with 16 ounces in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone, 112 pounds in a hundredweight, 20 hundredweight in a ton, 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard etc. Very confusing.
But, the other aspect of the metric system - units of 10 and multiples thereof, is very unfortunate. That comes about simply because we have 10 digits on our hands, and we use digits to count. But 10 is a really poor choice - its divisors are 10, 5 and 2. The latter two are prime numbers, so can't be sub-divided. If we had 8 digits, or 12 or 16, then things would have been even better, numerically. 16 can be divided by 2, 4 or 8. 4 and 8 can be divided into equal groups. We would still have the same advantages of decimals (moving the decimal point as we divide or multiply by the base - 10 in the case of decimal (which is base 10), 16 in he case of base 16, 8 in the case of octal (base 8) ) but we would have had much more flexibility in how we divide numbers into equal groups.
Of course, we are stuck with decimals - but decimals are not really an advantage per se in the metric system. It is the unification of length, volume and weight that is the main advantage, and the fact that there is a uniform number of units and subunits in each case.
I see your point, kind of. But you have to admit, that in many, many use cases, you don't divide a 10 something. If you want to cut a 2850 mm table in half, it doesnt help that 16 divides better. Which brings me to another point: If you use smaller units, you don't end up dealing with fractions of a whole number. Because with the base 10 the switching between larger and smaller units is so easy, you can take advantage of that easily. Professionals often use mm, even if the degree of precision isnt necessary.
@@reen_oderso Hmm - I will often have to divide by numbers, often not 10. For example, panelled doors - I have made several that are two wide by 3 high (and the sizes of the panels' heights are not all the same). Similarly with raised and fielded panelling. But the point is that with 12 and 16, you have more options for dividing something up into equal sizes.
Base 10 is only convenient to us because we have 10 digits, and so we chose base 10 (the Sumarians, I think it was, used base 60 - hence 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 360 degrees etc.). If we had used base 16, then divisions would have been just as simple in that base as we now find it in base 10 - simply moving the hexadecimal point forwards or backwards, as we do with the decimal point. There is nothing 'natural' about decimals other than the number of digits we have. In some cultures, they don't count on their fingers, but rather on things like knuckles, parts of the arm etc. If you count on the knuckles of the fingers (using the thumb to keep your place) then you would probably be using base 16.
So the decimal system is quite separate (in principle) from the metric system. The metric system was an attempt to relate measurements to the natural world. The metre was a decimal fraction of the measurement of the earth's circumference (IIRC) for example. We now use better natural relationships (wavelengths, vibrations of particular atoms etc.) to standardise metric measurements.
As I say, we are stuck with base 10, but it is one of the worst bases that we could have chosen.
@@steveknight878 dividing 12 is easy, but multiplying it not so much^^ if we were using base 12 for all numbers then you'd be right, but since our calculations are base 10 using base 10 for measurements aswell is the most convenient
@@johnuferbach9166 Yes. I think I said that. We are stuck with base 10 (for most things. As a computer programmer I have the joys of base 16 or, sometimes, base 8
10 fingers are a problem only in US... You don't need to divide anything in the metric system not by 2 nor by 5. You just move the decimal. In countries with metric system you could be a carpenter - even if you are missing three fingers... Only small kids uses there fingers to count in Europe.
The funniest thing is that the inch since the last 60-odd years have been _defined_ as 25.4 mm. So the base standard is metric even for imperial.
That is a perfect example of a retcon. When I look at a ruler and see an inch on there, i just see an inch and not 2.54 cm, or .254 decimeters, or .0254 meters.
I can go metric or imperial but the idea that metric is easier to understand is flawed for me. In the imperial system we basically talk in units. We say 4 feet not 48 inches. In metric some would say "54 cm" vs ".54 meters". In metric you are always converting, yes the converting is easier but not needed.
Last I heard, all length measurements were based on a particular wavelength of light. 1 inch = 2.54 cm is a close equivalent, but I'll bet, doing precision machine work, it isn't close enough. There's enough trouble grinding engine crankshafts to that equivalence ( been there, done that ), and they aren't all THAT precision ( typically 5 to 7 / 1000's of an inch, almost 1/ 4 mm.) I have never seen the definition of an inch in wavelengths of light, but I'll bet there is one. Any ammount up to 99 cents.
I'll reply to myself. I Am A JERK. YOU ARE CORRECT. The inch is Legally defined as "exactly 2.54 cm. ". If you push it too far jnto precision work, I'll bet that jsn't good enough. But probably nobody uses inches for very precision work anymore.
