American reacts to 'Is The Metric System Actually Better?'

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  • Опубліковано 27 бер 2023
  • Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to Is The Metric System Actually Better?
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КОМЕНТАРІ • 2,2 тис.

  • @DenUitvreter
    @DenUitvreter Рік тому +5955

    A litre of water, 1000 ml, wil fill a 10x10x10 cm cube and weigh 1 kilo. It will freeze at 0 degrees and boil at 100 degrees. The energy needed to heat that litre of water 1 degree is 1 kilocalorie. It's an elegant system. Of course it's superior but the problem is with the switch.

    • @margreetanceaux3906
      @margreetanceaux3906 Рік тому +604

      There’s beauty in its simplicity and consistency. And yes: frozen up to 0°, then fluid up to 100°, then gas. Perfect 😘

    • @michaellaw3943
      @michaellaw3943 Рік тому +325

      Also a cm is 1/100 of a metre and a metre was defined as a distance of 1/10,000,000 from the equator to the North Pole, which says the distance from equator to the North Pole is 10 million metres, defined by the French in 1793.

    • @udavster
      @udavster Рік тому +150

      Calorie is not metric. Joules are.

    • @DenUitvreter
      @DenUitvreter Рік тому +41

      @@udavster I don't know. I know the system switched to joule, but I don't know whether that excludes calorie from metric because I don't know the exact definition of metric.

    • @genrabbit9995
      @genrabbit9995 Рік тому +68

      it will boil at sea level at 100 degree. Up high in Himalaya its more like 97-98 degree

  • @DarthHLT
    @DarthHLT 11 місяців тому +1337

    Metric system seems pretty common in US schools,... I mean 9mm are very, very popular, I believe.

  • @itsmebatman
    @itsmebatman Рік тому +570

    For a country that rebelled against a monarch it is weird they want to keep measuring stuff in that monarch's feet.

    • @nizzanator
      @nizzanator 11 місяців тому

      Too dumb, lazy or stubborn to adjust. The American way.

    • @TheDennys21
      @TheDennys21 8 місяців тому +26

      Ikr, they should have embraced it with open arms.

    • @user-gr8zn1yp5l
      @user-gr8zn1yp5l 5 місяців тому +16

      I was just about to text same thing. Hate Britain soo much but keep their measure. But made their own gallon measure( 3.9 litres compared to 4.5 litres. Even as a kid in 70s I thought it weird

    • @adamdriver1016
      @adamdriver1016 4 місяці тому +1

      They didnt rebel against a monarch.
      You dont understand, because youre ignorant of the facts.
      the British colonists that rebelled didnt rebel because they hated a monarch.

    • @adamdriver1016
      @adamdriver1016 4 місяці тому

      @@user-gr8zn1yp5l
      they didn't hate Britain. The vast majority were British. George Washington fought for the British military.
      They didnt make their own gallon, they simply chose which British gallon to use. They varied depending upon what you measured.
      Why as a kid in the 70s didn't you find the answer out for yourself?

  • @bartermens8219
    @bartermens8219 4 місяці тому +26

    My wife left me because, she said, I was too European. I saw it coming from 1,6 kilometers away.

  • @FionaEm
    @FionaEm Рік тому +2247

    Australia converted to metric in 1972. It's a much simpler system than imperial - everything is in 10s, 100s and 1000s.

    • @Lee.Freeman
      @Lee.Freeman Рік тому +59

      It was ‘74-‘76. For a while after that the government banned duel measuring tapes which was probably a good thing. We also stuck metric lables over our car’s speed o meters. 😎🦘

    • @bloozee
      @bloozee Рік тому

      Dicks are still measured in inches. Weed is still bought in ounces. Americans usually buy cocaine in kilos.... or grams perhaps unless you can afford an 8- ball.

    • @angelavara4097
      @angelavara4097 Рік тому

      So you and 2 other people are being paid 10 dollars between you what will you do with the pennies left over? Do the same thing in imperial system and everyone gets their money.

    • @bloozee
      @bloozee Рік тому +43

      Bit weird how the US didn't go metric after the French helped win the war!

    • @vaudou74
      @vaudou74 Рік тому +4

      @@bloozee metric system was instaured in France later than the US independance.

  • @lorenv44
    @lorenv44 Рік тому +1205

    We in South Africa went metric in 1970. It was more exciting to have the speed limit at 120 than 70😂

    • @christiansonnenberg6306
      @christiansonnenberg6306 Рік тому +55

      made my day, thank you!

    • @dmitrykazakov2829
      @dmitrykazakov2829 Рік тому +4

      Huh, km/h is not metric! The metric velocity unit is m/s. 😂

    • @taladin1015
      @taladin1015 Рік тому +137

      @@dmitrykazakov2829 nah, that's base SI units 😂

    • @rebecca4680
      @rebecca4680 Рік тому +138

      @@dmitrykazakov2829 . Km/h is metric, just not in base SI units.

    • @dmitrykazakov2829
      @dmitrykazakov2829 Рік тому

      @@rebecca4680 Non-base SI units of duration are such as ms, ns, i.e. second multiplied by some power of ten. Hour is not a SI unit.

  • @sorbetcitron6783
    @sorbetcitron6783 9 місяців тому +47

    “In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie1 of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade-which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go fuck yourself,’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.” Wild Thing by Josh Bazell.

  • @pn4960
    @pn4960 5 місяців тому +61

    As a French, I’m proud one of our contribution to the world was the metric system. One of the few good things to come out of the Revolution

    • @drolp97z
      @drolp97z 4 місяці тому +6

      The french contribution to the metric system could have been huge, but they couldn't decide for words for the numbers 70-99

    • @BeansOnToast420
      @BeansOnToast420 4 місяці тому +2

      You guys have a decent histroy of how to deal with the rich/powerful too, don't forget that.

    • @deck614
      @deck614 4 місяці тому +4

      I'm French too and I know one of the reasons why metrics appeared... There were hundreds of measurement systems in the little French kingdom before our revolution - we could not manage with such a mess :D

    • @MegaGandalf12
      @MegaGandalf12 Місяць тому

      Now can you please stop assigning gender to everyday objects?

    • @deck614
      @deck614 Місяць тому +1

      @@MegaGandalf12This is the French language. Also in German (not the same :D ), Russian, Italian, etc. etc.
      You have a mess of a quest, kid, so sad for you.

  • @richardgoddard37
    @richardgoddard37 Рік тому +656

    As an ex engineer I can use both but Metric is just soooooooo much easier. It just makes sense.

    • @GB-ez6ge
      @GB-ez6ge Рік тому +1

      The shifty powers of 2 rock! Gallon

    • @elmodelo101
      @elmodelo101 Рік тому +21

      Well, humans have 10 fingers, and we do math based on 10s, so yes, it's only easy because it's natural (and better).

    • @dimitrioslianos511
      @dimitrioslianos511 11 місяців тому +19

      Sir you are not an Ex Engineer, you are an engineer as far as you live!! is a way of thinking !!

    • @richardgoddard37
      @richardgoddard37 11 місяців тому

      @dimitrios lianos I did my apprenticeship in sheet metal work. You can now do 95% of that trade with the push of a button. Got out of industry years ago when the credit crunch let to 2 redundancies in 6 months. Don't miss it.

    • @tjguzik
      @tjguzik 10 місяців тому

      you are not an engeeener.. you pretend to be, by used ANY non SI mesurements...

  • @freudsigmund72
    @freudsigmund72 Рік тому +718

    there are two kinds of countries... Those that use the metric system and those who lost a war to Vietnamese farmers

    • @DSP16569
      @DSP16569 Рік тому +40

      Didn't the frensch also lost against these Vietnam farmers 🙂

    • @wezerd
      @wezerd Рік тому

      @@DSP16569 yea but france sucks

    • @572Btriode
      @572Btriode Рік тому

      @@DSP16569 Yep, they caught a dose of "Dien Bien Flu". . . . . . . . . . . . . .

    • @pierrefraisse8610
      @pierrefraisse8610 Рік тому +20

      @@DSP16569 By an American betrayal in Dien Dien Phu. Frenchs was promised a nassive air shelling if the gathered the Viets....(What they ve done).

    • @ricardoaraoz717
      @ricardoaraoz717 Рік тому +2

      @@DSP16569 "didn't" and "lost", you must be French and English is your second language. Right?

  • @samhartford8677
    @samhartford8677 Рік тому +30

    That man banging his head against the wall is me, as a Continental European, when I understood that my British colleagues could not divide by 10.

    • @thatguy6482
      @thatguy6482 Місяць тому

      Weird they should definitely be able to since the only thing they way still use the imperial system widescale is for measuring distance and speed on roads. And schools definitely just use metric whenever it comes to physics or maths.

