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9 answers

Inertia and Stupidity

2007-10-04 15:42:50 · answer #1 · answered by Kalos Orisate 1 · 0 1

are units of ten easier? It can only be divided by 2 or 5 for one thing. Metric works well for science, because measurements are exact, but in thinks like cookery and joinery imperial is better. It's much neater to have 1/4 1/8 16/th of inch ruler than try to estimate 1.25 millimetres all of the time (yuck). In the UK wood gets sold so it is in the old imperial sizes, but they give the size in metric, 905mm etc, then the woodworker just works in imperial 'cos it's nicer.

2016-05-21 02:46:29 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0 0

I agree with Kalos. When I was in fourth grade, (several decades ago) I remember the teacher telling us that the US would be using metric standards soon. Well it did not quite happen like that, mainly because our population is not technically literate enough make this transition.

The metric system is so beautiful, it makes converting between different quantities a breeze, generally just a matter of moving a decimal right or left, but I don't see the US going that way.

I think we're ranked like 29th or something among industrial nations in regard to math literacy.

2007-10-05 05:03:01 · answer #3 · answered by Jim M 3 · 1 0

While the tooling that has been addressed has some validity. But entire industries such as the automotive sector have totally gone to metric except for customer interfaces such as wheel size, odometer, or fuel tank size. At least in my experience in suspension and steering design.

I think the answer has more to do with customer acceptance of metric measurements. Not too many people are familiar with kilometers or kilograms. I know that I convert them into miles or pounds to get an idea of how much.

2007-10-04 15:44:33 · answer #4 · answered by Kirk B 1 · 0 0

although there is no "better" system I think we should look at from two perspectives -

first the history of it - a foot literally is the length of some guys foot hundreds of years ago while a meter is the distance light travels in a certain time - scientifically - SI is based more on nature than humanity

second interoperability - as more and more countries manufacture and sell their items both in and out of the US the need to convert to SI increases - I know for a fact that the military is metric - think NATO

SO I think we should change over - based on the two points I made - I don't think that the transition would really be as difficult as most people think - kids are easily adaptable - it's us adults that would have the problem

2007-10-05 02:56:01 · answer #5 · answered by lancej0hns0n 4 · 0 1

Just think of all the items and tools that are denominated in non-metric units and then imagine the cost to change every one of them. The US is a big enough consumer that anyone who wants to sell within the US labels their products in both sets of units. So spending billions to convert has no practical value.

2007-10-04 15:14:05 · answer #6 · answered by Rich Z 7 · 1 0

Why change, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet and an inch by any other name is still an inch. Or 2.54 centimeters by any other name is still an inch.

Fact is there is really no serious advantage to the metric system over the imperial system.

2007-10-05 01:30:06 · answer #7 · answered by oil field trash 7 · 0 2

Probably because all our machine tools and production equipment are IP and it would cost a fortune to change them. If we were some little country, we'd be SI.

2007-10-04 14:49:49 · answer #8 · answered by Jas 2 · 0 0

Because the USA likes to be different then everyone else.

2007-10-04 15:41:16 · answer #9 · answered by west6cor 3 · 0 1

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