I owe y'all 99 cents. Please send self addressed, stamped envelopes for payment. Limited number available today. 😉
US Customary units have been defined relative to Metric units since 1893. The international inch was defined in 1959.
@@claytoncourtney1309 the metric IS easier to understand... you can't - without a calculator - calculate the weight of 16 3/8 oz of water to stones
It reminds a bit of the spelling reforms here in the Netherlands we have about every 15 years, to make correct spelling more logical and easier. Easier it would be if we all started out blank, but we don't, for me it gets harder with every spelling reform because I only have to learn more and not forget which was the latest. So I'm not judgemental at all about people who want to stick to how they learned it, for them it's a burden no matter how much easier the metric system is.
It also gets harder to change the longer you wait. It also reminds me of DagenH in Sweden, you don't want to change the side of the road that is driven on with today's traffic. Nontheless, the advantages are so huge that I would advise the USA to switch to the metric system. Not because of internationalism, but for the intrinsic quality and advantages of the metric system itself.
That Myanmar mainly uses the imperial system is a widespread misconception. They actually use their own traditional system(s), while one using the imperial system for square measurements. The maps depicts the three countries that didn't officially implement the metric system.
Same with Fahrenheit. Freezing point at 0°C is so much easier... and what about the billions that are "Milliarden" in Germany? Followed by Billionen? A lot of confusion caused by that.
Please don't confuse "Million", "Milliarde" etc. with the metric system. They're native namings. The metric names are "Mega" and "Tera".
@@thomasseidel2381 Alter, glaubst du ich bin bescheuert? Ich verwechsel gar nichts, ich werfe in den virtuellen Raum, dass man mal genauer nachschauen könnte, warum es keine Milliarden im englischen Sprachgebrauch gibt. Fänd ich interessant da ein Nalfsense Video dazu zu sehen...
@@eily_b wollen wir das mit der Fäkalsprache noch mal überdenken oder hast Du Dich immer noch nicht beruhigt?
@@sisuguillam5109 Vielen Dank, dass ich nicht darauf antworten muss. Manche Leute sind einfach unmöglich.
@@thomasseidel2381 Gerne.
The US auto industry has been metric once the 70s. We commonly buy soda in two liter bottles and while less common than 16 oz. bottles, one liter bottles are also available.
The UK still uses miles on their highways and us measurements are frequently used by Brits in cooking and heights and weights.
Technically they're UK measurements, not US measurements. An inch is the length of the last King of England's big toe, and a foot is the length of his foot. Hence the variance in Europe, since a country would use that as the basis for their measurements under the imperial system, but would use the length of their own King's foot and toe for their inches and feet. It's a little ironic that the US still uses a measurement system based on the bodily dimensions of a monarch they despised.
Fun fact: The Brits aren't fully off of their Imperial System.
Distances in km(trains canals) and speed in mph for instance.
A PINT of beer...
I'm quite happy using cups and teaspoons, tablespoons, etc......rather than having to have a scale on my counter and figure out grams, or ml's when I can just use a cup or spoon measure.
Sure, because everybody uses the same size of cups and spoons. Oh wait...
@@PatrickVanDijk_NL they are measuring cups, not ordinary ones. Perhaps you've never seen them if you aren't in the US.
@@bevtuft3572 So you have standardized cups, teaspoons and tablespoons, just for measuring food? How is having a scale on your counter more inconveniant than using several other measurement instruments?
@@PatrickVanDijk_NL Obviously you are just wanting to argue . I just stated I was happy with my set up.
@@bevtuft3572 No, I didn't want to argue. I really don't see it making a difference.
I hope you enjoy your cooking endeavours (no sarcasm intended).
US should use metric system, and kilometer system - and kilo system - and multi party system - and militäry time and - and european gun laws and ... healthcare system and social security system and give up patriotism and ...
I grew up using the metric system and had to learn the imperial system when I moved to the US. Knowing both systems, I can honestly say the metric system is easier and more precise. If what I’m stating weren’t true then why do some of the most important industries in the country use metric. NASA, BOING, DEVELOPERS OF WEAPONS, ELECTRONICS, ECT.
Correction: No, USA does not use the imperial system. There is nothing remotely systematic about that mishmash of random bodyparts and other things you combine into your measurement randomness.
An English bishop, John Wilkins, (1614-1672) invented the system part of the decimal metric system when he published a book with a plan for a 'universal measure' in 1668. To be more exact, Bishop Wilkins released his plan for what became the decimal metric system on Monday, 1668 April 13
I think in now day&age it's not that important as the goods imported/exported by US are not that impacted, mainly electronics. But the cost of switching the whole US infrastructure would be gigantic.