    • @landmimes
      @landmimes 27 днів тому +1

      metric is taught in the UK in every school - we use imperial for some everyday things like milk, beer, and (perhaps the most annoyingly) roads but we generally get the best of both because a pint of beer is the correct amount of beer - i don't think your colleagues not being able to divide by 10 is so much to do with the fact that they're British (you never know though), anyone who can't divide by 10 probably has a learning disability so you should go easy on them lol

  • @ryanwilson_canada
    @ryanwilson_canada Рік тому +113

    As a Canadian growing up under the metric system. But learning carpentry, from people that use imperial, i use a mixture of both. Like for example, i am 193cm tall, or 1.93m, or in imperial I am 6'4" for an easy conversion 1" is 2.54cm, 1kg is 2.2lb (rounded) things like that. Ive recently switched back over to 100% metric. It's just easier for me.

    • @niemi5858
      @niemi5858 Рік тому +8

      I was a union carpenter foreman at that time - it brings back memories with the first set of metric prints I ever built from. I had a gang of about 20 men and after the first couple of days I had enough with the costly mistakes, wasted time, and wasted lumber. That night I bought 20 metric only tapes and as the men came in the next morning asked for their old tapes as I was "gifting" them with a brand new one. Tool box meeting - laid down the law, end of mistakes. There was a lot of bitching but they were all Steady-Eddys' and didn't want to quit or get laid off. They eventually got used to it and eventually like it.

    • @Derzull2468
      @Derzull2468 11 місяців тому

      Canada is everything but metric in the trades. Good luck finding any metric nuts and bolts in hardware stores. It's such a pita.

    • @CanuckGod
      @CanuckGod 11 місяців тому +2

      To be fair, unless you're in Quebec or an immigrant to Canada, you'll have generally used feet/inches and pounds when referring to your own bodily measurements , so we're not quite as 'metric' as some people seem to think we are. While the majority of the other use cases tend to be metric, we're still actually a mixed system in a number of ways.
      P.S. Forgot about Canadian (gridiron) football, which is a sport very closely related to the American version (both deriving from rugby), and both use yards for distance (though a Canadian field is 150 yards long [110 yards plus 2 end zones of 20 yards each] x 65 yards wide, thus midfield is the 55 yard line).

    • @sualdammacsamildanach8154
      @sualdammacsamildanach8154 11 місяців тому +2

      @@CanuckGod I am absolutely in favour metric (UK, and been in favour since 1972). But I am happy to refer to my weight in stones and lbs, simply because I know from experience what they equate to in general terms. The same with mph, because in general terms, I am familiar with my speed when I see it happening.
      But if I want to calculate the precise length of something from the angle it makes with a vertical surface, using Imperial is absolutely insane. With metric, it is easy.
      This is the issue. The people who are comfortable with Imperial usually don't need to have to do any maths with it. They just know approximations (or rote additions if buying groceries). Like a pound of carrots or potatoes at the grocery store. In that sense, units don't matter too much.
      But when you're dealing cross border with the world, or trying to do very accurate calculations, they matter a lot. Especially when US Imperial is different to UK Imperial in some cases.

    • @2l84t
      @2l84t Місяць тому

      @@CanuckGod We also tend to measure distance in time rather than kilometers. A modern phenomena.

  • @wsmccallum5069
    @wsmccallum5069 Рік тому +449

    I grew up in a country that converted to metrics when I was in primary school. To this day, I am SO glad I did not have to do high school physics and maths using the Imperial system.

    • @WeretigerX
      @WeretigerX Рік тому +25

      To be fair, in America, we use metric for physics anyway (mostly).

    • @echinas0908
      @echinas0908 Рік тому +32

      Here in Mexico we deal with a lot of American machinery and related stuff, so we do have to use inches and feet if we're studying engineering. I've learned to understand their use as a tool to force you to understand the relation between natural units (m) and constructed ones (N) because the imperial system is not made for science, so there's not a lot of the latter and you have to deal with the raw lbf*s/(hotdog*eagle)

    • @justarandomgothamite5466
      @justarandomgothamite5466 11 місяців тому +3

      I already wanted to throw hands whenever I had to calorie-Joule and Celsius-Kelvin conversions I would've DIED

    • @lucykitsune4619
      @lucykitsune4619 11 місяців тому +11

      I'm studying physics and if I had to use imperial units, I would just straight up not study physics, I'd be studying math and idk ethics or something like that

    • @user-ct5zg2gu8j
      @user-ct5zg2gu8j 4 місяці тому

      ​@@justarandomgothamite5466as a metric user i must say - calorie isn't bad one. Others but calorie

  • @mina_en_suiza
    @mina_en_suiza Рік тому +807

    A couple of days ago, I saw a video where a number of acres was mentioned. I had no idea, how much of area this was, so I looked it up:
    1 acre = 1 chain X 1 furlong.
    I kept looking: 1 chain = 22 yards, 1 furlong = 10 chains = 220 yards = 660 feet.
    So 1 acre = 4,848 square yards = 43,560 square feet which is roughly 4,047m² and 640 acres = 1 square mile.
    The corresponding for agricultural space in metric would be the hectare. 1ha = 100m X 100m = 10,000m². 100ha = 1km²
    Ask me again, which system is better.

    • @nathanoyeght
      @nathanoyeght Рік тому +39

      1 acre = 4840 sq. yards (22 x 220), not 4848 sq. yards ... and I understand the frustration, many times we make errors in converting between different imperial units.

    • @mina_en_suiza
      @mina_en_suiza Рік тому +90

      @@nathanoyeght The "8" was a typo. Thank you for noticing! So, at least 1 person read what I wrote.

    • @ThePalsanich
      @ThePalsanich Рік тому +21

      I just tried to calculate the force of pressure of 3 gallons of water in a 3 square foot barrel. In PSI (pounds per inch)

    • @nathanoyeght
      @nathanoyeght Рік тому +58

      @@mina_en_suiza Also, if you notice ... hectare is a compound word - hect(o) + are.
      1 hectare = 100 ares.
      1 are = 100 sq. meter.
      Hectare is so commonly used, than people overlook that 'are' is the root word, and follows metric nomenclature.

    • @mina_en_suiza
      @mina_en_suiza Рік тому +16

      ​@@nathanoyeght I knew, but didn't mention it because nobody really uses the are (except in crossword puzzles: "measurement unit for areas with two letters". In German it's "Ar", also "Hektar" ).

  • @shadowxthevampiressofficial
    @shadowxthevampiressofficial 4 місяці тому +15

    I recently switched to the 24 hour clock so now I'm fully metric. I have never been outside the US but I have friends in Canada. Metric may not be helpful when I talk to people in person but I do a lot of tech stuff so it's helpful for what I do. Game dev software measures distance in metres & so does Subnautica. It would be a pain in the ass doing tech stuff with imperial units.

  • @GrahamMayer
    @GrahamMayer 4 місяці тому +22

    I didn't realise Americans understood sarcasm. You have exceeded my expectations.

    • @Facetterdk
      @Facetterdk 24 дні тому

      I guess you do not watch much American TV

  • @veronikam3836
    @veronikam3836 Рік тому +1247

    As a European I always wondered how you measure something precisely in the imperial system....I mean, in metric you have millimeters, but an inch is 2.54 cm. So a millimeter is like what....0.03 inches??? How do you use a measuring tape with the imperial system on it when you want to measure millimeters? And what about rulers at school in geometry? It must be crazy....

    • @adamruscoe170
      @adamruscoe170 Рік тому +91

      Imperial rulers usually go down to a 16th of an inch, so pretty close to a millimeter. IN the end both systems are arbitrary because they were both made up by someone who said "yep, this is how I'll measure a meter" or kilogram or whatever. Then science has had to go back and find some constant that aligns with that measurement.
      The "genius" of the metric system is everything works in tens and most people can do that maths, so long as everything COMES in tens. The issue is when you have 36 spans of 15.36 meters and you need to do the maths. Now everything isn't in tens, so you use a calculator. Funny enough we can program calculators to count in anything we want, tens are just easier...

    • @Bellas1717
      @Bellas1717 Рік тому +55

      I hope you’re not building rockets with that inches to centimetres conversion factor. You might want to edit it 😊 Cheers.

    • @veronikam3836
      @veronikam3836 Рік тому +85

      @@Bellas1717 Lol, no I'm not. I didn't remember correctly the conversion of inch to cm. So correction - one inch is 2.54 cm. IF I ever were to build a rocket, I would do so in the metric system only. ;-)

    • @neuralwarp
      @neuralwarp Рік тому +23

      Well how do Americans measure small things like the grooves on a screw? The use thou, which are thousandths of an inch.

    • @grahvis
      @grahvis Рік тому +8

      In the UK in the 60s, I was using a centre grinder to grind to a tolerance of plus or minus half a thousandth of an inch.

  • @c8Lorraine1
    @c8Lorraine1 Рік тому +34

    I attended a teacher’s college in 1975 in Australia. The country had just converted to the metric system . Our currency changed back in 1966. We were being taught the metric system at the same time as learning how to teach it to school children, because we hadn’t learned it ourselves in school

  • @lesfreresdelaquote1176
    @lesfreresdelaquote1176 Рік тому +82

    What is quite funny is that many English words for measurements are actually... French. For instance, the British system is called: _avoirdupois_ , which literally means _good of weight_ (des avoirs de poids, en français moderne). A _pint_ is French, even though in modern French (pinte) it now means 1/2 litter. The same for _ounce_ , which is also French (once), _barrel_ which evolved from the French word _baril_ . We can add _gallon_ to the list as well and _cup_ of course. So when Americans complain that the metric system is _French_ , well their system is actually based on old French as well... Ironic no? YOU CANNOT ESCAPE US...

