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Do you want the United States to use the metric system?


SolidTwilight

do you want america to use the metric system?  

105 users have voted

  1. 1. do you want america to use the metric system?

    • Yes
      82
    • No
      20
    • what's a metric?
      3


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F*ck no.

I barely learned Imperial conversions, no WAY am I learning Metric too.

 

So you only had to learn one? o_O

 

I automatically assumed that all students were required to learn both. Shows how much I know. XD

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So you only had to learn one? o_O

 

I automatically assumed that all students were required to learn both. Shows how much I know. XD

Then again, I went to a series of very poor schools.
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Then again, I went to a series of very poor schools.

 

Technically, so did I. I mean I was raised in the southern coalfields of West Virginia, so our educational standards aren't the highest around...though they do try; I'll admit.

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Definitely; it's much more simpler. Unfortunately, I would lose my sense of distance when trying to think about miles and kilometers. That's just one example. It would take a while to adjust.

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I'm for it. It didn't work in the past for us, but I think it's worth another shot. It would make it a lot easier in regards to understanding the rest of the world. It'll just take some work to switch over. I think it would take a gradual shift... There's a lot that would need to be changed within the structure of our society.

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F*ck no.

I barely learned Imperial conversions, no WAY am I learning Metric too.

Let me teach you! 1 km = 1,000m, 1m = 1,000 mm OR 100cm

km is kilometers, m is meters (about a yard), and cm is centimeters. That's about it...

0 C is freezing,  100 C is boiling. Liter (L) is for liquids, and gram (g) is for weight. L and g work the same as m.

That IS everything :P No, really it is, I can't think of another measurement in metrics with a common usage.

Except for scientists, but they use some crazy measurements anyway. "Watt? My Ohm Hertz!" :lol: I kill me.

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(edited)

I live in the U.S. and I hate the Imperial System with a deep passion.  There is a vastly superior system of units that everybody else in the world uses and we cling to this horrible, archaic system with arbitrary conversion factors and ambiguous units (10 ounces could be a measure of volume, or of mass, or of weight, oh I am sure that will never cause any problems).  It is enough to drive one mad.

Edited by Twilight Dirac
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I live in the U.S. and I hate the Imperial System with a deep passion.  There is a vastly superior system of units that everybody else in the world uses and we cling to this horrible, archaic system with arbitrary conversion factors and ambiguous units (10 ounces could be a measure of volume, or of mass, or of weight, oh I am sure that will never cause any problems).  It is enough to drive one made.

How dare you suggest that Imperial Units are arbitrary! 12 inches to the foot, 3 feet to the yard, 22 yards to the chain, 10 chains to the furlong, 8 furlongs to the mile, and 3 miles to the league...

 

Ok maybe you have a point :P

 

:lol:

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yeah the us should switch over

 

as for me, i cant understand the metric system because i wasnt born into it. given the choice. i wouldve chosen metric

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(edited)

YES! I'm studying to become a plumber/pipefitter and I don't appreciate the fact that I have to use two systems because our neighbors to the south like to use an outdated system!!

Edited by The Coffee Man
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I'm fine with the current system, but I believe it would benefit everyone if we all used the same system to measure things to avoid any confusion. So I'm in favor of switching to the metric system as most of the world uses it

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(edited)

Adoption of the Metric System would probably require about 40 years of sequential transition. In that time, the people of the United States would need to get comfortable with having all signage have two measures on them. Every few years, there would be a minor shift in message content priority.

Let's look at an example I just whipped together. Over the course of a few decades, the American driving public would gradually see the transition in both traffic signs, and in all automobile speedometers.

post-642-0-59032800-1406090263_thumb.png

 

(All in all, I like the Canadian speed limit signage. It says Maximum, which means "Maximum allowed in ideal conditions", and the fact that the color is black-on-white means it is the law, not just a recommendation.)

n-BC-HIGHWAY-SPEED-LIMIT-large570.jpg

Transition would take place on all food containers, gas pumps, shipping paperwork, manufacturing specs, computer operating systems... the list of things to change would be enormous. On top of that, it would need continual commitment by the Government, because every step of the way the general public would be resistant to it. Some might even call it a malevolent conspiracy, in the same way some foolishly oppose space programs and fluoridation of water treatment.