Nonsense! Infrastructure wears out or becomes obsolete at some point and needs to be replaced. Make the conversion then. The American automotive industry did this decades ago.
Road signs, for example, need to be replaced periodically as they become unreadable. First, show both with Imperial in a larger font; at the next replacement with SI in the larger font; and, at the next replacement, with SI units only. Florida did a similar thing when its interstates switched from numbering exits consecutively to using mile numbers. Easy pease!
But the UK did it already - and it worked pretty seamlesly. They even changed how they counted their currency.
I agree that the US should switch to the metric system, except for temperatures. Weight, length, and volume all benefit from the metric system but temperatures do not enjoy any such benefits. Having 180 degrees between freezing and boiling water instead of a hundred makes temperatures more precise. As for dates, it makes more sense to write them the way you say them. If someone asks you your birthdate, you don't say "Five March, 1991." You say "March fifth, 1991."
... fifth of March, 1991! 🤷
I use both. I don't feel deprived. Apparently, it is a problem for some... it seems a little like the complaint, "you only speak English?"
UK we use both, just depends if i measure something might be easier to measure in inches or millimetres. Often products are shown converted from inch to metric because the product was made in China for a US market. I think US military use metric, probably a NATO thing.
A few problems with this video. First, the USA does use the metric system in many places...the military, every medication I've ever purchased, everything at the grocery store has a metric measurement and even every car has a km/h measurement (not really metric but that's another point).
To change every street sign in the country would cost mega $....and for what exactly? GPS can show you both. What is gained? To me....nothing really other than to say you did it. As a taxpayer I can think of thousands of better uses for that money. Also you cannot FORCE people to do it here.
And lastly, the entire world only partially adopted the metric system as well. Oddly no mention of that fact. Why didn't they? "Too hard", "inconvenience", "unpopular", words words words (in a derisive tone). Even the f'in French did not convert to metric time....because...words. When they all progress to metric time, as I have, I'll stop measuring my weight in LBS.
Km/h is totally metric
I was a draughtsman in UK 1980's, we used whatever measure the customer drawings came in to make tools. UK/US usually inches, European metric (Ford Europe metric/Ford US imperial) Even though UK was supposed to be metric by then. Machine tools in shops were in inches. Would imagine huge problem back then converting all machines to metric, easy now with computer cnc machines. Would imagine international space programs were a nightmare. Concorde designers UK inches, in France metric?
I really like your hoodie; it matches your eyes. Joey is hoping that you leave it behind when you return to Germany. He wants his eyes to look nice, too.
I really like his eyes .
They match his hoodie .
👀 🧥
Joey has been stealing all of my snacks at home so I’m sure he’d try to steal this hoodie too 😉
@@nalfsense another crime for Nalfi CIS! Call Gibbs and Ducky...
@@nalfsense Do I have to tell Coach Joe to stop pilfering your Tums too?
There's also a difference between the UK and US imperial measurements for liquid measure. In days of yore (before the colonies and the UK were established) England used two different volume measures for beer and wine. A pint of beer was 20 fluid ounces and a pint of wine was 16 oz. When such things were standardised the UK went with 20 oz to the pint and the USA with 16oz. That's why Americans get less beer in a pint than the UK and less petrol/gas in a gallon.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems
Here in the UK we interchange between everything. Usually when things require any degree of accuracy or measurement info needs to be passed on and understood by others, we swap to metric because 1800mm is easier to measure accurately than 70.886 inches.
We still use miles, feet, stone and lbs interchangeably with meters, km, kg and ml and I don’t think it causes any issues.
It’s an ease of use thing ya know? I’d never see anyone ordering “0.57L of lager please”, it’s a pint.
What I will never get though is why an American gallon is different to a UK gallon. That completely baffles me.
But you are still lucky, driving on the correct side of the road 😄
Greetings from England we are 50 / 50 metric / imperial ie Road speed is MPH and car fuel economic is MPG but fuel is sold at ££$$ / litre. Beer is sold in pint glasses but millilitre bottles - milk sold in litres. Most people state there height and weight in feet and stone etc Timber is sold in linear lengths of metre x 6x2 inches messed up......
Why the USA still use the imperial system? Because of the same reason why they do all the other stupid stuff. Because its citizens learn from the age of being toddlers that the USA are the best country in the world. So how could anything other countries do be better?
Because they obviously love to do fractions like, 4 and three quarter-inches plus 7 and seven sixteenth-inches instead of just shifting a comma left or right like normal people do.