    • @LudwigVaanArthans
      @LudwigVaanArthans Рік тому

      even worse, they use the outdated French system, the Americans can be said to be more "French" than the French. Tabernac!

    • @math9172
      @math9172 10 місяців тому +14

      40% of english words come from the french, and another 20% also have french roots but more ancient and obscure.

    • @lesfreresdelaquote1176
      @lesfreresdelaquote1176 10 місяців тому +6

      @@math9172 Yes of course, you are right. The Norman invasion was no small picnic and the damage to the English language is still very visible even today. French people usually think of English as an easy language, but the main reason is basically that it is pretty easy to come up with words in English. You take a French word, you modify its pronunciation to suit English ears and voilà, you are basically never out of words. Actually, it is also true for English speakers. Beware of faux-amis still...

    • @math9172
      @math9172 10 місяців тому +5

      ​d "easy" is because of the proximity with french. I agree it does help, but in my opinion the very simplistic grammar and rather freeform syntax is what truely makes english a rather simple language.
      The only real difficulty of english is its thoroughly inconsistant pronounciation, which is a consequence of the many influences of the english language (french, german, latin).

    • @lesfreresdelaquote1176
      @lesfreresdelaquote1176 10 місяців тому +3

      @@math9172 English is actually a pretty complicated language. The tense system is the most complicated of all European languages and is quite confusing for most foreigners. I have been speaking English in a professional context for 30 years. I even lived in England for a year. I still have some issues to understand the distinction between preterit and present perfect. One of my colleague was working on a project that was financed by the American side of our company. He said in.a meeting: "We worked on this project for two months" and the project was stopped. It took several days to explain the confusion out. I'm actually a computational linguist by trade and I have implemented grammars for many languages such as French, Italian, English or Japanese (see Xerox Incremental Parser for papers on these grammars). English has a very strict word order compared to most European languages, which is due to its lack of gender and case. Furthermore, English is a highly lexicalised language. The grammar of English was four times larger than the one of French or of Spanish to account to all its specificities. It is very easy to speak broken English, but it is also quite easy to speak broken Spanish.

  • @Kari.F.
    @Kari.F. Рік тому +351

    Oh, this ended up becoming really complicated really fast! Almost like the first time I tried to bake a cake the American way... 🥴😂

    • @Dr_KAP
      @Dr_KAP Рік тому +30

      I totally messed up my Mongolian beef tonight because everything was in pounds and ounces and I just tried to wing it rather than googling the conversion. It was a disaster and the kids ended up having ham and cheese toasted 😂

    • @sandyakabatteriehuhn
      @sandyakabatteriehuhn Рік тому +60

      "A cup? What kind of cup!?" 😅

    • @b.v.nielsen8714
      @b.v.nielsen8714 Рік тому +19

      ​@@sandyakabatteriehuhn D cup??

    • @germanmechanic8591
      @germanmechanic8591 Рік тому +8

      @@b.v.nielsen8714 it‘s you, Brigitte?

    • @DenUitvreter
      @DenUitvreter Рік тому +4

      That's how the portions come out far too big.

  • @maxbarko8717
    @maxbarko8717 Рік тому +286

    The same situation is with traffic signs. The USA has mostly signs with words whereas most of the world uses standardized signs also with specific shapes.

    • @siliconvalley577
      @siliconvalley577 Рік тому +39

      YES imagine China used traffic signs the American way and there was a single American visiting China, it would be a desaster, but in the US it’s fine because.

    • @maxbarko8717
      @maxbarko8717 Рік тому +1

      So true!

    • @LeSarthois
      @LeSarthois Рік тому +37

      An interesting fact : European signs are this way because they were designed to be understandable by illiterate people (it was the 1930's after all)
      Even today most signs are just pictograms. So you only need to learn a few words in the language of the country to understand the eventual written addition.
      And even then most additions are very simple, giving weights or distances.

    • @maxbarko8717
      @maxbarko8717 Рік тому +9

      In the 1970s Germany changed from a „Halt“ to the „Stop“ sign.

    • @swanpride
      @swanpride Рік тому +7

      @@maxbarko8717 Those changes were mostly to make it easier to drive around Europe. It's also the reason why we have this one yellow/white sign, a compromise with out neighbors.

  • @Ben_Kimber
    @Ben_Kimber 11 місяців тому +20

    To switch to metric, America will probably have to do what Canada has been doing. We started off with imperial. When my dad was going to school, schools were teaching both metric and imperial, and now he’s the only member of my family who knows the conversion between °C and °F off the top of his head. When I was going to school, I was only taught metric. Yet as many Canadians do, I still use the systems relatively interchangeably. I almost exclusively measure my own body in imperial, using feet, pounds, and inches. However, I think of distance, elevation, temperature, and speed in metric, along with any more sophisticated measurements, and seeing imperial units in a university physics class actually makes me uncomfortable. I have been making an effort to slowly transfer my brain over to using metric entirely. Using entirely metric makes conversions between different metric units easy. Want to convert km/h to m/s? The use for learning algebra in high school finally makes sense! Cancel out hours with the equivalent value in seconds, and cancel out kilometres with the equivalent value in metres.
    10km/h x (1000m)/(1km) = 10000m/h
    10000m/h x (1h)/(3600s) = 2.778m/s
    Or in short terms, 1m/s = 3.6km/h
    This is admittedly one conversion I think I will always need a calculator for, but at least it’s relatively easy to memorize what number you need to multiply or divide one value by to get the other.
    The weirdest thing I’ve seen so far in physics is that some constants such as the ideal gas constant or universal gas constant have values expressed in two different sets of units. I don’t even remember the units themselves off the top of my head, but it can either have a value of 8.314 or 0.08206, and you have to be careful about which one you use depending on what you’re trying to calculate. Most values related to gases in physics are calculated using the 8.314 value. However, some calculations involving gases in chemistry are done using the 0.08206 value.

  • @HuyLy94
    @HuyLy94 Рік тому +11

    The Air Canada plane that ran out of fuel did have a fuel computer onboard. It was broken that day and a miscommunication meant the maintenance crew also switched off the backup so the ground crew had to manually calculate the fuel requirements. They were supposed to pick up a replacement part for the computer at their destination.

  • @JamesThomas-zl9er
    @JamesThomas-zl9er Рік тому +220

    I love that we all conveniently forget that it was Germans working for both the US & USSR space races

    • @ft6637
      @ft6637 Рік тому +37

      what else to expect? They had the first rocket program...

    • @JamesThomas-zl9er
      @JamesThomas-zl9er Рік тому +26

      @@ft6637 indeed, but surprisingly few people below 30 are aware of it

    • @JamesThomas-zl9er
      @JamesThomas-zl9er Рік тому +3

      It’s a strange and dangerous place we’re living in

    • @NanoLT
      @NanoLT Рік тому

      @@JamesThomas-zl9er You mean over 30? The older generations were given nationalistic propaganda.

    • @jamescharly6102
      @jamescharly6102 Рік тому

      Nasa works in metric

  • @DaveWhoa
    @DaveWhoa Рік тому +406

    base2 (binary) is natural for computers, base10 (decimal/metric) is natural for human brains, and Imperial is ... a mess

    • @YellowBunny
      @YellowBunny Рік тому +39

      As far as we know the human brain has no bias towards a particular base. The preference for base 10 is societal/cultural and something that children have to acquire. This particular choice of base was probably influenced by having 10 fingers. But there have also been many cultures and there still are those that use a different base.

    • @einkar4219
      @einkar4219 Рік тому +22

      ​@@YellowBunny yup some culture had 12 as base if I remember correctly ancient Egyptians used 12,
      amd probably that's why we have 24h and 60 minutes, 360 degrees

    • @MrWaffel
      @MrWaffel 11 місяців тому +15

      @@einkar4219 360 is a very neat number - can be divided by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc :) there's also a system where a circle has 400 degrees, which can be divided by 2, 4, 8, 16 (or 2 to the power of 1, 2, 3, 4^^)

    • @abelbouza1229
      @abelbouza1229 11 місяців тому +13

      @@YellowBunny Celts made 20 their base. Remnants of this can be seen today in french numerals and galician-portuguese traditional measures.

    • @luismauriciogonzalezcornej9448
      @luismauriciogonzalezcornej9448 11 місяців тому +4

      @@YellowBunny True, in a binary system it would be best to use units that are double or half the amount of another unit, but since we already use a decimal system to count it just makes sense to use metric units.

  •  Рік тому +13

    The airplane story mentioned at 5:42 is nicknamed the Gimli Glider. I recommend looking it up; there are a number of videos on UA-cam on it. The story is a bit more nuanced than what is mentioned in the video (understandably), but the differences between imperial and metric definitely played a big part in it.

  • @chrisshf
    @chrisshf Рік тому +32

    I think a great, easy place to start the switch to metric would be with groceries etc. Make it mandatory for manufacturers to label weight and volume in metric units on their products.
    Of course first by having both units, then maybe metric in a bigger font and then slowly getting rid of the imperial units.