Edited by Blue
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Holy shit I hate the English system so fucking much! I am an American. I studied physics, so I learned metric. I now work in Canada for an oil company. In Canada people use a combination of Imperial (as they call it here) and metric. In casual speak people know pounds and feet. But for technical work, they use metric.

 

Actually, as I understand, the rest of the world does still use Imperial units in the oil industry. I think only a few countries, including Canada, use metric.

 

But there is no comparison between metric and English. We measure volume in cubic meters, pressures in mega pascals, and engine power in kilo watts. That means I can directly convert rates and pressures into power.

 

People talk about the English system being more intuitive. That is totally false! You get used to whatever system you work with. A gallon is 3.78, about 4 liters. A mile is 1.6 kilometers. When I drive I have to always do the conversion on my speedometer. 1 pound is about 450 grams, so 1 kilogram is about 2 pounds. One meter is about 36 inches.

 

But I find that people here can be just as ignorant about what they are measuring. The operators of the equipment know that we measure pressure in MPa. I asked them what "MPa" means. They didn't know. All they knew was that it was a measurement of pressure. They did not know that M means 10^6 and Pa is Pascal, which is 1 Newton / square meter.

 

The coiled tubing unit measures reel tension in daN, which is deca Newtons, or 10 Newtons. Why this seemingly arbitrary measure? Because 1 kg under the force of Earth gravity produces a force of F = ma = 1 kg * 9.8 m/s^2 which is approximately 10 kg m / s^2 = 10 Newton. Therefore, 1 kg produces a force of 10 Newton on Earth. But tension, pushing or pulling, is also a force. By measuring in daN on a coiled tubing that is pushing or pulling out of a well, they can say that the reel feels a force that feels like holding that many kilograms static. It is just a coincidence that Earth's acceleration is close to 10.

 

The best example is working with horsepower. If I told you that the pressure is 10,000 psi and the rate is 40 barrels per minute, what is the hydraulic horse power? You have to look up some arbitrary conversion factor. But in metric, pressure in MPa, rate in m^3 / min, so I convert my rate to m^3/second, which is just a division by 60. 1 Pa * 1 m^3/s = 1 Watt. Ta da! Easy. I just have that 1/60 for minutes to seconds and the 10^6 for M. Pressure times rate equals power. Basic physics.

 

In metric, the units turn into each other. 1 Volt * 1 Amp = 1 Watt. So I have a physical understanding of the connection between physical things. What would that be in English? 1 fathom * 1 pound / 1 fortnight = how many horse power? I don't fucking know!

 

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Metric would be far easier than imperial. I would love for metric system, but Everybody around me IRL is stupid and discriminatory and like, " I don't want to have to use this complicated math like stinky French people." Even though I heard people during a Boy Scout race think that 5837 is one mile. It was a relay for a bunch of different troops, but most of them were stopped dead in their tracks because of the STEM challenge. 5837 divided by a random integer they give you; I got thirteen, which fortunately for me, I knew off the top of my head that it's 449.

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(edited)

I live in America and I use the metric system. I try to use it exclusively, although that's easier said than done.

 

An average human is 1.6 or so meters tall. A bug is about one centimeter in length. A big bug is a few centimeters. An imperial star destroyer is 1.6 kilometers long. Typical walking speed is about 1 meter per second. Typical highway speed is about 100 kilometers per hour. Typical cruising speed for a jetliner is 800 km/h. Sound travels at 340.29 m/s at sea level. The speed of light is roughly 300E6 m/s. Earth's radius is ~6E3 km. Acceleration due to gravity is 9.81 m/s2. One horsepower is 768 watts. New computer chips today are built on a 22nm manufacturing process. Absolute zero is -273 degrees centigrade.

 

Honestly, I'm not so sure what some of that is in the imperial system. The worst part about it is that ounces are the same thing as ounces, yet not really. Then there's also stupid things like weird equivelencies. Is a cup of coffee six ounces or eight ounces? If I have a 24 ounce bag of coffee grounds, is it a pound and a half, or 24 ounces in volume? If it says it makes 64 cups of coffee, then is that 64*8 ounces of coffee, or 64*6 ounces?

