Is there anyone who can explain why the USA is still stuck in using imperial where imperial measurements are nothing more than an expression of metric standards?
Imperial
Is there anyone who can explain why the USA is still stuck in using imperial where imperial measurements are nothing more than an expression of metric standards?
Congratulations America
Inertia, jurisdictional issues, costs and penny-pinching.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Well yes, but it's not very logical to use a 'system' that's based off an other system that's vastly more logical. I was really surprised to learn that the definition, the actual definition, of an inch foot.etc is a number of centimeters. Q
Congratulations America
Hazir, it didn't used to be defined that way but since scientists and metrology types have focused on improving more accurate standards for the SI system, the imperial system followed along. But logic has nothing to do with it. It's more that if all of your industrial tooling is in one system, changing over is really expensive and hard.
Outside of Fox News types no one really cares about imperial units on their merits.
"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)
Like most historical units of measurement, the imperial system is perfectly logical if you assume the people using it don't have access to precise measurement tools, since most of the units related to parts of the human body or every day objects in some way, and is therefore arguably more suitable for day to day life than the metric system.Originally Posted by Hazir
The SI system is vastly, vastly superior for any kind of precise or technical uses, of course.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Artistic reasons, mostly. Movie titles such as "The Whole 8.2296 metres" or "3.17515 Kilograms" don't have the same ring to it, and song lyrics such as "I would walk 804.672 kilometres/ and I would walk 804.672 more/ just to be the man who walked 1609.344 kilometres/to fall down at your door" sound outright silly.
Carthāgō dēlenda est
But isn’t it odd to make such a big change in the principle of your standards but not follow through in the practice? I only found out about this as I heard someone making a passing remark on it during an explanation how the metric system was being rid of physical objects as its standards. To basically get the message that an inch was merely a somewhat quirky expression of the metric system left me flabberghasted.
Congratulations America
But these historical units no longer are actual parts of a cohesive system if you look at their definition. I thought an inch was an 1/12 of a foot. Now it turns out that the present definition of an inch is 25,4mm.
I believe that metric is superior, but I hadn’t realized that it had moved into the position of the actual standard for imperial measurements.
Congratulations America
The metre is no longer a certain fraction of the Earth's circumference, nor is it a distance between two lines on a fancy bar of metal anymore. It used to be a certain amount of wavelengths of a specific emission line for a while, and currently it is the length light travels in vacuum in a certain fraction of a second.
Has that changed anything in practice?
Carthāgō dēlenda est
The primary purpose imperial measurements currently serve is to add flavor to American police procedurals.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
The basis of a set of units has no bearing on whether or not they are used; as standards get better and better, the reality is that the basis changes and gets less and less relevant to everyday life - even if it becomes much, much more precise. In reality, the meter and the second are pretty arbitrary (the kilogram less so, but only in relation to the meter); the strength of SI is not in the 'principle' of the units, but in the ease of manipulating and converting them. There's no doubt that SI is far superior to imperial in this regard, but the underlying basis of the units has no bearing on this determination. If you really go far down the rabbit hole of standards you'll find even weirder things; they rarely matter for day to day use, and no one really care where e.g. NIST gets their references from.
The reason people don't switch is because there are shops with millions of dollars of equipment and tools that are in one system, and switching would be a massive headache. Hell, think of all of the various molds/tooling/etc. that companies have made for their products which would have to be completely redesigned to work in a new tooling system. Not to mention things like pipe threading and sizes and other bits of infrastructure that would require a decades long handoff and lots of wasteful systems that are halfway through a transition.
"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)
I was going to blame path dependence (basically wig's argument), but this argument is clearly superior.
Hope is the denial of reality
You mean like how the metric system is based off a whole bunch of completely arbitrary fractions of other things we can measure? Referencing Planck's Constant is kinda ridiculously unnecessary for the kilo, to my eyes.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Indeed.
The UK is a funny hybrid of imperial for some stuff and metric for others. Frankly it doesn't matter if a pint of beer is a measured because of whatever origins the pint had originally, or it's a fraction over 568ml. The only thing that matters is the glass is full when served.
Metric is best for working with, and in an ideal world I'd want metric for everything, but why throw away everything that works to start again now? It's kind of too late for many things.
Besides who wants to swap a pint for half a litre and lose 10% of your drink?
The other weird thing is that US Imperial and UK Imperial are very different. Though nowadays it's quite easy to convert any measurement from one system to another, just pull out your phone and Google it. Or ask Alexa.
Refusing to Give an Inch
Jimmy had the right idea, but...we all know what happens to good ideas in USA.
But then...In 1975, Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act, which declared metric as the preferred system of the United States, and the U.S. Metric Board was created to implement the conversion.
Correspondent Bob Schieffer made it known on the CBS Evening News on February 19, 1982. The newscast highlighted President Ronald Reagan's budget, the Solidarity movement in Poland, atrocities in El Salvador and the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island. But audiences were just as eager to hear the last story of the night.
"After a lot of hoopla and millions of tax dollars spent on commercials and other things to tell us why we needed to go metric, it is the metric system that's about to go," Schieffer said in announcing the dismantling of the Metric Board.
With it died America's efforts to live solely by the meter.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Bad argument regarding beer in the US. A pint here is 473 ml.
Hope is the denial of reality
I said that US and UK Imperial is very different.
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