    • @Foersom_
      @Foersom_ Рік тому +10

      All packages food in supermarkets in US have labels with both metric and imperial measurements. The metric units on products is required by law.

    • @Kalenz1234
      @Kalenz1234 3 місяці тому +1

      People would riot.

  • @andrewstrongman305
    @andrewstrongman305 Рік тому +66

    The most important reason why metric is the only scale worth using is that each unit of measure correleates to every other without any need for conversions. There is no need to try to solve different fractions when everything can be expressed in base 10 with far more precision.

  • @OhNoNotFrank
    @OhNoNotFrank Рік тому +79

    If you're able to figure out USD 1,- from a handful of coins, you know the metric system. 'Nuff said.

    • @Rack979
      @Rack979 Рік тому +8

      True, we should have adopted the decimal system of weights and measures that came with our decimal money, the Jefferson decimal system. Coinage Weights and Measures Plan of 1790, look it over.

    • @frosty6960
      @frosty6960 Рік тому +17

      Impressive they havent done the same with coins.
      "56 cents in 1 dollar" or something completely impossible.

    • @Mr1SaS
      @Mr1SaS Рік тому +5

      @Frosty an even more impressive thing would be: 1$=56cents but 2$=87.849cents )))

    • @marcinduman2651
      @marcinduman2651 Рік тому

      Not to mention gigabytes, kilobytes and so on....

    • @VoidCosmonaut
      @VoidCosmonaut Рік тому

      @@Mr1SaS ROFL

  • @Antuan2911
    @Antuan2911 Рік тому +94

    I am a Civil Engineer in Greece and I have seen the superiority of
    the Metric System in practice.
    The good thing is that in all Technical Universities is US teaching
    both systems but the most important is, the futures Engineers can
    see clearly the advantages of the Metric System.
    So, maybe in 30 or 40 years most of people in US maybe will use
    the Metric System.

    • @adipratia6861
      @adipratia6861 11 місяців тому +7

      Yeah. I'm using metric. But lets see, in USA, a foot is how many inches, a dozen? Silly. And 4 dozens is what, 38? Crazy math! 52??? Crazy muricans.

    • @_blank-_
      @_blank-_ 11 місяців тому +2

      The metric system has been used in STEM since forever but the average American still uses imperial units 🤷‍♂️

    • @adipratia6861
      @adipratia6861 11 місяців тому +2

      @@_blank-_ strange. That is not an argument, that a foot in length is about as big as my own foot. Then what is next? A mile is how long? Do i hear it? As long as what? As nothing! And you still talk about doing 90 mph on a highway haha. And why in the world you would say a dozen??? And 3 dozens is 42 pieces, heh, that is really silly. Counter intuitive as f.

  • @Xoruam
    @Xoruam 11 місяців тому +6

    "My car can tell me how far I can go"
    I am pretty sure your car gives you a rough estimate, does not have to take into account the total weight of the vehicle and changing air density (on which both the ground speed and the fuel consumption depend), and the worst that can happen if that estimate is wrong, you have to stop halfway through a highway and take a long walk to and from the nearest gas station.
    Planes... Kind of don't have that option.
    Could it be done? Probably. But as my grandfather once said, "The more complicated the system, the more elements it has, and the bigger the chance of something breaking".

    • @markoobrvan44
      @markoobrvan44 2 місяці тому

      You are correct that it is rough estimate, but that rough estimate is really precise. For starters, it just takes your fuel input and knows how much is in tank, averages it over 15minutes and presumes that you have same tempo. it iterates around that number every 1minute cycle. It is damn precise and self correcting system.

  • @justakathings
    @justakathings Рік тому +127

    In the UK we use both lol. But the metric is definitely used more nowadays tbh. I was born in 2003 and I only use feet and inches for height and miles for distance. But I also use cm for height too as do most people I know and i never learnt to convert between the two, I was taught the difference when I was very young but not drilled. There really is a difference between generations because for example I’ll use kg and cms while my mum would use stone and inches and we both have no idea what we’re talking about 😂

    • @andyt8216
      @andyt8216 Рік тому +3

      I’ve noticed more and more guys weigh themselves in KG (including me). At least in my experience, women love Stone Age measurements still.

    • @bencze465
      @bencze465 Рік тому +5

      I've heard of inches, feet, miles, ounce (even though i am confused between the 2 types) and stuff but stones are killing me. That just seems so funny as a measurement. I live in continental Europe.

    • @andyt8216
      @andyt8216 Рік тому +3

      @@bencze465 it’s yet another national embarrassment!

    • @peterrabbitn787
      @peterrabbitn787 Рік тому

      Haha I'm German and my dad is English. I have no clue of stones etc. So when his Wii asked me what my hight is I decided on a small number. Well.. the balance board did my weight so my mii ended up being a huge tiny blob and it kept saying how well I'm doing the exercises and I couldn't stop laughing

    • @ginonunes843
      @ginonunes843 Рік тому +3

      Living in NI currently and the stone thing is so damn confusing 😅

  • @lewismackay9533
    @lewismackay9533 Рік тому +59

    It's really weird that America uses more Imperial metrics than Britain does now. Britain is mostly metric (excluding a few weird remnants like miles and yards) even weight is mostly done in KG now instead of Stones and Lbs (the last time I needed to use St and Lbs I was very young in primary school my doctor always does it in KGs)

    • @jash1281
      @jash1281 Рік тому +15

      Remember you're speaking of a country that needs to be told that coffee is hot and you don't put your dog in a microwave to dry it... So yeah they have to write things down

    • @moonshineboy
      @moonshineboy Рік тому

      apart from miles , yards and chainage used on the UK railway , hands and furlongs in horse racing , carpenters / cabinet makers use feet and inches , knots in shipping , farmers use acres , pints in brewing / pubs , stones and pounds in weighing each other .....

    • @sualdammacsamildanach8154
      @sualdammacsamildanach8154 11 місяців тому

      @@moonshineboy A large part of which is why Britain made the insane decision known as Brexit.

    • @izibear4462
      @izibear4462 10 місяців тому +1

      Every friend of mine uses stone for weight, however, my grandson is weighed in kgs at the hospital.

    • @hypsyzygy506
      @hypsyzygy506 2 місяці тому

      The USA has never used Imperial. It uses US Customary Measures, which are basically the measures used before the British Empire redefined their weights and measures in 1824 and called it the Imperial System. Gallons and tons are quite different in the two systems.

  • @Thomas_Bjornsson
    @Thomas_Bjornsson 8 місяців тому +4

    16:00 imagine earth as a country, and current countries as one person in the country - only 3 of 195 people understand imperial system of measurements

    • @hypsyzygy506
      @hypsyzygy506 2 місяці тому

      The USA uses US Customary Measures, not Imperial.
      Due to their histories, I suspect Liberia also uses US Customary Measures, but Myanmar would actually use Imperial.

  • @teemup9247
    @teemup9247 Рік тому +6

    One funny conversion thing I noticed when I (once again) heard someone say they always grow couple centimeters when they goto NHL. Referring to Finnish players who make it to the NHL. And in their stats they indeed gain a centimeter or two. And I once calculated and realised that the NHL converts their official metric system measurements into imperial for their official NHL stats, but when NHL stat page(as an example) shows their length in metric it is converted from the rounded (up) conversion to imperial. So they don't use the original measurements they convert the original metric into imperial -> round it up to feets and inches -> then convert it back to metric -> thus they "gain" a centimeter after going to the NHL.

  • @aenorist2431
    @aenorist2431 Рік тому +395

    Fun fact: The "tonne" being a barrel originally is a german thing too. "Tonne" is a german word for barrel / drum. Commonly still used in compound words like "regentonne" = "rainwater barrel"

    • @mcstaal
      @mcstaal Рік тому +29

      A Danish Tønde=Tonne, is a messurement for area. So 1 tønde land = 14.000 kvadratalen = 0,55 hektar = 8 skæpper = 32 fjerdingkar = 96 album = 5.523,14 m² (1835: 5.516,10 m²).
      Glad we went metric to.

    • @Asa...S
      @Asa...S Рік тому +15

      Similar in Sweden, a barrel is a "tunna". In Swedish "regentonne" is called "regntunna".
      "Tunnland" (which would be like "barrelland") is a measurement for area, which was basically how big area you could sow with one barrel of grain.

    • @diogorodrigues747
      @diogorodrigues747 Рік тому +8

      In Portuguese it happens as well. We have a word for "barrel", which is "tonel", and "tonelada" literally comes from "tonel". However that's actually a more archaic and ancient word - nowadays "barril" is used more.
      Which is even more interesting is that "barril" is actually a Celtic word of origin, coming from "barr" (a piece of metal), which was then imported to Western Romance and also English. "Tonel" comes from Ancient French "tonel" (nowadays "tonneaux"), which is a Germanic cognate.

    • @davepb5798
      @davepb5798 Рік тому +7

      The British still use "tun" and "tundish" , barrel and funnel.