 

Just tell me how many liters it is, dammit. Don't give me any excuses, because everyone should know how much a liter is. It's half a two-liter bottle. And, for the record, 1kg is 2.2 pounds. Therefore, just using rough estimation, one pound is about 450 or so g. Now, no more excuses. You know how much a gram is.

Edited by Regulus
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Adoption of the Metric System would probably require about 40 years of sequential transition. In that time, the people of the United States would need to get comfortable with having all signage have two measures on them. Every few years, there would be a minor shift in message content priority.

Let's look at an example I just whipped together. Over the course of a few decades, the American driving public would gradually see the transition in both traffic signs, and in all automobile speedometers.

attachicon.gifsingage.png

 

(All in all, I like the Canadian speed limit signage. It says Maximum, which means "Maximum allowed in ideal conditions", and the fact that the color is black-on-white means it is the law, not just a recommendation.)

img-2882122-1-n-BC-HIGHWAY-SPEED-LIMIT-l

Transition would take place on all food containers, gas pumps, shipping paperwork, manufacturing specs, computer operating systems... the list of things to change would be enormous. On top of that, it would need continual commitment by the Government, because every step of the way the general public would be resistant to it. Some might even call it a malevolent conspiracy, in the same way some foolishly oppose space programs and fluoridation of water treatment.

yes the signage in canada is very convinient also can I bring up the fact astronaughts were killed because someone fail to change imperial to metric
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(edited)
Absolute zero is -273 degrees centigrade.

 

Now, the Celsius Scale and the Centigrade scale are almost the same. However, please bear in mind that there are differences between the two.

 

The Celsius scale remains a Centigrade scale in which there are 100 degrees between the freezing and boiling points of water. However, the size of the degree has been more precisely defined. A degree Celsius is what you get when you divide the thermodynamic range and the triple point of water into 273.16 equal parts. There is a 0.01 degrees difference between the triple point of water and the freezing point of water at standard pressure.

 

The problem with the centigrade is that a grade is a unit of planar angle. So, 1 centigrade is 1/100 of that unit and it lacks in precision.

A lot of people actually get the scales confused thinking it is exactly the same where it is not. (It is almost the same).

 

So, anyway, centigrade is outdated here. We tend to talk in Celsius or Kelvin.

Edited by boiteporte
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(edited)

I don't know why it's even different in the first place but I see no reason to change it either. It still works for daily life and for those of us who grew up with it we'll often have an easier time measuring something mentally in the imperial measurements simply from constant use.

 

Sure, sure, it would be easier socially if everyone did the same measurements but what's it matter if the measurement itself is still correct? Even if 1 yard is not 1 meter it's still an accurate measurement to say something is three yards.

 

Plus I find the gigantic skip from centimeters to meters to be absolutely insane. The "foot" is a larger measurement without being too large and far easier to visualize than trying to imagine what 50-100 tiny little centimeters is.

Edited by Discordian
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(edited)
I don't know why it's even different in the first place but I see no reason to change it either

 

The reason why it's different in the first place is because the Great and Powerful French Empire was the one to come up with the metric system in the first place.

 

When Napoleon conquered Europe, he set the metric system as the new standard system. Now, the English (and, by extension, the Americans) obviously had a problem with Napoleon and so , of course, they refused to switch.

 

However, UK has now switched to the metric system (except for miles because it would be too expensive to replace all road signs).

USA still uses Imperial because they're stuck in their pride. 

Edited by boiteporte
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(edited)
Plus I find the gigantic skip from centimeters to meters to be absolutely insane

The Imperial system is insane. Small distances, let's measure in 1/1000th inch. A little bigger, it's in inches. A bit bigger and we use feet. A bit more and it's yards. Somewhere in there is fathoms, chains, and leagues. Bigger still and we use miles. And the step up makes no sense. 12 inches to a foot, then 3 feet to a yard, then 5280 feet to a mile.

 

1 barrel? Do you mean oil barrels, US barrels, or UK barrels? 1 mile? Do you mean a statue mile, a US nautical mile, or a UK nautical mile?

 

If it makes no difference, then explain to me what a horsepower is in terms of pressure and rate. How many horsepower does a light bulb use? Define force in terms of electrical current. Explain the difference between pounds force and pounds mass. In metric, all of the units are related to each other without stupid conversion factors.

Edited by BronyNumber42
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