If the US would start to use the metric system, as a quid pro quo the rest of the world could adopt American-English spelling (color, honor, etc), and we would all be better off!
Yeah, this. Honestly.
I beg to differ! The British spelling nicely links these words to their French origin. It's like a little history lesson hidden in a word spelling. I adore details like that.
@@Darilon12 As a linguist I agree: the etymology of words matters. Noah Webster was very weak on etymology, even dismissive of it.
I remember a time when some gas stations changed to liter and people got so upset because they didn't understand it. The price was the same as before but now they had 60 liter instead of 15 gallons and in their minds they thought they pay more.
Yep, can't fix stupid!
These are the same people that almost put A&W out of business because they thought McDonald’s burgers were larger. A&W sold 1/3 pounders, McDonald’s sold 1/4 pounders. 4>3 so McDonald’s must be bigger obviously. Americans are dumb even using their own system.
The funny thing is is that in many aspects of life, perhaps even most, the US has converted to metric. US cars for example are all metric as is a lot of industry that sells overseas. You're not going to export anything to Europe that's going to require imperial tools to work on for example. Besides that everything is a mish-mash with some products sold in imperial (actually a US version of imperial units since our gallon for example is 4/5ths the size of an imperial gallon) but marked in both units and some other products made in metric sizes but labeled once again both ways. There are even some products where some sizes are imperial (a 12 oz can or 16 oz bottle of Coke for example) and some sizes are metric (a 2 liter bottle of Coke). Heck even one stretch of I-19 in Arizona has exits numbered in kilometers! I still have hope eventually globalization will force our hands but that's still probably 20 years out at best.
"US cars for example are all metric as is a lot of industry that sells overseas."
beside of Rims and tires they all in Imperial also in Europe...strange ;)
@@rudimentar6583 Mostly though I used to have a '79 Mustang with 190/65HR390 (as in 390mm) Michelin TRX tires which was an option that Ford offered back then.
In 1972 when I was 12 years old my family got a brand new Chevrolet Vega as a second car. On the speedometer it had big numbers that indicated miles per hour. But it also had little smaller numbers for kilometers. They told us the USA was in the process of converting to the metric system so they put those little smaller numbers so when the change finally happened we could still drive the car and use the speedometer .
That 72 Vega is long gone and the switch to metric is still in process. Give it another fifty years and they might finally get it done.
Pause at 2:38 -By the 1870s only a dozen or so countries had switched to metric. By the 1870s the USA was deep into developing the largest industrial infrastructure of any country on the planet, including the largest railway network.
It was because of our *early* success at industrialization, putting us well ahead of most other countries, that we ended up wedded to a system that was *later* superceded. Having built that huge infrastructure the economic case for changing it to metric simply hasn't been strong enough to win out.
I have a Master's Degree in structural engineering and have worked in countries using both systems. Guess what. They both work just fine. Because they both work, there is even less economic incentive to make the change. Perhaps someday the economics will change. At that point the change will probably happen. I would encourage anyone with children to get them comfortable using both. It's actually good training, being able to think in both systems.
It is more a matter that the US uses both. Newer autos and pharmacy prescriptions are metric, while construction is tied to the 4 foot framing compatibility, with all home construction being even multiples of four feet.
I remember in elementary school (as well as another writer) when we were introduced to metric in Canada. We still talk imperial for construction terms/lingo, but we are still metric overall - all good. It seems by your description, that a select group of influential corporate elites blocked the USA going metric - yeah, these powerful groups ;-). Another good video would be why the USA did not switch to 1 or 2 dollar coins (get rid of bills) - Canada also did this change. Also why USA bills are all the same colour ;-). Thanks!
I also remember the changeover to metric in Canada. In retrospect, one forgotten reason for the switch had to do with the price of gas, which was just approaching the $1 per gallon threshold. There was lots of noise about that price point, and my doing the metric change at that time, they made it sound less expensive. 22¢ a litre sounds cheaper but adds up the same. For you Americans doing the math, don't forget that the imperial gallon is bigger than a US gallon, yet another reason to switch to metric now, so your head doesn't explode converting when you are on vacation. 🤔
@@duanerutherford9033 one of the main motivators we were taught in school is that the metric system is used by countries representing 90 percent of the world's population; three-fourths of world trade is carried out in metric measurements.
@@terrygelinas4593 I agree that the whole world should be using it. I only mentioned the odd timing of the changeover to show the political aspect.
All those decisions were made well before any significant industrialization in this country. His argument does not hold water.
I seem to remember a certain space station part NOT fitting because it was manufactured using imperial while everyone else was using metric, was that the yanks??yes i think it was