    • @fredericlepeltier3435
      @fredericlepeltier3435 Рік тому +4

      In french we used "Tonneaux" for ship displacement before the general use of Short(metric) and Long(imperial) tons. As you might have guess "Tonneau" means Barrel. That at one time a standard "Tonneau" (of wine of course) was equivalent to 1000 liters is any one guess :). I mean it was most likely a multiple of a set number of bootles :))!

  • @siggikalkmann
    @siggikalkmann Рік тому +40

    Your son just wanted to complain about the fact, that he has to learn about both systems and has to do a lot of "conversion stuff" in about 10 years at school... But if that's the only complaint he has, you're doing a geat job as parents....👍 On the other hand, if he becomes an engineer, he will bang his head against every firm structure, he has constructed an therefore had to convert between imperial and metric....😖

  • @Balinux
    @Balinux Рік тому +11

    I work in Aeronautics and we have to deal with both units because of these guys.

    • @LudwigVaanArthans
      @LudwigVaanArthans Рік тому

      You only have to deal with metric, because the Imperial units are based on PSI metric units anyway

  • @michaelkonig5576
    @michaelkonig5576 Рік тому +1

    At many planes there is a procedure how to deal with a not working tank gauge. In each tank is a tool that tells what's the filling height in millimeter. This can be converted into liters.
    Flight calculation is done with kilogramm (or pound). The filling pump works with liters.
    They have to convert from volume into mass and later back from mass into volume.

  • @freudenberg101
    @freudenberg101 11 місяців тому +3

    This is like asking a scientist if $1 is more useful than $100 if found on a street.

  • @BennoWitter
    @BennoWitter Рік тому +52

    Unfortunately, certain things are still measured in imperial units, even in Germany. Screen size is always given in Zoll (Zoll is the German word for inch) and cm, but Zoll is what people use when they talk about it. The same with all kinds of tires. And, of course standardized pipes for water, etc. are 1", 1/2", 3/4", etc. Even the colloquial word for that famous foldable ruler from Germany is "Zollstock" even though the measurements on it are in cm.

    • @sirhenryvonvandings
      @sirhenryvonvandings Рік тому +3

      On a standard "Zollstock" you have both, as shown in the video

    • @christiansonnenberg6306
      @christiansonnenberg6306 Рік тому +2

      @@sirhenryvonvandings You are right, one with only Meters is called "Metermaß"

    • @unbekannterinterpret
      @unbekannterinterpret Рік тому +12

      Gliedermaßstab

    • @olgahein4384
      @olgahein4384 Рік тому +4

      Well, it's not like Germany invented the metric system or never had anything else. Here where i live, every other city had a different definition of what a mile is. You will also find definitions of length (like foot, knot, ellbow) ingraved into stones of minsters and churches of medieval cities, as markets were held around them - it was for people to have something to measure what the length definition is in that specific city, to prevent folks killing eacht other at the market for miscalculations and stuff.
      The metric system ist the one thing that the whole world should thank France for.

    • @motionpictures6629
      @motionpictures6629 Рік тому +3

      @@olgahein4384 Otto the great standardized German units in 942, that's the main reason he is remembered as "the great". He was judging in a court case about breed weight fraud, and almost had a baker executed for defrauding his costumers. Then he realized that the baker had just used his own weights from his neighboring hometown. Since Otto, at least the pound was standardized in the Holy Roman Empire.

  • @tamielizabethallaway2413
    @tamielizabethallaway2413 Рік тому +16

    We still use both in the UK...you can buy fabric in metres or yards.....
    You go buy wood planks in metric measurements.... But we'll still say (example) we need 8 x 4"x2'"s at 2 metres long.
    Milk is sold in litres, but with pints listed on the bottle too.
    BTW did you know the USA pint and UK pint is different? The UK pint is bigger. Maybe other measurements are different either side of the pond too?
    Metric is much more accurate, and split into tinier increments. It's definitely better for that reason alone, accuracy, but it's also easier to work out in your head as everything is divisible by 10, 100 or 1000.

    • @mats7492
      @mats7492 Рік тому

      Uk is an absolute measurement mess

    • @Pointillax
      @Pointillax Рік тому +2

      If you order a pint of beer in France you'll get half a pint by UK standards, I've always found that funny

    • @101steel4
      @101steel4 Рік тому +1

      The US took all things English and changed them. Take "color" as an example.
      Same thing but different 😉

    • @tamielizabethallaway2413
      @tamielizabethallaway2413 Рік тому +1

      @@Pointillax really? I never knew that. I've been to France a LOT, but I don't drink beer so that's probably why I never realised? 😁

    • @tamielizabethallaway2413
      @tamielizabethallaway2413 Рік тому

      @@101steel4 yes, and no.
      Did you know in fact that the American accent is closer to Olde English than any of our accents are? For the size of America, they have surprisingly few "accents" really. You could probably say a handful, West coast, New Yorker, Southern....Redneck 🤣
      Compared to our 40+ and rising!
      Also, it's us who've modified our English more over the years. A lot of our words reflect the French way of spelling, in fact up until around 500 years ish ago, French was England's national language!
      During medieval times, spelling was not as important as it is to us today. I must admit I'm a stickler for things like spelling and I know for a fact I was reading and writing better at age 5-6 than a lot of kids leaving school at 16-18 can manage! 🙄 Right!?
      But back to a few hundred years back, spelling wasn't so strictly enforced as we do now. The main priority was that it was readable. If it read phonetically then it was considered correct. So colour, color, or even say, culler, would have been acceptable. You'd interpret the meaning of the word by the way it was written within the sentence.
      In time of course, with more invention and description came the need for more words. The language has tons more words now than it ever had back then and new words are added to the dictionary all the time. It's more important these days to be specific, for an example, there, their, and they're - or - to, too or two. The spelling of words these days is much more important because each spelling indicates something different.
      Remember also that back then, only a fraction of people could actually read and write, and of those who could, very few were women. Most scholars were men, and the types of women who would be educated were extremely wealthy, nobles, or even royalty.
      A good example is Anne Boleyn. Very highly educated and exceptionally intelligent. She had been sent to the royal court in Austria for a time, and spent many years as a lady in waiting in the French court too. Living abroad from around aged 8 in fact. She was skilled in social skills, riding, needlework, singing, lute playing, philosophy, theology, etiquette, diplomacy, dancing, and all academic subjects.
      Her reading and writing was excellent and her articulation was matched only by men. When she spoke, all eyes were on her. She spoke English and French fluently and could flip flop between the two effortlessly. She also knew some Latin. Her head was frequently stuck in a book, she was a sponge and had a thirst for knowledge.
      We still have a number of original documents written about her, to her, and from her. For example all the love letters between her and Henry VIII, but also notes added to Bible pages and poems that she wrote. She's a perfect example of my point, her spelling. There are letters sent home to her parents at Hever Castle from when she was at court in France, letters to friends or her letters to Henry. She would sign off as Anne Bullen, Anna Bolen, Anne Boleyn etc etc... So as you see, as long as it made phonetical sense to read, it was correct.
      This was around the 1500's period, around the same time Christopher Columbus discovered The New World. He wasn't the first of course. Vikings had gone there a good 500 years prior, but had stayed. Because they settled there, no one knew it HAD been discovered, so it was a new discovery as far as Europe was concerned at the time. Over the years more ships were sent to and from, obviously not a simple task, nor speedy.
      The first English settlement in America came around 100 years later, in Jamestown, Virginia. Remember that only a fraction of those people could read and write. Most of their knowledge was in practical skills, like farming, cooking, animal care, saddle making, boot making etc etc. They weren't stupid, but their weren't academic either. The English that they did know went with them, and the accent went with them too.
      They lost regular contact with England, and so their understanding of English, their spelling and grammar wasn't changing as quickly as it did in England, and it branched off there, as ours did here. So really, America hasn't changed our language anywhere near as much as we have since 400-500 years ago! Plus their language is influenced by Native American words, I mean we named places Jamestown, New York, Boston etc, all very boring. BUT Witchita, Oklahoma and Tennessee are Native American in origin. Then there's the Spanish and Portuguese flavour coming from South America, with place names such as Alhambra, Bonita Springs, Encinitas or Las Vegas etc.
      So in answer to your point....yes they have changed the English that they took with them, just as we changed that same English here, the difference is ours was influenced with German, French and Dutch.
      In conclusion, no, they haven't changed what we HAVE....
      They changed what we HAD, as did we, in response to different influences from other languages. 😁

  • @ideegeniali
    @ideegeniali 10 місяців тому +4

    Electronic Engineer here. Historical pin spacing on electronic components is 1/10th of an inch. SMD passives are specified in mm. So we must use both systems unfortunately.
    Cad software for electronics (cae) do support working with both and switching system on the fly. The need to shift system while designing is so frequent that the software I use dedicated the ALT key to temporary using the other system for numerical inputs, grid snaps and everything.
    Sometimes you have a screw terminal you can't tell even with caliper if it's 5.00mm pitch or 5.08mm pitch (2/10th of an inch). Both kind are vastly used in the industry. It can insert in the wrong pitched receptacles but not the best fit, but you can't really tell from insertion force what it is: wrong pitch or correct pitch and tight fit.
    It drives you crazy.

    • @nydydn
      @nydydn 3 місяці тому

      An M14 screw fits into a 5/8", but 5/8" is 15.875 mm, which is closer to 16mm. But the metric and imperial also have different standard spacings, with the metric being 1mm and imperial, well... larger. So to mix the 2, you have to think about how long will the screwing be to have a tight fix. If you need just a few turns, an M16 can be used in a 5/8", but if you need to go deeper, a rarer M15 is needed, or a common M14. If you need a very deep screwing, then you need to import the exact match. It's so frustrating to work with anything that has been touched by US manufacturing.

  • @Sharon-bo2se
    @Sharon-bo2se 11 місяців тому +8

    I confess to a certain sadistic attitude/pleasure when dealing with "superior" Americans at business conferences over the years when the subject of gasoline and prices came up, especially when in Canada. Once I got going explaining metric to US measures to Imperial(UK) measures and then converting currencies and distances at the same time, their eyes would be glazed over. Oddly, they tended to stay away from me after that leaving the more sensible Americans to chat with and they tended to be quite lovely folks.

  • @hachimaki
    @hachimaki Рік тому +39

    Fun fact, in Sweden we have something called a "Scandinavian mile", which is basically just an old term used for the measurement of 10 kilometers, it's still used today though so don't be confused if a Norwegian, Swede or Finnish person gives you direction, they're still talking about metric measurements.

    • @bencze465
      @bencze465 Рік тому +1

      there's still nautical mile, and knot in sailing which is weird to me as they seem to be the only weird units that so many countries use... at least the only somewhat 'mainstream' ones i heard about

    • @sirhenryvonvandings
      @sirhenryvonvandings Рік тому

      so sic scandinavian miles would be 60 km?

    • @sirhenryvonvandings
      @sirhenryvonvandings Рік тому +1

      @@bencze465 and the nautical mile is (or better was originally) defined as 1/60th of a degree of latitude, later then defined to be exactly 1852 meters

    • @louiseerbslisbjerg7854
      @louiseerbslisbjerg7854 Рік тому

      We call it "en dansk mil" because you know, the rest of you used to belong to us ;) 😅

    • @robinviden9148
      @robinviden9148 Рік тому +3

      @@sirhenryvonvandings Yeah, 6 Scandinavian miles are 60 kilometres.

  • @grahvis
    @grahvis Рік тому +9

    I grew up in the UK being familiar with and using both systems, which one I use today depends on how precise I need to be. If necessary, I can convert in my head. 1 mile = 1.61 kilometres.1 inch = 25.4 mm. Fahrenheit to Celsius, subtract 32 and multiply by 5/9

    • @VoidCosmonaut
      @VoidCosmonaut Рік тому

      1 mile = 1,609344 kilometre. Be precise :P

  • @The_Absolute_Dog
    @The_Absolute_Dog Рік тому +9

    Loved the cute baby interruption lol
    Also, here in NZ, while we use the metric system, and have done my whole life, it's still commonplace for people to talk about humans height in feet and inches.

    • @shaggybaggums
      @shaggybaggums 8 місяців тому

      Yeah, it's often fun when creators leave in the little human touches.
      That was one seriously tall baby though.

    • @avixs1543
      @avixs1543 2 місяці тому

      Aye nice to see another kiwi in the comments! And yeah most people know their height in both metric and imperial, for example Im 180cm or 5ft 11in

  • @johnmilk534
    @johnmilk534 3 місяці тому +2

    I'm sure that someone else said this but, weight is a force and mass measures inertia

  • @marcusott5054
    @marcusott5054 Рік тому +12

    When I was in my teens out country switched from our old currency to the Euro. It took a while to get used to it, but it is nowhere near as a pain as some people in the US make it out to be to switch to metric. I'm into knives, and most of the media coverage is in inches and ounces... I've gotten used to that too. It really only takes a few years to make a full switch.

    • @VoidCosmonaut
      @VoidCosmonaut Рік тому

      Few years is a lot of time though

    • @marcusott5054
      @marcusott5054 Рік тому

      @@VoidCosmonaut It's really not as bad as it sounds. And I'm usually a person that's averse to change.

  • @chriskelvin248
    @chriskelvin248 Рік тому +16

    We came close to converting to metric in the 70’s moving into the 80’s, but administration changes made the push lose steam and it just floundered. In school we were being taught how to change over.

    • @ElBandito
      @ElBandito 11 місяців тому

      All cause of the dirty bugger, Reagan.

    • @_blank-_
      @_blank-_ 11 місяців тому +1

      It's because of Reagan right? It's always because of Reagan 😑

    • @TheDennys21
      @TheDennys21 8 місяців тому +1

      That was over 40 years ago, you had plenty of time to convert since then but you didn't.

  • @merc2dogs
    @merc2dogs 10 місяців тому +1

    I have a bit of clarification to throw in.
    The definition of an inch in mm or cm was made to define an inch in metric terms. It was to define how many mm/cm were in an inch. Prior to that people often used shortcuts (IE 2.5 instead of 2.54) to convert an inch to metric units, not a huge problem in normal use, but would cause issues in large scale projects as well as in machining parts that required close tolerances.
    I am comfortable using imperial or metric, so don't worry about it. It doesn't really mater what system you use, as long as you use the same system consistently.
    As a side note, I often use an old cloth reel type tape measure from the 40s,(fits comfortably in my pocket) that has stretched a bit over time, (1 inch over 12 feet) but as long as I use that tape to measure the part I need, and then use it to cut the part, everything goes fine. But if I measure a needed part with that tape, then cut it with a modern steel tape, it doesn't work so well.

  • @Meower68
    @Meower68 8 місяців тому

    There's an "Air Disasters" episode about the "Gimli Glider." And yes, it ran out fuel and they had to glide it into a decommissioned Canadian air base which had converted the old runway into a drag strip. And people were out racing that day. So, yeah, there's pictures and video of it.
    When I was taking chemistry and physics in college, EVERYTHING was Metric. Grams (mass), meters, newtons (weight / force), etc. Yeah, it took some doing to wrap my head around it all but, at the very least, changing between units of length was just moving the decimal place round (cm vs meters vs km). Heaven forbid that you need to figure out how many stone (weight) so many feet (length) from the hinge resulted in so many pound-feet of torque.

  • @Captally
    @Captally Рік тому +7

    American currency is metric so the concept can't be difficult for them. They had a genuine gripe previous to our change over to decimal but the basics of metric can't be too alien, surely.

    • @Lorre982
      @Lorre982 Рік тому +1

      They use a lots of credit/debit card, the do not know even ho to count to 10

  • @dianen8962
    @dianen8962 Рік тому +9

    Best part of this video was JACE'S appearance!!!

  • @feedingravens
    @feedingravens Рік тому +2

    Well, the origin of the meter and kg are still the chunk of steel, and the scratches on the iron bar in Paris, but are now expressed in physical constants that in principle you could determine anywhere.

  • @ixibittherus
    @ixibittherus 8 місяців тому

    The ability of this man to immediately identify sponsored content in the end is envysome!

  • @martinhuhn7813
    @martinhuhn7813 Рік тому +30

    6:30 That happened shortly after the conversion of air canada to the metric system, therefore the pilots were not experienced in the conversion (and they did not have computers to help with the calculation). Also, the meassuring system within the plane was broken and the pilots decided to fly anyways. Otherwise they would have landed normally after noticing that they were low on fuel early on. So, there was much more involved than an antiquated system of measurement.

    • @KarlSanathos
      @KarlSanathos Рік тому +5

      If big things fail spectacularly a lot of small things didn't work before and a lot of people made decisions which in summ lead to the result.

    • @lewismackay9533
      @lewismackay9533 Рік тому +2

      That's on Air Canada for not following procedure and for the pilots for making a very irresponsible decision. It's a set rule within aviation that if a main computer fault is present the plane does NOT fly. Only minor computer faults like a confirmed incorrect message being stuck on screen for example is okay to fly with if checked. But if the computer isn't getting the fuel readout from the tanks and the FMC/MCDU didn't flag up an issue with the FLTPLN length and TRIP FUEL amount then that plane was not airworthy.

    • @joeschneider3427
      @joeschneider3427 Рік тому +1

      yeah, the Gimli Glider incident (Air Canada flight 143)

    • @KyrilPG
      @KyrilPG Рік тому +2

      ​@@lewismackay9533​The A320 in the video was illustration material. The incident happened in 1983, so not an A320 but a 767-200.
      Check the wikipedia article of the "Gimli Glider", the technical problem was a sensor, not the computer.
      The FMC only worked with entered data as the sensor was inop.

  • @ukdnbmarsh
    @ukdnbmarsh Рік тому +28

    every single person in the world understands counting 1 to 10 no matter what language is spoken, this is what makes Metric the obvious choice.

    • @jmwintenn
      @jmwintenn Рік тому +1

      i see someone doesn't know some languages dont have base 10.

    • @echinas0908
      @echinas0908 Рік тому +1

      Freaking French has something to do with base 20 and they were the pioneers on this thing

    • @LudwigVaanArthans
      @LudwigVaanArthans Рік тому

      even the folk that create the standard units of measure for the Imperial system base it off of metric PSI units of measure, so..

    • @ukdnbmarsh
      @ukdnbmarsh 11 місяців тому

      @@echinas0908 nobody likes the french so yeah

  • @helenlecornu1651
    @helenlecornu1651 Рік тому +2

    American public just needs to get with the programme and change from imperial to metric and Fahrenheit to Celsius. It will make life so much easier especially with dealing with anything outside of the US i.e most of the rest of the planet!

    • @StephenWilcoxon
      @StephenWilcoxon 3 місяці тому +1

      Wait! There's civilization outside of America? (Many Americans don't seem to think so or at least think we do everything better)

    • @helenlecornu1651
      @helenlecornu1651 3 місяці тому

      @@StephenWilcoxon Yep it's there for the us to exploit in some way or other apparently...

  • @ozfoxaroo
    @ozfoxaroo 4 місяці тому +2

    543 : The "Gimli Glider" was a fascinating near catastrophe averted by the fact that a) The aircraft's Captain was an experienced glider pilot, and b) the First Officer was a former Royal Canadian AirForce pilot who knew of a decommissioned airfield in the vicinity when they ran out of fuel. The airfield had been converted into a dragstrip and so yes, there were people nearby when the aircraft made an emergency landing; all the car enthusiasts and their families. In fact two young boys were frightened off the airfield/dragstrip when the aircraft came down. Yes, there _should_ have been a computer to warn the flight crew of the fuel shortage, but it was out of service at the time - just one of those things. There have been some docu-drama recreations of the event that are worth watching.

  • @SiqueScarface
    @SiqueScarface Рік тому +7

    The whole idea of the Base Units is that you can hand over the recipe how to built the measurement tool instead of handing over an actual tool to compare to. The second for instance was originally defined as the 86400th part of a solar day. But more precise measurements have shown that not all days (as the time passing between two noons) have the same length. Thus, another natural clock was searched for, and finally, Science settled on a specific hyperfine change in the electron orbits around a Caesium-137 atom. Similar for the meter: originally, it was defined as the 10,000,000th of the distance between the Northpole and the Equator, and a stick was made of that length. Later, it was found out that the stick was 2 millimeter off and too short. Now the meter is defined via the speed of light in a vacuum - a fundamental natural constant. Mass was always a problem, as Gravity is comparatively weak, and you need a probe the size of the Earth to pull on a kilogram of mass with measurable force (literally. Earth and a kilogram of mass pull on each other with a force of 9.81 Newton.) Thus, we know the size of Newton's Constant only for about 4 to 5 digits, very imprecise compared for instance to the strength of the Electromagnetic Force, which we know down to 18 digits at least. Hence, for about 200 years, Science had to do with a lump of metal, which was defined to have 1 kg of mass. (And then, it was noticed, that the lump slowly and steadily loses mass, but the copies sent out to the different nations don't.)

  • @denisemangan1413
    @denisemangan1413 Рік тому +9

    Brilliant. Yeah I remember doing decimal calculations in 1973
    It’s much easier 🇦🇺

  • @MrSpleenface
    @MrSpleenface Рік тому +3

    RE the Air Canada crash and your question: “these guys just happened to be there?”
    It’s a wild story. Where they landed was an old Air Base near Gimli. Since the base was abandoned, the runway was used for Drag Racing, and there were people and cars literally on the runway who had to scramble when they realized it was trying to land.
    Look up “Gimli Glider”for more information

    • @superextempman
      @superextempman 3 місяці тому

      The co pilot was a former royal canadian Air force pilot who landed at Gimli Air Force base back in his military career who remembered where it was located
      And yes it was a converted drag track at the time
      The captain was an expirenced glider pilot who knew how to land an aircraft with no power in fact he used a known glider landing tactic known as a side slip to slow the plane enough to land...
      A crazy coiendence that saved everyone on board.... everybody got crazy lucky that day

  • @tongkoliew
    @tongkoliew 9 місяців тому

    Currency (10 base), Car engine volume (liter cube), Soda bottle volume (liter), Nutrition Label for food (calories, grams), Active component of Medicine (milligrams), not many people notice that US are using metric in these area.

  • @Yandarval
    @Yandarval Рік тому +4

    ChatGPT got it correct. The "Tun" was the name of that type of barrel. Today, all the shipping containers are a standard size, weight and volume. The "Tun" barrel was that same sort of thing. Ship would be taxed etc. of how many tun barrels they could carry.

  • @Dr_KAP
    @Dr_KAP Рік тому +4

    Liberia was founded by former black slaves from the U.S. and the Caribbean- it’s not a coincidence that the flag is so similar.

  • @DJRaffa1000
    @DJRaffa1000 9 місяців тому

    on another note,
    The Real Engineering channel is absolutely mindblowing.
    If you want to know more about many engineering things (like a very detailed breakdown of the Awesome engineering of the M1 Abrams), this channel is a goldmine

  • @muzzaball
    @muzzaball Рік тому +6

    Thank you - you were a good sport when it came to your 'chosen' method of measure. Yes it was pretty tongue in cheek but when you analyze the origin of the Imperial System - it is pretty funny. Whilst I adore Mythbusters, it always annoyed me when they used different measures, coz I always thought they would be more enlightened, and would have used Metric - for accuracy. But they were Americans, appealing to a mostly American audience - so there's that! Cheers mate from Australia.

  • @pierrecampel8077
    @pierrecampel8077 Рік тому +5

    When I arrived in California from France for the first time, that was in August, I was 18, and watched the weather report on TV for the first time there, I thought the end of the world had come, or at least, my world: 95° in Sacramento, 98° in Los Angeles, and (only) 88° in San Francisco ... What's happening here?, I should be roasting by now!!!! What's wrong? I had just totally forgotten that you guys used Fahrenheits, silly me. I think I will stick to my good old metric Celsius :), it's more reassuring 🙂

  • @robindude8187
    @robindude8187 Рік тому +4

    Other ways Americans use metric, some of which they know, others they don't:
    1) When drugs are seized, they're routinely measured in kilograms.
    2) Soda is often sold in 2 liter bottles (the big ones).
    3) Medicine dosage via syringe is given in CCs... a 'cubic centimeter'.

    • @nevillemason6791
      @nevillemason6791 2 місяці тому +1

      Look at any website for a USA grocery store and it shows the composition of the food on sale. The composition (fat, carbohydrate, sugar, etc.) is shown in grams and sometimes the percentage (of the metric weight) but the package size is ounces! That really is screwed up.

  • @rewrose2838
    @rewrose2838 11 місяців тому +1

    Very fun to watch, thanks for the video

  • @Antronix33
    @Antronix33 2 місяці тому +1

    the beauty of the metric system is everything is in base 10 which makes it super easy to calculate everything

  • @101steel4
    @101steel4 Рік тому +8

    We use both in the UK. Miles on the roads, height in feet and inches.
    Petrol by litre but miles per gallon 🤔

    • @glennlingard7851
      @glennlingard7851 Рік тому +3

      Mish mash to say the least, road works 200 yards ahead etc, do young drivers even know the imperial system anymore, probably to some point l guess?

    • @nntflow7058
      @nntflow7058 Рік тому

      You still have cousin marrying family as the head of the state. That's why.

    • @Londronable
      @Londronable Рік тому +5

      @@glennlingard7851 I mean, yard = meter for me.
      Not exactly but for daily life mostly good enough.

    • @andyhowlett2231
      @andyhowlett2231 Рік тому

      @@Londronable Yes, I use them interchangeably for general use.

  • @mariotunic7276
    @mariotunic7276 Рік тому +5

    I love your videos 😊👍 I am from Europe/Switzerland and it's funny to watch what americans think about us. so many things i did not notice because i thought we are so similiar. But i also have to say i didn't see what our diffrences are. and yes, the metric system ist far more practical and better. 1 m is 10 dm. 10 dm are 100 cm. 100 cm are 1000 mm. And we have tricks to make it easy to use for everyday. we do not say someone is 1.75 m tall. We just say 175 (one seventy-five) and everyone knows it is in centimeters. or for the body weight we just say 75 kilos (everyone knows it is not kilometers) and not 75 kilogramms or 75'000 gramms.

  • @-PimientaNegra-
    @-PimientaNegra- Рік тому +1

    In Mexico we use a mixture of units for engineering. For daily use the metric system is everywhere (cars, shampoo bottles and so on), but for engineering we use lots of stuff we bring from the US. Need a motor for your machine? You may select it based on the hp power you require. Nevermind kW. Screws and W-beams use inches, we calculate psi and cfm, but if you need to paint an area people will tell you its size using meters. LOL. As engineers here we usually need both and fast conversions.

  • @martonko
    @martonko 11 місяців тому +2

    For example- bottled water in usa 16.9 oz is 0.5 liter in metric.
    33.8 oz bottle is 1 liter.
    1 liter of cold water has mass of 1 kilogram .
    Water freezes below zero degrees celsius and boils at 100 deg celsius.

  • @Muck006
    @Muck006 Рік тому +21

    Fun fact: Germany used to have "meilen / miles" as units ... and BEFORE UNIFICATION IN 1871 ... there were loads of different miles that were sometimes significantly different. We realised this ... and for this reason INVENTED THE NORM!

    • @olgahein4384
      @olgahein4384 Рік тому +5

      You mean the DIN norm that was then blatantly copied into the international ISO norm. Not the metric system itself, which was practically invented by the french.

    • @Lttlemoi
      @Lttlemoi 6 місяців тому

      It's said that the English conception that Napoleon was a short guy is based on that the English and French used a different definition of the inch

    • @Merecir
      @Merecir 4 місяці тому

      In Sweden we still use "mil", but because the original was so arbitrary we just defined it as 10 kilometers. 😁

  • @besenwieslersepp1011
    @besenwieslersepp1011 Рік тому +4

    Bananas (imperial system) are fine if you deal with technologiy on the level of the amish. At a higher level you trip yourself with bananas.

  • @skynet0912
    @skynet0912 8 місяців тому

    The hunk of metal defining 1KG had a real world problem they couldn't figure out how to get around for a while.
    Gravity on earth is not the same everywhere, because of the spin of earth being different when it comes to how close to the equator you are. The planet spins slowest at the poles, and fastest at the equator, so depending on where that hunk of metal was made, it's weight would change slightly if you flew it somewhere else, which is a real problem when it resulted in a definition that could change, depending on where on the planet you are at the time...

  • @aldyzero6676
    @aldyzero6676 Рік тому +2

    Metric system is just that simple and consistent

  • @DaAvalon1
    @DaAvalon1 11 місяців тому +3

    Italian, one of my boggest problem playing d&d is having to deal with the imperial system 😂

  • @mats7492
    @mats7492 Рік тому +5

    US baking recipes are a mess
    „ Use one large onion“
    How large is a large onion?

    • @101steel4
      @101steel4 Рік тому +1

      And cups. Which cup?

    • @lhuras.
      @lhuras. Рік тому +1

      XXL Super Jumbo Cups, if you take a look at how skinny they are.

  • @NatickPlays
    @NatickPlays 8 місяців тому +1

    In The UK Imperial And Metric Are Both Used And Some People Measure Height In Feet And Inches But Some In Metres And Centimetres, Some Measure Volume In Litres, Centimetres And Millimetres But Some In Gallons And Pints, Sometimes Bushels And Quarts Too, Area Is In Hectares, Acres, Square Mile And Some In Square Kilometres, Weight (Mass) In Tonnes, Stone, Pounds And Ounces While In Metric It’s Tonnes, Kilograms, And Grams.
    In Distance/Lenth Metric Uses Kilometres, Metres, Centimetres And Millimetres While In Imperial Its Nautical Miles, Miles, Feet, Inches, Chains, Leagues, Hands, Furlong Etc.

  • @MichaelW.1980
    @MichaelW.1980 9 місяців тому +1

    The problem of using an amount of material for weighting stuff is, that even that amount of weight is not necessarily constant. It can change over time. In fact, the hunk of metal used to define a kilograms lost 50 micrograms of weight since it was created. Using electricity measurements is way more accurate.

  • @AlexSommerer
    @AlexSommerer Рік тому +3

    What is even worse, is the measurement used to describe the thickness of wires. In the metric system we just use it like this "this wire is 1mm in diameter", which is easily measurable with a caliper gauge. Not so in America: The (nearly) same wire according to AWG will be described as "how often the wire is pulled through thinning holes, in this case 18. I said nearly same wire, because an 18G (AWG) wire reflects to a wire with a cross section of 1mm², which has a diameter of 1.024 mm

  • @bill53uk
    @bill53uk Рік тому +3

    i find that the americans are soo much in the past and dont like change

  • @carked5707
    @carked5707 10 місяців тому +2

    love the random baby visits and other fun things that happen as you work from home.

  • @MrSankullo
    @MrSankullo Рік тому

    I just accidentally found your channel, It's brilliant and very entertaining.
    Wondering if you have a video comparing how the US and European cities are designed.

  • @rosaliemccallum
    @rosaliemccallum Рік тому +7

    I remember as a kid switching from imperial to metric. It wasn't hard and was seamless. Strangely though, we still ask how many pounds a baby is when it's born.

    • @TheDennys21
      @TheDennys21 8 місяців тому

      Ok but where are you from?

  • @KoongYe
    @KoongYe Рік тому +7

    I lowkey believe the reason the average education level of the US is so low is because of Imperial system. It really kills the joy of learning when freezing temperature is 32° not 0°.

    • @kamikazeyak7974
      @kamikazeyak7974 Рік тому

      And boiling water is 212°F instead of 100°C...

  • @RBRT02
    @RBRT02 10 місяців тому +2

    I think we can make this whole "Foot" idea even better.
    Why use square feet when a foot also has an surface area. And why use cubic feet when feet have volume?
    So we keep feet for length, we use feet for area, and use feet for volume.

  • @jd-dev
    @jd-dev 8 місяців тому

    Weight is a force that depends on gravity, so it is different depending on if you're on the earth or on the moon. Mass is the same even on the moon.

  • @nikomangelmann6054
    @nikomangelmann6054 Рік тому +3

    the funny thing is, that in a lot of parts of germany the folding ruler is called zollstock (inch stick) no matter if there is only mm on it. in the south you find the term meterstab (meter bar). the real term would be gliedermaßstab but nobody cares.

    • @louiseerbslisbjerg7854
      @louiseerbslisbjerg7854 Рік тому

      In Denmark we call it "Tommestok" meaning "Inch-stick" and usually there's cm's on one side and European standard inches on the other, just for funsies ;)

  • @webbiess6
    @webbiess6 10 місяців тому +7

    As a Canadian, I'm 129lbs, 5'7".
    I've never weighed things in metric, but I use metric in everything else.
    Although sometimes I use feet because it's easy to measure with feet.
    Things like Fahrenheit and miles confuse me.

  • @gweilospur5877
    @gweilospur5877 8 місяців тому

    The two opposing systems are the Imperial System and the S.I. System. “Metric” refers to systems based on the number 10. Calorie is not an S.I. Unit, neither is degree Celsius. mm, cm, km etc are metric units, but only the metre is an S.I. unit for length.

  • @jensgirschik9479
    @jensgirschik9479 8 місяців тому

    Air Canada Flight 143 was the flight number of an Air Canada scheduled flight between Montreal (Canada) and Edmonton (Canada). On this flight, on July 23, 1983, a Boeing 767-200, occupied by 61 passengers and 8 crew members, ran out of fuel due to a mix-up of units of measurement when refueling. The crew made an emergency landing at Gimli Airport, Canada. In the press, this aircraft, which was decommissioned on January 24, 2008 at Mojave Airport in California after a last flight with those involved, was given the nickname "Gimli Glider"

  • @shaneeslick
    @shaneeslick Рік тому +5

    G'day Ryan,
    When Americans whinge about Metric being too hard I like to ask them "🤔so how do you count your money?"
    It was awesome that he also mentioned that Imperial Measure is actually based on Metric too, none of the Freedum Unit Whingers I have conversed with have know this or that Imperial like the English Lanuage is not a USA Invention🤦‍♂.

    • @rizon72
      @rizon72 Рік тому +1

      When other people whine about the Imperial system, I ask, so how do you count your time?

    • @Rack979
      @Rack979 Рік тому

      The Act that gave us our decimal money also had decimal weights and measures as well, written by Thomas Jefferson himself. True Freedom Units!
      Jefferson's foot is pretty close to 1 light-nanosecond, meaning a quantum version of the Jefferson decimal system could just define the speed of light to be 1 billion Jefferson feet per second, then build the system up from there.

    • @hypsyzygy506
      @hypsyzygy506 2 місяці тому

      The USA has never used Imperial measures anyway.

    • @shaneeslick
      @shaneeslick 2 місяці тому

      @@hypsyzygy506 So the Day America was change from UK to it's Own Government the new Government threw out all Measures being used & implemented a whole new system ???

  • @kalzium8857
    @kalzium8857 Рік тому +3

    The metric system was one of the greatest archievments of mankind.

  • @ydenneki
    @ydenneki Рік тому +1

    The Gimli Glider incident was in 1983, and the aircraft, a Boeing 767 was the first in Air Canada's fleet to use all metric instruments (except the altimeter, since altitude is measured in feet), and the ground grew were used to doing the pounds/litre measurement. But the computers on modern planes use the WEIGHT (not volume, since a plane doesn't care about that) since the weight is needed to determine takeoff power and length, so 22,500kg was what the computer THOUGHT it had when it ACTUALLY had less than half that. 6:50 You can't use vehicle style fuel guages (which were designed for a vehicle on roughly level ground) in a plane since climbing, landing and banking change the fuel levels at different places in the tank.

  • @FalcoGer
    @FalcoGer Рік тому +2

    Weight is a force and is thus measured in newtons, F = m * G where m is the mass and G is your local gravitational constant, which differs from place to place, even on earth's surface. Mass is a property of matter and remains the same even if it is weightless in space or free fall. Mass is what gives objects their inertia. For example if you have a train in space it would be just as hard as on earth to get it moving by pushing against it if where was no friction on earth.